Reply With Quotebeadblast it ?
So, I’ve messed about (lightly) with plenty of my watches - including changing bezels and stuff on probably 10 of mine, never had much of a problem... until now!
I had my new Seiko Turtle Blue Lagoon and thought how nice it would be with a coin-edge bezel. Having one spare, as I had modded a Turtle previously - without issue - I leapt to work, confident of a 5 min job.
Taped off the case, and the knife to prize the bezel off. (Ran out of electrical tape so doubled-up on sellotape.)
Bezel was very tight so had to put quite some leverage in, and really should have had been working in better light, not on the coffee table at dusk - as I didn’t notice a small burr on the back of the knife blade, that promptly gouged half a dozen decent scratches into the watchcase!!
Ffffffuuuuuu...... you can guess the rest.
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I’m sure we all have examples of similar. I’ve grown to be more accepting of such incidents (by which I mean making up stories to explain the marks.... there was this time I was diving and all of a sudden it got really dark... I looked up and saw the blades of a prop slicing through the water so I pushed off the underside of the boat to avoid what could only be described as a certain beheading. Obviously I was a second too slow as the prop did manage to knock off the original bezel and cut through my strap. Luckily my wet suit shielded my arm from the knife like edges as I was unharmed except for a little scratch from which I managed to stem the blood by pulling my wet suit over and moving my dive computer to that arm to act as a large compression bandage. While doing so I watched in relief as my beloved watch plunged deeper into the water straight below me as the boat continued across the water only feet above me. To retrieve my watch dove deeper as I could see it glistening on the bottom. As I approached my watch and extended my hand a great white shark must have also been alerted to the flashing of light off the case and perhaps caught a scent of the blood now embedded in what remained of the strap. It’s razor sharp teeth grabbed for my watch just as I collected it off the bottom. He managed to catch the side of the case... see here.. those scratches... those are from the shark. He obviously didn’t like the taste as he swam off just as I raised my harpoon to take a shot at him. I hurriedly swam back to the boat and laid on the floor for for what seemed like 2 hours taking in what had just happened. When I got home I had to put a new bezel and strap on the watch ... otherwise aside from the scratches from the sharks teeth it’s still here with me!). I did however discard the wetsuit that I crapped in while all of this was going on!) and on occasion have been known to look forward to people asking me what happened . Enjoy your scratches and feel free to use the above story to explain them.
Last edited by canuck; 2nd October 2018 at 23:52.
Just stick it on sales Corner with some patter like 'these sort of watches look better with a bit of wabi' and hope some monkey will buy it
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Ha ha - yeh, a good story, or flog it with “Wabi”!!!
Actually, I thought about bead-blast, and saw someone in a recent thread asking about recommendations for someone who does that work..... reckon a nice bead-blast and maybe a change to blue/black bezel insert would make an awesome little mod.
I added a ceramic bezel into my previous turtle and it looked really excellent, took it up a notch
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Originally Posted by canuck
Great ideas, brought a smile to an otherwise dull day, I thank you both.
Personally I'd push the material back as best i could, then directly smooth the surface down , and finally either gentle bead blast the whole thing or harporise.
Paul.
Ffffffuuuuuu...!!!!
Just done it again on a second, 1 day old turtle! My god!
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Step away from the turtles......
Cheers..
Jase
Couple of errors I have learned from the hard, scratchy way
- I did not know there was a small lip at one point, that you can target for lifting the bezel, so I had to work hard to get under the thing,
And secondly, I’d confused the lifting method - I’ve had some where you just sort of pop them off using the overhang of the bezel, but the turtle is really well retained, needs you to get right under it prize it open like an oyster.
(Well, at least that is what I’ve found).
Also, I just gashed it up, because I am a ham-fisted oaf
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Step away from the Turtles
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Obvs the bezel wasn't Oyster tight BUT Turtle tight!
An easy job to refurb.
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