The Ongoing Moonraker Watch Project (warning: picture heavy)
frommeyer
ChicagoPosts: 418MI6 Agent
As you may have seen in the Wednesday watch thread I found a M354-5019 on Ebay for cheap. It looked to be in pretty bad shape but I love little restoration projects like this to palm while listening to podcasts, lectures, audiobooks, etc. So I saw it and jumped without having any real idea of the salvageability of the watch. These were the listing photos:
Aside from the obvious, the listing mentioned that the pushers stick a little. Well, I have a couple totally dead bodies of the M354-5019 and those pushers work great. So I'll apply those when it comes time to finish things up. Same for the clearly damaged insert. But that looked like a lot of rust and I was worried about potential corrosion. But not worried enough to pass.
Once it arrived things actually looked a little worse:
I asked around WatchUSeek and the braintrust there said a lot of what I was seeing could be the stainless steel plating wearing off from excess polishing. That brassy color is the true base metal of the case. The solution would be sending it to one of a handful of companies that do re-plating of watches. To verify, I took the watch to a very reputable local watchmaker and he gave it a good inspection. And, sure enough, he concurred that it's mostly the plating coming off. Polishing/rust removal won't do much to help that brass color, in fact, it would make it worse.
So I contacted a SS re-plating company in Canada called Replateit. As I waited to hear back from them with an estimate I decided to attempt a little clean-up myself as it wouldn't hurt. After some scrubbing with dish-soap and toothbrush I gave some very gentle wipes with a Cape Cod polishing rag. The improvement was pretty damn dramatic. And absolutely confirmed that mostly all that's needed is a simple replating.
So that's where I sit as of today. Replateit will do both the bracelet and the case. And assuming it's not a $400 job I'll be sending it out once they give me an estimate. And I'll update as the project progresses.
Aside from the obvious, the listing mentioned that the pushers stick a little. Well, I have a couple totally dead bodies of the M354-5019 and those pushers work great. So I'll apply those when it comes time to finish things up. Same for the clearly damaged insert. But that looked like a lot of rust and I was worried about potential corrosion. But not worried enough to pass.
Once it arrived things actually looked a little worse:
I asked around WatchUSeek and the braintrust there said a lot of what I was seeing could be the stainless steel plating wearing off from excess polishing. That brassy color is the true base metal of the case. The solution would be sending it to one of a handful of companies that do re-plating of watches. To verify, I took the watch to a very reputable local watchmaker and he gave it a good inspection. And, sure enough, he concurred that it's mostly the plating coming off. Polishing/rust removal won't do much to help that brass color, in fact, it would make it worse.
So I contacted a SS re-plating company in Canada called Replateit. As I waited to hear back from them with an estimate I decided to attempt a little clean-up myself as it wouldn't hurt. After some scrubbing with dish-soap and toothbrush I gave some very gentle wipes with a Cape Cod polishing rag. The improvement was pretty damn dramatic. And absolutely confirmed that mostly all that's needed is a simple replating.
So that's where I sit as of today. Replateit will do both the bracelet and the case. And assuming it's not a $400 job I'll be sending it out once they give me an estimate. And I'll update as the project progresses.
Comments
My M354 is now in service for a face swap. Can’t wait to get it back...!
http://jamesbondwatchesblog.com/2010/01/03/seiko-m354-instructions-available-on-james-bond-watches/
It has a PDF of the operator's manual for our watch. I'm having Costco print one up in pamphlet form.