I'm Blue (da ba dee da ba daa)

  Blue-dialed Seiko 5 SNK793K1 on a blue canvas strap. With my blue jeans. With my blue shirt. Been wearing the SNK793K1 a whole lot these days. Yes I did squeeze a 20mm strap into the 18mm watch, but, I'm kinda lazy that way. But fit it does. And blue it is.

  Nevertheless it matches everything on my outfit (it's accidental, I swear) but I'm not too thrilled with the outcome honestly, I had imagined it to look better, but it probably needed some other color combo to pop.

  There are several reasons why I keep going back to the SNK793 - besides the calming blue it gives me - the small size of the watch (36mm) meant it doesn't get in the way of anything - such as when I have to open gates or reach into drawers etc, it gets out of the way more readily than a big watch on my wrist.

  It's also light. For an automatic, it's lightweight again due to its size. The

  Sizing - my wrist isn't exactly big, at slightly bigger than 6 3/4 inches (depending on time of day and what I ate I think), the watch case fit just fine on my wrist. Any watch that is within 46mm to 36mm would look OK on my wrist I think and I'm fine with it.

You can read my previous review about it here.

Bund Straps RM61.65 8% Discount

Orient Wingman ER2D001B on a new Dark Burgundy(?) Leather Strap

Continuing with my extremely poor potato phone cam photos. Yeah, I should go back to macro photography.. but the laziness!

  My Orient Wingman ER2D001B on a new leather strap - very dark, almost deep dark burgundy even. It's almost as if it's returned to its original style, with the leather strap and white stitching, but instead of black leather. I'm just experimenting with straps at this point, but ultimately I think this should go with a leather Nato / Zulu style strap due to its military looks instead. It would also be much easier to swap out.

  Before anyone points out that I got the strap the 'wrong way around', yes that is intentional. Because why not. I just want to change things up a bit, and it's not like anyone else is ever gonna notice it when it's on my wrist. :)

  The this PVD Wingman is one of my favorites - there is so much great about it. It's large, making it very 'aviator'ish looking, it also has this miltary look about it. Even though the lume isn't the best, it's still extremely legible in the dark due to the size of the arabic markers on its black dial. In fact, legibility is its strength - you can tell the time on this watch from space! (Well OK, a good 20-25 feet away - if you have good eyesight in good conditions). At least, no other watch in my collection is this legible. You simply cannot do this with any other watch that isn't made to this style, even considering its below average lume for low light - imagine if they put good lume on it like on the Flight. See my review comparing it to the Flight and Ray Raven.

  The watch is also very affordable, it's great for the person who is looking at his first military/aviator big dial automatic that isn't going to break the bank. It would be awesome if it has hand-winding, but I am nitpicking at this point. I hope Orient updates it to the handwinding movements just like they did with the Ray, Bambinos, and the rest of the lineup. This watch tends to get sidelined in favor of Orient's other models like the Bambino or Ray or Flight, but I think this is one of the best deals from Orient if you are into military/aviator styled watches and don't worry about a 50m water rating or below lume (which is offset by how large the numerals are on the dial in the dark anyway).

If you can find it that is, I think they have discontinued this model (I'm not sure - don't quote me on that!)

  You can buy your own similar leather strap here. Or here. Or here.

Mission : New PVD Leather Nato Strap

Target sighted: New PVD, leather Nato strap, for my Orient

Picture courtesy of WristSolution

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Should make a pretty awesome combo.  Checks all the right stuff - PVD, buckle - check. Tan colour leather - check.  Nato strap - check.

Well, hopefully. Only one way to find out!! But first let me get my budget straightened out first...

Strap is sold at WristSolution.com for RM75. Woo!

Nearly ruining another watch

So something I don't understand. I took apart a cheap quartz watch easily and did some cleaning and took apart the dial and removed the logo. Then I put it back together again. Of course, something came loose, so I took it apart again to fix it.

Except, this time no matter what I try, for a good hour or so, I was not even able to take out the crown stem, which I was able to do easily earlier. I gave up.

UPDATE: Pictures & more info.


So the story goes like this. One of the dial lumes came loose and I wanted to fix it, but then I can no longer take it apart, to a point where I am almost ruining the inside of the watch. I simply can't understand why I took the crown stem apart on the first try easily to take out the movement, and then on the second try I can't. Eventually all that shaking knocking and pulling made more of the dial lumes come loose, and I ended up with a watch that looks like the above, which I STILL can't take apart.

Wow, that was frustrating. What a mystery. Thinking that I may have remembered the wrong things to depress to get the crown stem out, I began pressing all sorts of combinations on the movement and I may have destroyed some of the plastic parts within. But of course it still won't come out, so I think I might have broken something on the first try.

Time to visit my watch guy again. sigh.

So I decided some watch customizing...

I found a fake automatic Rolux™ at my parent's storeroom, which was just sitting there probably waiting to be thrown out. It once belonged to my grandfather. So I took it, shook it, and wow, it still ticks. So I took it and thought about customizing the watch.

What made me interested to customize it is because it doesn't look like the usual Rolux™ fakes, in fact it doesn't look like any Rolux™ that I know of. And also, aside from that, it is a see-through transparent skeleton watch. It isn't all see-thru though, it's mostly just fake stuff on the dial like it is see-through, but good enough.

So I thought, why not customize it? Just paint or stick something over the logo and the words "co-axial escapemint", and I would have a decent looking watch. Decent, maybe from 25 feet away. 

Taking it apart was fairly easy, but when I figured out how to take out the stem, I was hooked. I began taking apart more and more, polishing the case and crystal, and put it back together. By then it look clean. But when I put it back together I dropped the whole thing (clumsy me) and bent the minute hand. OK, fine - just bend it back to shape, since it's crashing with the seconds hand. 

By this time I dropped it again and bent the second hand AND the crown stem. GRRRR.

So bending the hands back to shape, and putting it together, with a wonky crown stem that doesn't turn well, I pressed too hard on the crystal and cracked it.

This was all after midnight of course, when I start doing things like this.

The next day I took it to a watch repair shop, and asked if it could be repaired. The watch guy said, yes, in fact he could do it immediately, I was surprised. Well I didn't leave it with him and thought about asking other places, but I didn't have time and brought it home.

Back home, sitting at my desk, holding it in my hand, it managed to slip while I was pulling out the crown and then I dropped it. AGAIN. And this time I broke the stem.

....and here is the result:

Broken crown and crack at 3 o'clock position

So I guess that the lesson is if you're going to do something, use the proper tools, use the proper space, do it in the morning when your mind is fresh and hands are steady, and don't rush it.

But the loss isn't that bad, after all it is a bad fake, and at least I learnt how to take apart a watch. It still ticks, but can't set it obviously with a broken crown.