Interesting. I had a Traser once that was just too small for me. However, the Tritium tubes were scary bright. Bright enough to be useless in a tactical situation unless one took care to cover the watch.

RMD

Yeah, that would be a far cry from this example. Really dim. Like, I had to let my eyes adjust to the darkness before I could see them.

That said, I wouldn’t mind owning a quality watch with bright tritium ampules in it. It won’t be a Luminox, though.

quote:

That said, I wouldn’t mind owning a quality watch with bright tritium ampules in it. It won’t be a Luminox, though.

I've got a Marathon GSAR that I absolutely love as my working watch. There are a few Ball watches I'd like to get that are "classier," but that Marathon is a tank and the tritium makes reading it at night super easy.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
It won’t be a Luminox, though.

I have to agree. Never been a fan of them.

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by copaup:


I've got a Marathon GSAR that I absolutely love as my working watch. There are a few Ball watches I'd like to get that are "classier," but that Marathon is a tank and the tritium makes reading it at night super easy.

Marathon makes absolute tanks of watches. They are purposefully designed for hard use and they just work.

RMD

Tritium watches have never appealed to me. I have several watches that are over ten years old, and if they had tritium in them, they would need new capsules by now. That has got to cost a few bucks. I have a nearly 20 year old Omega that still glows like crazy with Superluminova.

Yeah, my thinking before I bought the Luminox was on those lines. "If Superluminova actually goes bad, it's going to take a lot longer than Tritium." That purchase was purely an impulse buy because I found it on sale for much, much less than they seem to go for online, and it was the display model.

I'm sure Marathon makes a great watch, but at this point, if I'm going to spend that kind of coin, I'm going to spend a bit more and get a Sinn 104 on a fine link bracelet.

Got my Glycine back today. I thought I had bought a kit with a caseback tool, but I didn't, so I ordered one. I'm not going to rely on my boss to bring in his toolkit. Haven't put it on the timegrapher yet, but I'm curious to see what it does. I watched a video earlier of a guy regulating an ETA-2824 and he got it down to chronometer level accuracy, so I'm hopeful I can achieve similar. Hopefully I don't have to remove the rotor and automatic works to get at the gross adjustment and I can just do it with the fine adjustment.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
Tritium watches have never appealed to me. I have several watches that are over ten years old, and if they had tritium in them, they would need new capsules by now. That has got to cost a few bucks. I have a nearly 20 year old Omega that still glows like crazy with Superluminova.

It's a valid concern, but based on my experience with night sights on my duty weapons over the years I figure I'll get 10 years out of use before they get too dim. I'll just get the vials switched out every other service. Given that Marathon charges about a quarter what my Omega costs to get serviced, I figure the added cost of tritium replacement amortized over 10 years isn't that bad an extra hit. Your mileage may vary,

My gripe with Superluminova is it's AWESOME right after you come inside on a bright day or can hit it with a light, but I can't read it when I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what time it is.

Yesterday, I was looking at Traser watches and one of their models seemed to have both. Looked pretty sharp. One would think watchmakers who use tritium would use superluminova also, to cover all the bases. I dunno. One of the things I’m seeing in my reading is the difference between T-100 and T-25 tritium in terms of how brightly it glows. T-100 is supposed to be super bright, so that’s definitely not what was in the Luminox.

Aragon makes a number of T-100 watches, but most of their designs look like butt. The DF-45 isn’t horrible, though, especially with the white dial and blue bezel.

My SMP300 is from 2006 and has had to be re-lumed. My cheapy Luminox is from about 2011 and the tritium is still brighter than the re-lumed Omega, except for when it has just been charged from being outside.

Luminox relamping is $165.

Got my caseback tool and case holder today. Got the Glycine open and on the timegrapher. I only checked it in one position, dial down. I thought I had some precision screwdrivers small enough. This was incorrect. I was only able to find one set that had a tiny one that looked awful close. I stoned it a bit and couldn't get it to fit, so I'm off to buy a precision set tomorrow, hoping I can find a jeweler's set. I'm sure the odds are very slim. I'll probably have to order a set on Amazon and wait another week to get this done, oh well.

The upside is that I know how easy it is to get in there and get at what I need to, AND, I was able to confirm that it's running between 12 and fourteen seconds slow in the dial down position. I didn't bother checking it in any other positions since I couldn't do anything about it, but I'm betting it runs slower in others, hence my twenty or more seconds a day loss. It's a Sellita SW200-1, and the standard grade for that caliber is "accuracy of +/-12 sec/day up to +/- 30 sec/day" according to calibercorner.com. So, it's within the acceptable range of accuracy for the movement, and I'm hoping it really is as simple as unscrewing a caseback and turning a screw about a fraction of a millimeter. Really hoping I can get it to within COSC standards. Oh, and zero beat error and an amplitude of about 320 on average. So, I'm pretty optimistic, based on what I've been reading and watching.

