Dave absolutely brill - thanks for sharing
I thought I'd share a few pics (or 28) of my latest arrival, a Seiko 6139-6002 Pogue from May 1971.
I'm probably into double figures in the number of these I've owned. I've had the silver dial and blue dial versions along with several of the yellow dials. I even have a modified one with a white dial and inner bezel but I usually buy non-runners, fix them up, wear for a month or two and then sell. Then another one pops up that needs a bit of tlc and the cycle continues. The first few I bought were for the sole intention of flipping - I wasn't a big fan of them at first but over the years they've grown on me and I have no intention of flipping this one (yet).
Anyway, enough waffle, here's a picture from the seller -
It's not the greatest of pics and this is the only one from the ad that showed the dial side. You can tell the crystal needs replacing and the hands are possibly suffering from the dreaded lume rot but there's promise in there. The seller had it listed as a three day auction, UK only and ending on a weekday afternoon so I figured it could go cheap. But I was also worried that the seller might be open to a buy it now offer and I didn't want to miss out, so messages were exchanged, I showed the seller a lnk to a completed auction for a similar watch and offered the same amount to buy it now which the seller agreed to. I could have possibly got it cheaper but i feel it was a good deal for both of us.
The watch arrived and as expected it looked much better in the hand than in the sellers picture. The inner bezel had faded slightly and the minute hand lume was pretty bad but I wasn't worried about that as I had a spare set of nos hands and a better inner bezel. -
I told you it had promise! the dial is flawless which is becoming increasingly rare as these things age. Its also a resist dial with the script at 9 o'clock which makes it slightly more collectable. The first 6139-6002's had proof dial's for around the first year of production and then they changed to resist for another year or so before dropping the text altogether so if it has a proof or resist dial you know it's an early one. It also came with the original non-tapered and full length bracelet, which was nice.
At the time I had a pile of other peoples watches to work on so I put it away until I had a chance to strip it down and find out why it wasn't running. I eventually found a couple of hours spare one evening so the strip down could begin.
The movement is uncased and you can see now how good the dial is with only the minute hand lume letting things down -
You'll also notice it has the correct crown and stem gear which turns the inner bezel. When buying one of these it always pays to ask the seller if the inner bezel turns with the crown as if this part has been changed it can cost up to £90 for the correct crown and stem.
The Hands, dial and day wheel are removed -
The dial side is almost stripped and no hidden nasties so far -
Now we get to the top side and everything looks as normal so far -
The rotor and auto winding bridge are removed -
The chronograph bridge is removed and things start getting dirty -
As I strip down the chronograph components I discover why the watch wouldn't run -
That's the click spring and you can see where the ratchet wheel has worn it down. This has basically prevented the mainspring from winding and if you can't wind the mainspring it's never going to run. Of more concern though was the amount of dirt as the worn click spring wouldn't create that amount of debris.
With the ratchet wheel removed more clues are given to where all the debris has come from -
If you look at the bridge on top of the barrel you'll notice where the ratchet wheel has worn through the plating - this is caused by the barrel bushings wearing down over time which then allows the ratchet wheel to touch parts of the movement it shouldn't. It's a common problem with the 6x series of movements but there is a fix. More on that later.
The trainwheel bridge is removed -
Here's a close up of where the barrel sits and you can see where the barrel arbour and the edge of the barrel have been touching -
Fully stripped and all laid out on the bench -
And into the cleaning machine -
At this point everything goes into storage until I can find another few hours for the rebuild. That opportunity showed up yesterday so I start by addressing the worn out mainplate and trainwheel bridge and I do this by fitting a pair of jewels -
There's a bushing on the trainwheel bridge which gets pressed out and an identical diameter jewel gets fitted in it's place, but there is no bushing in the mainplate, just a hole, so the hole has to be reamed out to accept the new jewel -
New jewels in place -
Then I trial fit the barrel arbour to get the correct amount of endshake (up/down movement) -
Here's the old bushing prior to getting thrown in the bin and you can see the wear on the inner surface -
I start by assembling the dial side. I have a tool for hand fitting (supplied by Adrian at vintagetimeaustralia.com) which allows you to hold the chronograph at zero when pressing down the hands but it also doubles up as a movement holder -
With the dial side complete I move onto the top side and use a regular movement holder -
Almost complete, this picture shows how the tool allows you to hold the chrono reset at zero as the hand is pressed on -
Perfect! -
A quick adjustment on the timegrapher and the numbers are pretty good considering it's only been running for a matter of minutes. The amplitude should improve slightly over the next few days as the oils migrate -
And cased up with new gaskets, the nos hands and crystal and the unfaded inner bezel all fitted -
The last thing to do is adjust the bracelet and get it on the wrist -
I have to say I'm very happy with how it turned out. It's no minter but I prefer it that way as it means I can wear it without fear of further damage and don't have to be too precious about it.
If you've got this far then thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.
