After seeing so many examples of friends on the forums/groups servicing their own watches with loads of fun.  I had decided a while ago, other than collecting, I want to do my own servicing.

There got to be somewhere to start with.  There are numerous video tutorials on YouTube that you could follow.  Also, a large number of articles that you can find specifically written for many different movements.  All you need, is some patience, some tools, a guinea pig, and the tutorials that suit your pace.  The above 6309 I picked up, is for my exercise in servicing the 6309 caliber. Eventually I want to put my hands on my two 6309 Turtles.  With this I could start practicing and can also serve as a backup for parts later on if I break anything on the turtle.  

For those who are interested in picking up the joy of watchmaking, I would suggest to check out my friend Michael Bolton's YouTube Channel, My Retro Watches.  His list of video explains what are the stuff you need to start playing with, and you can see how he striped the watch and rebuilt it to its full glory.

Great videos, check them out, highly recommended!

One of the harder to find classic Alba, the black Y446.  Came out the first year Alba hit the market in Japan in 1979.  Positioned by Seiko as a separate brand to tackle the youth market, most Alba watches were priced very affordably, and climbed quickly in terms of market share.

This black version is made based on a stainless steel casing, then coated in black.  At that time, plastic casing wasn't that popular, and actually not widely available until early '80s.  According to the serial number on the caseback, this was made in 1979.  The casing was thoroughly cleaned and all the pusher channels were lubricated.  Now it is good as new.

1979年，精工推出旗下新牌子雅柏，主攻年青消費者。首推當時新興嘅電子跳字錶，以大眾化價錢打入市場。當年塑膠錶殼還未盛行，絕大多數錶殼還是採用金屬，再作鏡面打磨或拉絲處理。金屬黑色Coating殼跳字，雅柏黑金剛，屬少有錶款。1979。

Something green for a Digital Saturday!

In the classic digital era, among all the models, each one of them usually have choices on colors.  Color on dials and also colors on the casing.

This A229-5000 Green Face is from 1979, came in different dial colors.  White, blue and green.  With me I have two of them, a white and a green, both in stainless steel casing.  Also available, is the less-seen-nowadays gold plated cased models. You can see the whole lineup in the 1979 catalog below, and my white face is also show at the bottom of this blog.

Hope that one day I could complete a whole set.

Back in the '80s, if you were a high school students, you might recognize this right away.  YES!  IT'S BACK!

The legendary game calculator by Casio, the MG-880, is now back in a new package.  The all new SL-880-N was released in Japan in mid 2017, with the exact same game as we had, as a new calculator.  Was initially released as a limited model, however, due to the serious over-demand, they were all sold almost before they hit the stores.  Then Casio subsequently ship more units to the channel, and till now they are still available in the stores, in Japan only.

Not going through how the game is played, but want to do a slight comparison between this and the original MG-880.  What had been improved, which I find is a very important feature, is the ability to turn off the sound. I can't remember how many times I was warned by my teacher, NOT to play with my calculator in the class.

Besides that, the screen and the digits are now bigger. And the FIRE button, which is the '+' button, are bigger as well, which helps a lot in the game play.  The game itself maintains the need of using 8 digits area, as the old MG-880 only has the capability of displaying 8 digits maximum.  The new SL-880-N, however can display 10 digits instead.

Now with dual power capability, the new solar panel can make sure you have enough juice on the unit to bust the game, IF your eyes and fingers are fast enough to cope with the increasing speed of the invaders attacking you 3 bases.

It now also has the tax calculation feature added.  You can preset the tax rate and it will prompt the tax amount and the total by pressing the two orange buttons, just like most other calculators with this function.

Same as the old one, the new one comes with it's own plastic folding sleeve or protector, and a printed instruction at the back of the packing.  Instead of being MADE IN JAPAN of the MG-880, the new SL-880-N are made in Philippines.

I managed to have one of the variants from the old days, the slim pocket version model MG-890 which gave me numerous hours of fun and memory.  A very nice calculator that worth keeping, and taking out for some fun once in a while.

When people talked about Seiko Turtle, usually they are referring to modern Prospex remake or the old classic 6309-7040/9 with the wide cushion case running a 6309 movement inside.  That was so iconic that almost every Seiko enthusiasts want one.  One that people paid less attention, or some don't even know, was the slim sized version, the slim Turtle.  Made between 1976 and 1988, the 6309 is ever popular since then till now.