Last weekend, I was cruising around the auction site for mod parts for my Invicta and came across a guy who makes display casebacks for the Combat Sub. Just for giggles, I put it on my watch list. A few days later, he sent out an offer to all watchers of a steep discount, and I figured "what the hell." It should arrive sometime between tomorrow and Monday. I'm not sure if it'll add any thickness or not, but I'm not horribly concerned about it. This watch is so thin, a millimeter or so shouldn't make a huge difference on how wearable it is. As I typed that, I remember I've got a leather NATO I don't use because it makes the watch tower off my wrist. Oh well. I'm also just ordered a lumed sapphire bezel insert. Again, giggles. I'll post pics when I've got it all bubba'd up.

As to tritium...yes, like we see on sights, it does dim over time. It is what it is...but there's no comparison over long (multi-hour) periods of darkness unless years down the road its become pretty dim.

Luminox - the fogging issue turned me off.

You might look at Reactor brand with their Neverdark tech...it's not quite as good as the advertising (IMHO), but their Trident watches aren't bad. They also have some innovative tough features as a 'tool watch.' They can also be found a pretty decent prices if you shop around.

Marathon's are on the short list. I was contemplating between the JSAR and a SBBN031 Tuna. But the Tuna's are commanding some pretty steep prices these days, so it'll likely be the JSAR. Have to keep setting aside a little $$.

I also saw what is probably my 'grail' watch in the wild recently, a very nice Omega Seamaster. Fellow was wearing one out 'in the field' doing some physical labor. Definitely not where I would have been wearing that watch. Chatted with him a bit about it. He was well aware of its value. VERY nice watch. I recommended he maybe consider something more like a Victorinox INOX as a rough duty, job-sight beater.

Cheers,
Boss

quote:

I also saw what is probably my 'grail' watch in the wild recently, a very nice Omega Seamaster. Fellow was wearing one out 'in the field' doing some physical labor. Definitely not where I would have been wearing that watch. Chatted with him a bit about it. He was well aware of its value. VERY nice watch. I recommended he maybe consider something more like a Victorinox INOX as a rough duty, job-sight beater.

Cheers,
Boss

I wear my Seamaster at work fairly regularly. It was designed to be used and I own it to wear it, not sit in a drawer. I have other watches I wear as well, and a GSAR that gets more wear than the others, but I'm not shy about wearing the Omega. Heck, I've got a good friend that does general contracting work and the only time he doesn't wear his Submariner is when he's running a jackhammer. He did have to replace the crystal at its last service. Welding slag will absolutely ruin the anti reflective coating...

And I HIGHLY recommend the Seamaster. Its purely personal preferance, but I find it a much better looking watch than something like a Submariner. Mine has been amazingly accurate and has laughed off some fairly significant whacks without damage. Love the thing.

My personal grail watch is a Speedmaster with the "First and Only Watch Worn on the Moon" exhibition case back.

Yeah, I’ve got a good friend who bought his SMP about twenty years ago. It’s his only watch and wears it everywhere, every day, doesn’t matter what he’s doing. Until recently, he was a maintenance manager for a large local business, responsible for a number of buildings, so it has a lot of honest wear. Looks great, and at “sitting across from him at a restaurant booth” distances, you don’t even see the wear, the watch hides it very well.

I agree 100% copaup about the Seamaster. I never take mine off and in the past I have had 3 Submariners and 1 GMT II, and 1 SeaDweller. All gone.

Speaking of Omegas… I was cleaning my Planet Ocean a while back and discovered the bezel was loose and wobbly and, seeing that it’s about 15 years old without knowing if it’s ever been serviced, I decided to have it done. Following the lead of Copaup, I contacted Omega directly and they sent me padded packaging and a shipping label to their Culver City facility. I sent it in and as soon as they received it they set up a status account that I could access and follow its progress through the servicing. Got the watch back In about 7 weeks and, it looked great.

However, upon close examination, I noticed what I thought was a speck of dust on the edge of the crystal. I tried brushing it off with no luck, so I got out my loupe to check it out. I was stunned to see there was a tiny chip at about the 3 minute mark. I knew it wasn’t there when I sent it in and I checked the photo of the watch Omega put on the status page when they received it. There was no chip that I could see. Of course, I called Omega immediately and the customer service guy was great. I explained and, without hesitation, he emailed me a new shipping label. I asked if he wanted to me to send a photo so he could see what I was talking about and he said, “you know the watch and what you say goes”, not necessary.

Sent it in and about 10 days later I got it back with a new crystal, looking good!

Here it is, along with a photo of all the parts they replaced. I’m sure you watchmakers know what all the parts are, other than the obvious ones like the hands & crowns.

^^ With my level of expertise, I can easily identify the spring bars with authority .

Nice Omega and great CS!

I'm starting to take a shine to a tasteful splash of orange.

Boss

quote:

Originally posted by Tooky13: I’m sure you watchmakers know what all the parts are, other than the obvious ones like the hands & crowns.

Replacing the mainspring is just about universal when doing a service, but it's interesting that they replaced the barrel (the case that holds the mainspring, and the thing the hour hand is pointing at in your photo). In my day we'd just pop them open, take out the old spring, lubricate them, and put in the new spring. I wonder if replacing the barrel is just SOP now, or if there was something wrong with yours.