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Thread: Easy as 7123! (7123-8210 restore x2)

  1. #1
    Master Bodo's Avatar
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    Easy as 7123! (7123-8210 restore x2)

    I received these two a while back that needed doing and finally got them both sorted after intermittent work over the course of about 3 months.

    The auctions were buy it nows from speedtimerkollektion, the nicer one with bracelet being £36, and the lesser one being £16.



    I felt this one would be good for parts if needed.

    But the one below I believed would have a really smart dial and hands.



    Awaiting their arrival didn't last long, but I took some time each night after working on a large backlog (getting there Neil, I promise!) to assess and figure out how to tackle them. There was also some serendipity involved with these that I think you all will be interested to see!

    The first cheaper one on the bench.



    Lots of corrosion here and there, especially on the dial, and hands.
    I removed the caseback to have a proper look at the dial and movement.





    I didn't have too much hope for this one, specifically the coil and circuit aswell that I wanted to harvest were looking rather sorry, but I did hope that out of the at least one would make it, hopefully with one complete movement between the two.



    Signs of battery and moisture issues, poor lume and corrosion of the plating.

    I will leave that one here for now, leaving me to take a look at the other that arrived, this time with a little more hope, but also anticipating disappointment somewhere along the way.

    On the bench it looked good.



    Lovely lume, just hidden by a scratched crystal. The rotating ring again was worn and missing its paint, something I wanted to sort out.



    Again, though, disappointment. The movement had a battery leak as expected from the sales pics. Removing the movement I breathed a sigh of relief.





    Wow! Chuffed....the chapter ring on these is fixed to the dial, and the dial, which I think looks superb, has some lovely features. Applied SQ logo, applied Seiko logo. Lume plots nicely designed and I do like these Sports 100 watches, 7546s have always been a favourite but I've wanted one of these for a while now and especially since I serviced someone's last year. There was some slight hazing to the plating but this I'd hope would clean off a little with some careful strokes of rodico.

    Moving on, I took a look at the movements and used some donor parts eventually. (BIG THANKS TO MIKE V!)



    The date wheel is toast, but although these movements get some bad press, I actually like the simplicity of how they function. Could of course be a lot better and they are definitely far from a 7548, but then they are in a way nicer than the 7T, or 8F3X or 7C4X imo. Simply because there is a limit on plastic parts, and the amount of times a post has snapped or a screw slot had come loose on these others is something I am pleased to say isn't a problem for the 7123A. It suffers from a lack of jewels (2), and it has a very crude pivot hole for the fifth wheel that is simply a hole in the date jumper.

    It has a simple, but fairly clever keyless and quickset mechanism that operates with a ratchet on the castle wheel. Yes, a cheap movement, and somewhat fiddly, but I'm showing some love for them... :)

    Although not when they are covered in sulfate...



    Eventually I got around to tackling the rotating bezel and cleaned it slightly and started on the painting.



    Both were done when I had a moment. This was fairly enjoyable and took some fine oiler thinned paint action.



    And the other.



    I will go back to the beater example now and see about tackling the dial and handset.

    I spent an evening on this one about a month ago now, and it came out quite well. It took some time to remove some battery acid lume-moisture-deposits and the lume plots are unfortunately a little worse for wear. I didn't like the staining on the dial at this point, however.





    After masking and painting and getting the lume out, which on these is not very easy at all due to how thin the plots are, which in turn makes luming it a little trickier, it came out like this.



    The hands were cleaned and relumed aswell, and the movement was sorted out to get it cased up in its original case.

    Before I show that one as it is now, I will move on to the nicer dial and handset, this was also cased up with a running movement and pretty much complete. A shot here of it without the crystal assembly to get an idea of how it would look. Pretty good!
    Finding a 295W31HN00 is bloody difficult. Infact, impossible.