With the same movement as the bigger brother, it has a 6309 movement inside, featuring day/date on the dial.  The dial design is different though.  Unlike the big turtle that uses round hour markers and its own set of 3-6-9-12 marker designs, the slim turtle has a separate set of its own with rectangles from 1 to 11, and 12 with two inverted triangles.  It's successor, the ultra popular 7002, inherited almost 99% of its design.  

The slim turtle came in mainly 3 different theme, the black bezel on black dial which is the 6309-7290, the Pepsi with blue/red bezel on black dial which is the 6309-729A, and finally the very rare orange dial with black bezel and gold fonts, which is the 6309-729B.

Possibly one of the most short-lived digital diver Seiko had.  Started to appear in the JDM 93 vol.2 catalog, and last appeared in the 94 vol.2. Probably lasted only a year and a half in the market.

The special function of this digital diver, is having a scuba chronograph mode.  Under this mode, it can log data up to 20 dives.  Each set of dive data includes month and date of dive, dive starting time, diving time and number of dives on that day up to 9 dives per day, also provide auto signal of passage time. Other than that, it has 3 separate alarms and and regular chronograph mode.  It also has a rating of 200m under the water.

Originally equipped with a extended nylon straps, that could be worn external to the diving suit.  Now on the Seiko signed rubber for everyday wearing.

The 61GS was brought out in the 1968 and said to be one iconic model among all.  Designed by Taro Tanaka, who introduced the rules in designing the ideal watch design, which he called it the 'Grammar of Design'.  The 61GS was the second one strictly following this set of rules.

1/ All surfaces and angles from the case, dial, hands, and indices had to be flat and geometrically perfect to best reflect light.

2/ Bezels were to be simple two-dimensional faceted curves.

3/ No visual distortion was to be tolerated from any angle, and all cases and dials should be mirror-finished.

4/ All cases must be unique, with no more generic round case designs.

(Credit to the article at Worn & Wound)

This 6145-8000 beats at 36000vph.  The case is made by very fine stainless steel, polished to a mirror finish.  The crown is GS-signed, along with a real-gold medallion at the case back showing 'Seiko GS' with a tiny Suwa logo it.  Very well made and one can tell by looking inside at the caliber, with noticeable difference in the detail on parts used.  With no surprise this is a highly collectible vintage Seiko.  Also available is the 6146 caliber, which features day/date configuration.  Some adverts below shows the 6146.

More works has to be done on this one, at least, have to find the replacement for the missing gold medallion at the caseback.  A lot of these were either worn off, or simple taken by someone in the past, as it's made of real gold, a lot of these were snagged along the time.  Anyhow, this is one must-have to any serious collector, the 61GS series.

In the movie Aliens (Alien 2), the characters wore a lot of Seiko's.  The one wore by Bishop was the model 7A28-6000 (see the photo below).

In recent years Seiko had re-issue the whole series, with a new movement, yet retain a large part of their original designs.  The one I am wearing today is one of them, SCED019, the modern Bishop with green ascent. Labelled as one from the Spirit series, the overall design is very much of the original one, even down to the bracelet level.

The 7548 series of divers first appeared in the 1979 Volume 2 Catalog, along with two other ladies sized quartz divers as new models.  And also the first time of Seiko to utilize this case design.

It came standard with a 150m rating, with a choice between two colors, black dial with black bezel insert  and blue dial with blue/red bezel.  It came standard only with the rubber strap GL831, where you can see this mentioned on the catalog shown below.  The movement itself is serviceable, as a big portion of it is more or less the traditional mechanical watch design.

The 7548 is definitely my favorite diver of all time.  Later on I will have a specific page made for the 7548, with all the info collected from the internet and links to them.  Plus a good amount of photos that we could know more on this legendary piece that Seiko made, where after 40 years, people still love it and actively looking for it.

In the early '90s, Casio had brought us a lot of cool digital watches.  However, due to the existence of the overly popular G-Shock, which appeared in the mid-'80s, a lot of these cool models were overcast by them.

The RGW-20 was released in 1993, sold with the focus on timer and stopwatch, also equipped with multiple alarms with date and day selection.  Not available on the G-Shock, is the cool animated graphical display of the timer when it runs.  The plastic case is decorated by aluminum pivots and bezel inserts, which makes it very appealing in appearance.  I picked it up without the original rubber strap.  So I trimmed the ends of a pair of universal rubber to snug fit the odd 15mm lugs, and it went well.  Cleaned all the buttons and tunnels, and now the button response is restored and performs beautifully.

Classic Casio, is quite a different game set comparing with classic Seiko digitals, yet also as playable and collectible.  Have fun!