A Big Fish Part 4: The Seiko 5718-8000 (Casing Parts, Movement Loose Ends and Final Assembly)
Time for a change of scene as I turn my attention to the case and the four completely seized pushers. …
Author Archives: Martin
A Big Fish Part 3: The Seiko 5718-8000 (Assessing the Damage and Rebuilding the Movement)
We have reached the end of the beginning, the point at which the summit has been reached but the mountain …
A Big Fish Part 2: The Seiko 5718-8000 (Dismantling the Movement)
In part 1, we met the subject of this latest project and learned a little bit about its history and …
A Big Fish Part 1: The Seiko 5718-8000 (Introduction)
This a tale of high-stakes adventure, technical challenge, agonising dilemmas and a degree of inevitable misadventure. It concerns a project …
Sentimental value: A King Quartz 4823-8050 from 1976
In working on my own watches, the question of whether a repair or restoration is justified rarely elbows its way …
A Seiko Cronos J14013 from November 1958
Just as the birth of the Marvel in 1956 marked the beginning of a long line of Suwa-conceived models that …
A Grand Seiko 3180 from January 1963
Where the Seiko Marvel might be seen as providing a melodic motif to the Lord Marvel, and the Lord Marvel, …
3D-printed watchmaking tools
With a little more time on my hands this past year, some regularly-conceived flights of fancy that might previously have …
A Seiko Cronos Special from 1963
In 1963, Seiko’s luxury goods line-up spanned no fewer than seven sub-brands within a pricing structure in which the most …
Overture to the first Grand Seiko: the Lord Marvel J14039
Two years before the introduction of the first Grand Seiko, the pinnacle of the Seiko product tree was occupied by …
King Seiko 15034 from October 1962
The early evolution of the King Seiko product line saw a number of slightly dislocated yet entangled strands emerging in …
Adventures in Amateur Watch Fettling 