Seiko 7A38-6010 handmade restoration

[Andrea80]

Good morning to everyone,
I'm going to post my experience (work in progress at the moment) about hand made restoration, hoping maybe could help some other inexperienced users without any specific tool like me.

I'm restoring & modding my 7A38-6010, first of all I have to decide if remove and reapply the coating or just remove it.
After some quotation I decided just to remove it: the process to remove old PVD and apply the new coating is too much expensive for me. All starts disassembly the watch...

IMG-20211104-WA0000.jpg (228.88 KiB) Viewed 5999 times

Nothing difficult except remove the bezel insert. Fortunately Paul and his huge experience, give me a hand so (after a good suggestion) I used the glass removal die to remove it. I don't know if it's a problem of my watch but the insert and its shim was very very hardly compressed... I need almost half an hour to remove it... Not so gently...

[Andrea80]

And the results...

7A38-6010-CoatingStrip-Instagram-AndreaMila80-1.jpg (170.84 KiB) Viewed 5997 times

7A38-6010-CoatingStrip-Instagram-AndreaMila80-2.jpg (187.76 KiB) Viewed 5997 times

7A38-6010-CoatingStrip-Instagram-AndreaMila80-3.jpg (127.45 KiB) Viewed 5997 times

[Andrea80]

This night I finally finished to polish and brush case and bezel... Very time consuming and tiring .
In the next days I'll post some other pictures because some details doesn't convince me and I'd like to have some other opinion .
Honestly when I bought this watch I didn't expect that will be so difficult restore and mod it removing coating... This idea was born as casualty knowing the lawyer that was selling this watch, I discovered he had with him the watch when we was talking... After saw that it's working perfectly I had to buy it ... And the story started... Blisters on my hands... Lot of nights working on it... As usual my watches has a story and for that I'm fond of them . Sometimes I think to sell one of them after restoration, just to have the possibility to finance an other project but up to now never happen I like my watches to much to be able to separate from them... Never say never but for now this is a fact.

[Andrea80]

Here the back...
What do you think about it?
My tools:
Hands
Sandpaper
Polish paste
Wool wheel
And hard work

IMG-20211106-WA0006.jpg (187.88 KiB) Viewed 5986 times

[Andrea80]

Here I am again...
Finally I finished the case... I'm quite satisfied about the result... What do you think considering that all was "hand made" done without any specific tools?
It's quite difficult to capture with a camera phone this details and the shape seems more different from the original than in the reality is (due also by the camera angle).
Let me know your comments

IMG-20211209-WA0000.jpg (165.76 KiB) Viewed 5649 times

IMG-20211209-WA0001.jpg (175.24 KiB) Viewed 5649 times

[Andrea80]

Maybe you're thinking I'm crazy but I decided to polish by hand the glass of my watch. I would like to maintain all its original parts and I decided to avoid an AM glass...
It's a very hard and time consuming work! I hardly worked for more than 15h to obtain this result. Notice the huge scratch at h12, it was very very hard to remove it without creating a "depression".
Also in this case I think the result is pretty good , let me know your opinion

IMG-20211127-WA0008.jpg (192.94 KiB) Viewed 5649 times

[Andrea80]

Finally also pushers are finished.I polished them and I gently removed the gold coating.
Here a "work in progress" picture.
Now I need only to receive yobokies bezel insert to reassembly the watch... I'm waiting it for at least three months . I hope it isn't be lost .
If anyone have tips to avoid issue during reassembly the watch will be appreciated
It's the first time I worked on this kind of case.

IMG-20220126-WA0025.jpg (108.37 KiB) Viewed 5293 times

[Andrea80]

The watch is almost finished... It needs a new SS crown and a new case back gasket

IMG-20220217-WA0009.jpg (182.55 KiB) Viewed 5185 times

In my opinion the result is pretty good

IMG-20220217-WA0008.jpg (125.03 KiB) Viewed 5180 times

[Andrea80]

Finally it's finished!
I'm quite satisfied about the result, I like very much this little watch. I think it will be the first and last PVD's watch i decide to restore... My fingers still hurt
For brushed&polished finish I tried to take inspiration to the 7A38-6040.
Let me know what do you think about it

IMG-20220227-WA0001.jpg (207.34 KiB) Viewed 5120 times

IMG-20220227-WA0002.jpg (173.17 KiB) Viewed 5120 times

IMG-20220227-WA0003.jpg (188.69 KiB) Viewed 5120 times