Waterproofing replicas part 2

Waterproofing replicas part 2

This post has moved to a new, dedicated watch blog.

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About David Modic (admin)

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3 Responses to Waterproofing replicas part 2

  1. Ryan says:

    Hey David,
    This is super helpful. Thank you for taking the time to share the post.

    My question is, would you considering doing this as a service? I just acquired a couple reps and don’t want them to fog up. Depending on the price I’d be willing to pay to have them waterproofed via your process.

    Thank you,
    R

    • David Modic says:

      Hi Ryan,
      There is so much that can go wrong with these things that I am reluctant to work on anyone else’s reps than mine.

      Some reps simply cannot be waterproofed -> the crown tubes are too lose, because the hole in the casing is uneven or the rear thread is stripped, or the pushers do not have any kind of seals in them etc. I’ve chipped many crystals (from the force of ejection), stripped crowns and casings, trying to water proof reps, that it is just simply not worth it.

      There is no way to fairly charge for this, if everything works fine, then it is an hours work, but what if it doesn’t? You open up the watch, remove the stem from an A2836 and take the mechanism out of the casing. You seal the holes, test it, everything works fine, but then when you are putting the mechanism in, it becomes apparent that the keyless works were borked when you were removing the stem. You then remove the hands and the dial to get to the keyless works. You notice that some things are bent, so you replace from your spare pile. You repair this, then notice that the date spring is not really springy. Well, fine, it will work for now. You replace the dial, replace the hands, but one of the hands is very loose. It must have been glued onto the pillar. You then need to buy new hands. Gens are costly, reps are clearly reps. You order the parts, then wait. Get the new hands, fit everything together, but then when you remove the stem in order to get the mechanism in the casing, the keyless breaks again. You cuss a bit and repeat the process. When you are replacing the dial, one of the dial feet gets loose. FFS, now you need to solder it back on, because glue does not work, but you don’t have the equipment… etc. A 20 minute job can easily become many days of mindless, boring, soul destroying slog. There is no way to price this fairly. :). No one would be able to pay what I would charge for several days of work that I do not particularly want to do for someone else :).

      So, to make a long story short, no I do not want to offer this as a service, but thank you for thinking of me :).

      Kind Regards,
      David

      • Ryan says:

        Okay, fair enough. I’ll just give it a shot on my own. They weren’t that expensive anyway.

        Thanks for taking the time to reply so thoroughly.

        -Ryan

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