Reply With QuoteBest lubricant for threads is Molykote DX in my opinion, a tiny spot works wonders. I’m a big fan if it, it’s specified as a lubricant grease in some chronograph mechanisms where sliding/pressure occurs.
So I found myself outside Dipples in Norwich, gaping through their window at a display of all the new Seiko 5 skx based ‘divers’ - alongside the new Arnie’s - the subject of this brief topic. Frankly I love a nice Ana-digi, but I also like decent lume and a display I can actually read, with useful functions, surprisingly hard to find. So I ventured inside, and was smitten with the padi variant. The only downside I noticed was the truly horrible ‘grinding, am I cross threaded already’ nature of the main time - setting crown. Not unusual for a Seiko, and all 4 they had in stock felt identical. Smitten, I paid my money and thought I’d put up with it. Within 24 hours I’d used the ‘waxed dental floss’ trick on the crown threads - not easy with the shrouded nature of the case - and it’s now astonishingly smooth, as good as any crown I’ve ever used, and given the nature of the watch it won’t get used a lot anyway.
So, delighted with the Arnie - which actually wears almost small on my wrist (a bit like the g shocks that on paper are humongous, on the wrist significantly smaller), shocked at the crappy crown action which is an easy fix (I no longer use silicone grease on them as in the air rifle community it’s a big no no to use silicone grease metal to metal) but why do t they just clean them at the factory? And how come in the wilds of Norfolk I find the most amazing selection of new Seiko’s?!
Ps interestingly, all the Arnie’s not only had the same grinding crown, every other aspect on all of them was perfect - bezel, dial, even the second hands perfectly aligned, lume well applied etc - a bit of a surprise given their recent reputation. Perhaps the Chinese factory is playing closer attention to detail than the others !
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Best lubricant for threads is Molykote DX in my opinion, a tiny spot works wonders. I’m a big fan if it, it’s specified as a lubricant grease in some chronograph mechanisms where sliding/pressure occurs.
Why is that?Originally Posted by RobDad
Surely it's not cleaning them that's the problem; it's lack of lubrication. Indeed the problem might well be that they were cleaned and then not lubricated afterwards.
It does seem to be a common fault (and I do regard it as a fault) on many new Seikos. That it happens enough to be noticed seems inexplicable. At least it is fixable at home with wax or silicone grease (if one still wishes to use it).
I've had similar with Seiko bracelets too: Very, very squeaky! Easily cured with silcone spray or even just 3-in-1 oil. (Yes, you do smell of eau de 3-in-1 for a few days aftwerwards).
Thanks for that. Will look it up.
Apparently silicone grease/oils should be kept away from the moving parts of air rifles etc as it can cause wear between metal surfaces. I think this may have something to do with the pressures/stresses produced within an air weapon - probably ok on a watch crown but I’m being cautious. Plus the wax from my floss seems to have done the job!
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Interesting, thanks.
I had the Solar PADI Arnie recently and the crown was the same, I too had read about the dental floss trick and it fixed mine too, I actually sold it recently as I intend to get the all Black non PADI version SNJ025. In my humblest of opinions I would have rather the watch cost two or three hundred pounds and was better made, more like a Marine Master for example but with the digital window. I had one of the original H558’s back in the early 80’s and it cost around £250 (not sure what that’s equivalent to today, £800?) and I remember it always felt very high quality, I never get that impression from the new Solar Arnies .....
I do think they’re overpriced at £420, lets face it they would have been £250 just a couple of years ago - but there isn’t really anything similar on the market, and my particular example, now the crown is sorted, has everything ‘lined up’ correctly which is more than I can say for a lot (most!) of the seiko’s I’ve owned. It feels like a quartz analogue with a digital window, as opposed to G shocks which feel like a digital watch with hands added? And if it was a g shock, steel lugs and a screwback would be very desirable!
It feels like a real 80’s throwback to a style of really useful watch that somehow disappeared - with solar thrown in totally unobtrusively - I cant see the solar panel at all on the dial. Mine’s a keeper as it’s scratched an itch and I really don’t think there’s anything similar out there at the moment
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