Horrorology

Back in 2010 I fell off my longboard and broke my shoulder. I also, at the same time curiously enough, broke my watch. So, I decided to treat myself to a fancy-pants Seiko Kinetic watch, which is an analog, electronic watch but with a self-charging mechanism that uses a tiny little dynamo and counterweight inside to keep a capacitor (actually a battery) constantly recharged.

This watch worked well for me for many years, until about 2019 when, even though I was wearing it every workday, I noticed that it would often go into its low-charge limp mode.

I contemplated possibly getting the battery swapped, since they don't last forever, but instead figured it was time to get an even fancier watch. So I did.

Then the world ended.

Since I was now no longer wearing a watch each and every day, I needed a way to keep it charged, as only wearing it once or twice a week wasn't going to cut it. So, off to the House of Bezos I went once again, and got this self-winding-watch-winder, because that's the kind of world we live in these days.

This solved the problem nicely for me. For a while.

But, as these things go, eventually the battery in this one started to go a bit soft. It actually hadn't been holding an amazing charge ever since I got it, and I suspect it had been sitting in the warehouse for quite some time before it reached my wrist. Apparently wrist watches aren't much of a hot commodity these days? Weird.

Anyway, with two dead watches, I decided that it was time to take matters into my own hands.

Starting with the older watch, just in case.

This will require a few tools.

Which are all surprisingly inexpensive. I didn't actually end up using all of these; some of them I bought just in case I'd need them part way through the procedure.

Anyway, step one is getting the watch itself off the band. In this case, this is done by releasing a pair of spring bars that hold the band, releasing them from the watch body itself.

These spring bars have seen some shit, but we'll come back to them later.

Anyway, now that we have the patient on the gurney, we can begin.

We need to remove the case back, and surprisingly the most effective tool for this is made by Bergeon, and is a soft, tacky rubber ball called the BOOB.

Sorry, I mean the 8008. My bad.

Unfortunately the case back on this watch got itself welded on with congealed wrist-cheese, so just the BOOB alone wasn't quite enough to get the case back off. Not because the BOOB couldn't apply enough force, but surprisingly because I couldn't hold the rest of the watch tightly enough in my hand.

Thankfully, there's a tool for that too.

And we're in.

The counterweight partially obstructs the battery, so it needs to come off. It's only held in place by the one screw in the middle, so out it comes.

And it is somehow not the tiniest screw we're going to be dealing with today.

With the counterweight off, we can get access to the battery bridge.

And remove the two tinier screws to get it out of the way.

They are smol.

The insulator comes off next. It's just captured by a few plastic posts.

And then out comes the battery.

That white sawtooth-looking thing is actually the back of the date ring. On the other side, the days of the month are printed, and get ratcheted into place at around midnight each day.

So the battery is out.

And it is smol.

And because it has some funny tabs spot-welded to it, you need to buy the exact right replacement, which varies between different movements.

For my future reference, this movement takes a 3023-24X

And in it goes.

Followed by the insulator.

And the bridge.

And the tiny, tiny screws.

And the counterweight, making sure the gear lines up with the pinion it drives, and that it sits down in the correct orientation over the stud, which has some flats on the sides.

And then the back gets BOOBed, after giving the o-ring a little silicone loving to make sure it doesn't bind up.

And then we replace those ratty old spring bars with brand new ones.

Or maybe I'm replacing the "spring bap", hard to say.

But what's slightly annoying is that I ordered 1.5mm spring bars, and what I actually needed was 1.8mm, so I guess the old ones are going back in for now. (I've got the right size on order, and they should be here tomorrow).

Ah well, it is what it is.

The important thing is I now know what time it is. And with that practice under my belt, it's time to do the swap on my other watch.

Second verse, same as the first. Except this one takes a 3023-24T. Because of course it does.

There's a saying out there, that goes a little something like this: A man who owns a watch always knows what time it is.

But a man who owns two watches is never quite sure.