Cheers,
Dave
Dave absolutely brill - thanks for sharing
Thanks Paul
Thank you for your personal view and lovely photos of one of my personal favourite timepieces.............ever!
This was the watch that started me off on this crazy passions of ours.
Superb job
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Brilliant, that's the kind of post that makes this place so great.
Thanks
Joe
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I love reading threads like this, to see this level of skill and attention to detail is very inspiring.
And that watch is really nice, the styling (late 60's- early 70's?) really appeals to me.
Many thanks. Lovely watch and beautifully restored. I remember seeing these on the front of Grattons catalogue when I was a kid! Does anyone know how much these retailed for back in the day?
Fantastic watch and a great thread. Thanks for posting
Love reading through these kind of posts. Thanks for sharing
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Great read - thanks for sharing
Impressive work, timegrapher figures are excellent.
What a great description of such impressive work!
What a beautiful dial hidden behind a rough crystal. Excellent post, love the movement shots.
Sold mine a few years ago and prices have really climbed.
I really enjoyed reading this excellent post. Thanks for taking the time to write it. Posts like this make this forum a great place to learn about watches.
As others have said 'thanks for taking the time to post',
the 'pogue' is something of a Seiko icon that's been in my sights for sometime now, hopefully someday I'll find the right one.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
"You gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em".
Thanks for taking the time to post the story and pics. Great to see it restored to clean working order. Stunning watch!
Lovely post on a great watch. Never liked them when I first saw one but have done a full 180 on it and proudly own a proof now! Fascinating to see the full strip. Cheers!
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Wow, I was expecting one of those 'here's a photo of my watch.... NEXT' type threads, but this is a joy to read/look at. Beautiful, and amazing work.
i gave mine away some years ago. It had stopped working and sat on a shelf for a few years. An 18th birthday present - I didn't know that anyone could restore them
Great write up, and fabulous job. Always nice to see these resurrected!
Thanks again for all the comments .
It's been a while since I posted something like this and I really should do it more often. The problem is that when I'm working on a watch that has a few issues my focus is on getting it fixed rather than taking pictures, then when it's finished I think "that would have made a good post, I should've taken more pictures "
I'm the same. When I first got into vintage Seiko the Pogue was one I remembered from my childhood so I bought one out of nostalgia. I thought it was alright but I didn't wear it much then sold it, then bought another... and another... This is probably the nicest one I've owned to date and I don't expect to be selling it anytime soon.
Thanks, I thought so as well. I've serviced enough of these to know that an amplitude of 250 is great result and anything over that is a bonus.
I thought I'd put it on the timegrapher again to see how it's running after 48 hours -
It's definitely one of the better ones . I'm not sure if the added jewels have improved the amplitude and if they have by how much, but it's something I might test. I have a 6306 here that I serviced a couple of years ago so I might fit the extra jewels to it and see if there's much difference.
Edit to add: The timegrapher pictures were taken with the chrono not running. With the chrono running and the clutch disengaged there should be a slight increase in amplitude.
Last edited by Dynam0humm; 16th February 2018 at 15:04.
Cool work, nice one!
I love these old Seikos, classic 1970's. 👍🏼
Great post - many thanks.
That's a proper TZ post.
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Very nice article :)
Shame its pushing up the prices on uk ebay as we all want one now :)
That's a lovely job you've done there.
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Great post. I'd love to have the skills to do similar.
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Love these posts - thanks for sharing
Superb post - for those of us without the skills or dexterity to strip (and reassemble) a watch these threads are absolutely fascinating. I hadn’t realised how relatively few parts there were until your photo showing everything on the workbench. That’s not to underplay the skill involved at all, just to express the surprise given how fiendishly complicated it all looks when the watch is running!
One quick question - do you know if that movement holder from Australia 3D is printed or moulded? It looks like the former.
I miss my collection of these, I really do, but this certainly was some great work.
Last edited by j111dja; 30th September 2018 at 17:18.
Great post
Thanks
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Is this the model that you can change the day/date by pressing the crown - super cool feature.
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I doff my hat to you sir.
You have made me want one of these now. Working of course.
Great read.
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Brilliant work.
Thanks again for all the comments chaps, and to j111dja for bumping the thread
I mentioned in the op how I've flipped my fair share of these and keep coming back to them, but I've managed to hang on to this one and it's on my wrist as I type. It's now on the excellent UncleSeiko tapered H-link bracelet which isn't technically correct for a 1971 watch (it wasn't until around 73 that the tapered bracelets appeared) but it's the best looking one imho and much nicer to wear with the solid links vs the rattly folded links on the original.
Beautiful work. Thanks for the post :-)
Great post Dave. Splendid job and a wonderful looking Pogue. Wasn't aware of Uncle Seiko till now, have just ordered an H-link bracelet. Many thanks for the heads up.
thats stunning and amazing work. Had one once..will have to venture back into the Pogue world again