Seiko. SS. Seventies. Sanctuary

So, the Gasworks Sanctuary has been pretty busy of late. Amongst a few simple repair jobs and the service/light polish of this rather lovely Longines...

...it's been the usual heady mix of Seikos with the odd spattering of Citizens.

On the left in the header picture we have a Seiko Actus SS 6106-7590 from June 1973

The SS stands for "Stopping Seconds"; this movement has hacking.

When I picked this up off eBay it was the not so proud owner of a very tired, faceted crystal...

The case wasn't great and it was, as is invariably the case, in desperate need of a service.

The first thing I did was remove the old crystal and replace it with a more contemporary, non-faceted mineral crystal...

The crystal on these is bonded to a steel ring and the easiest way to break that bond is to place the ring/ crystal into boiling water for 5 - 10 minutes. They separate easily after that. I use either an epoxy resin or a UV activated resin to bind the new crystal in place. I used epoxy in this case; I find UV resin better for acrylic crystals.

It was then a fairly straightforward service of the hacking 6106 movement...

Although it wasn't in very poor condition, the case needed a lot of work (about 8 hours) to get right. There were some deep dings and scratches to deal with and the case shape was quite complex. Lots of masking off with heat tape mixed with occasional swearing.

Important Note: When refitting the hands the trick is to remember, this is a hacking movement and not to spend 5 minutes wondering why the balance isn't oscillating when seating the seconds hand. It gets me every time 🫣

On the right in the header picture we have another Seiko Actus SS,this time a 6106-7520 from November 1971.

This one came from eBay too (most of my refurbishment candidates do) and was sold as a non-working watch. It was running (but very poorly), the day was misaligned in the window and the quickset date didn't work.

First job was to service it and get it running well...

The issue with the date change was due to a worn date finger (no smutty comments please). Seiko made these parts out of nylon; presumably to reduce wear on the date wheel. The trouble is that they themselves wear out. The, otherwise wonderful, 5606 movement is blighted by this issue... more on that another time.

Luckily, I had a suitable alternative in my spare parts box so that was a simple one to resolve. I also had a spare day disk so changed that too. I'll fix the original day disk at some point so it can be reused later on.

With the movement serviced and running nicely and the calendar works now behaving itself it was onto the case.

It was quite dirty so got to spend some time in the bath: candles, pebbles, whale song, etc. Once out and dried off it slipped into a waffle robe and throw-away Gasworks branded slippers and made its way to the treatment suite.

Whilst there it got the full Dremel treatment experience - exfoliation, buffing, polishing - and came out looking and feeling 50 years younger.

The addition of a nubuck leather strap makes the unusual, but very pretty, blue dial really pop. (IMHO)

I think they both turned out OK.

The first one has already found a home in Cheshire and the other is currently available for adoption.

Next time - adventures with a 5606 Lordmatic.

Until then - Take care folks.

❤