    Well, I'll live with it. And it looks great. Happy....ish. i couldn't be bothered to sort the alignment of the seconds hand I was just happy to get a personal project done and on the wrist, but also because I knew I would be removing it from this case again. (Remember when I said this case would actually be on the more worse for wear example?) :)

    Back to the other one, here it is cased up using the better case with no pitting due to rust. The other is usable but I had a reason for this decision to swap back over.
    This was quite a turnaround. I used a 295W29HN00 from Cousins. It is a little bit too thin (should be 1.7mm) but works ok.







    And a quick reminder.



    Now, for those that are still with me (sorry for being so confusing! :) ) the reason I would end up putting the relumed version onto the case that was in overall better condition was because within about 5 minutes of finishing the nicer one's movement, I checked for others just to see what was what and noticed a NOS case complete. It was.....expensive...but I bid and won. At the same time I also found a NOS crown. It is as if it was meant to be, so eventually they would arrive and I was super happy.



    Ahh...the case...







    And so with a quick glance back at what once was.



    To what now is!













    Hopefully you enjoyed the journey in a few minutes as I did over the course of a few months. :)

  2. #2
    Master Seiko7A38's Avatar
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    Great work as always, Guy.

  3. #3
    Master Bodo's Avatar
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    Cheers Paul!

  4. #4
    Master ed335d's Avatar
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    Great work Guy, love reading these

  5. #5
    Craftsman
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    Fantastic transformation

  6. #6
    Master
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    That's lovely to see, thanks for sharing. Amazing result.

  7. #7
    Master Bodo's Avatar
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    Thanks all. Turned out pretty good. Waiting on a bracelet for the beater and might get a decent copy of the original crystal but would love an original...

  8. #8
    Grand Master Wallasey Runner's Avatar
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    A stunning piece of work, well done, the transformation is incredible.

  9. #9
    Very well done👍

  10. #10
    Master
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    Great work.

  11. #11
    Craftsman
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    Fantastic work, always enjoy your posts!!!

    Sent from my SM-G960F using TZ-UK mobile app

  12. #12
    Master murkeywaters's Avatar
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    Brilliant these threads as I like the technical and restoration side of watches, great read and fine pair of classic Seiko’s saved.


    Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app

  13. #13
    Master
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    Fabulous job, encouraging to see what can be achieved with passion and know how in equal amounts.

  14. #14
    Grand Master learningtofly's Avatar
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    You deserved that unexpected result with the NOS case. Great work.

  15. #15
    Craftsman
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    Great work as always Guy. Those bezels have turned out fantastic.

  16. #16
    Master
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    Nice job Guy, great result and interesting post

  17. #17
    Grand Master dkpw's Avatar
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    Splendid skills on display and what a great read!
    David
    Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

  18. #18
    Master Thewatchbloke's Avatar
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    Nice work Guy, the bad rep the 7123 seems to attract is unfair in as much as it's utilises a well designed compact movement, it's achilles heel is a relatively fragile circuit.

    They can fail for no apparent rhyme or reason but having said that they are around 40 years old or so now!

  19. #19
    Grand Master magirus's Avatar
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    Superb!
    F.T.F.A.

  20. #20
    Master Bodo's Avatar
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    Many thanks for the kind words everyone! Duncan yeh I'd heard this, too, or get that impression, but compared to say 754Xs are they any worse off? Seems to me that battery leakage is always the issue but also I see a few of these with a lot of rust, too. Like you say they're getting on a bit... There are also a lot of different circuits I noticed, some black some blue, some with different text here or there, I assume that they're different for the 7122/3/ and 6 etc?

  21. #21
    Master Thewatchbloke's Avatar
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    In my experience the 7123 circuit seems more prone to battery damage than the 7546/8/9's. The 7122 and 3 share the same circuit but the 7126 is different, or at least has a different part number. Like you I've seen different coloured circuits and different types of text but I'm sure it's just due to the production techniques being refined through the years and possibly different fabrication plants.

  22. #22
    Master
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    A joy to read and a stunning result to behold, thanks so much for sharing

  23. #23
    Master Bodo's Avatar
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    Cheers Duncan. And glad you enjoyed reading it, MST!

    A bracelet arrived yesterday from a friend. Both now have their original bracelets. :)


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