Hydro-modding. How hard can it be?

[Tokyo Tokei]

Encouraged by the Casio G shock results I thought I'd have a go at hydro-modding myself.

In the sonorous words of farming savant and motoring philosopher Mr J Clarkson, how hard could it be?

There's no inline posting of YouTube videos in this forum (I don't know why...) but here's one I found with the title "Oil Filling a Watch:How to tutorial. SO EASY!!!!".

I felt emboldened.

Remember this?



It's my Luminox. Which fell into traffic and needed some help.

Since fixing it, I've been using it a lot. But given it has many wounds, I thought it would be an ideal candidate...

Patient in place:



I am using silicon oil, which is not supposed to attack gaskets. Plus, the Japanese brand translates to "Ace", which must help.

Remove the battery, stem and movement. Then submerge the case...



Add the battery to the movement, return it to the case. Flood it with silicon oil and poke the crown back in...



Then swish the oil around and gently agitate the bowl to help bubbles escape. Once no more bubbles, add the caseback with a fresh gasket, and tighten both it and the crown.

And there you go!



Actually, that's the watch an hour later

After I'd reversed the entire procedure. It was a failure.

The patient died on the operating table. With the oil in, the seconds hand would just faintly judder, but not make progress. I tried removing the oil from the case, but the same issue persisted. I tried replacing the battery. No change.

Maybe the oil was the wrong viscosity? Or perhaps the Ronda 715Li just doesn't care for oil baths.

Whatever the cause, I had to drain the whole movement and carefully clean all the parts. And silicon oil is not a joy to remove.

Once I did this, and it was oil-free again, it sprung back into life.

Oh well, lesson learned!

[Kingstepper]

Is it really 'oil' in these watches, seems far too viscous.

Something like a refrigerant (CFC or similar) would seem far more suitable.

[Tokyo Tokei]

Oil viscosity seems the most likely culprit. For a digital it makes no difference. Or an analogue without a seconds hand, I suspect: the hour and minute hands moving so slowly so as not to meet much resistance.

But a quartz analogue watch has minimal torque, so I imagine viscosity is the issue. There were several different types of oil available in the shop, but only one 'silicon oil'. This is what others had used, so I thought I'd try it. But likely I need to research it a bit more. Posting the failure anyway in case useful to others.

At least the patient recovered. This watch has had a hard life.

[jwg663]

Huertecilla's olive oil filled digital can be found here -

https://www.thewatchsite.com/threads...sio-f-91.8273/

[jmarchitect]

There’s a chap over on the Christopher Ward Forum who posted the steps he took to modify his quartz watch. Here’s the link…

https://www.christopherwardforum.com...filled%20watch

[Tokyo Tokei]

That's a very useful post. The same movement as mine too. So it must be possible. Reading it carefully, I think the main difference between how he approached it and my own efforts, is that he appears to know what he's doing. That often helps.

[Saint-Just]

Superb thread. A good Sunday morning laugh and nothing irreversibly damaged, what's not to like?
A very Victorian approach to a problem, too

[Man of Kent]

I did a cheap Casio just for the hell of it a couple of years ago. It's a solar charged battery so I never need to open the back again. Works perfectly.
I wouldn't recommend anything with hands unless its a high-torque movement.

[AmosMoses]

Always wanted to try this, from memory 3M Fluorinert is the recommended liquid of choice.

[Tokyo Tokei]

Thanks yes I think Flourinert is one I saw mentioned too, though I am not sure it is available in Japan. According to one of the linked posts, Sinn used to use silicon oil but changed to flourinert (or similar) to prevent dial discoloration.

I think I failed as my silicon oil was just too viscous. The same post notes that the Ronda movement (the same as mine) actually has more torque than the ETA Sinn used in their hydro watches. And that experimenter got his to work. So it must be possible. But no quartz analogue watch has an excess of torque - it would just needlessly waste power - so viscosity is likely my culprit.

In a fleeting spark of executive function, I have decided not to doggedly follow my trail of incompetence further on this one. Even if I sourced the right oil, I have no way to account for temperature expansion of the oil, other than leaving a bubble. Which I don't really want. So it would pop the crystal out in the summer, while I lounged magnificently by the rock pool. Not a great look.

Also my experience clearing up all the oil is not one I want to go through again for every battery change. A solar powered digital watch might be okay though.

I liked the Victorian risk assessment too

[boywithabubblegun]

Very entertaining thread. Thanks to those who have contributed. Just a thought if anyone is still tempted to try this with an analogue watch, I wonder if trimming down the second hand to the bare minimum length would help?

[Neil.Ldn]

I've done a couple of digital quartz hydro-mods, here's my first attempt at an analogue

[Urban_Gent]

I enjoyed this read, still on the fence as to whether to try it myself or not yet though.

Sent from my SM-A217F using Tapatalk

[Tokyo Tokei]

I've done a couple of digital quartz hydro-mods, here's my first attempt at an analogue

That looks excellent!

I'm curious how people account for thermal expansion. Sinn have that membrane thing behind the caseback (Thanks Crusader...)

If your watch doesn't have this, is it at risk unless you leave a small bubble of compressible air?

[Neil.Ldn]

That looks excellent!

I'm curious how people account for thermal expansion. Sinn have that membrane thing behind the caseback (Thanks Crusader...)

If your watch doesn't have this, is it at risk unless you leave a small bubble of compressible air?

I use little strips of closed-cell neoprene foam. The idea being that the gas inside the closed cells will expand/compress as needed. No idea if it will
work or not but time will tell! There is not much room in the Casio’s I have done but the two analogue quartz I have now done have room for a good sized strip.

NB I tried to make sure not to squeeze the foam too much when placing it - otherwise a bunch of the closed cells will burst.

[Tokyo Tokei]

I use little strips of closed-cell neoprene foam. The idea being that the gas inside the closed cells will expand/compress as needed.

Thank you, that seems like a smart idea. The watch looks great