The wonderful Seiko 7009-8230 was given to me by a friend in the watch community in the Facebook group. He has owned it for years but fell over one day and broke the crystal and lost the second hand. It lay in a draw for months. After doing some work on some of his watches this one turned up as a gift, he suggested I could use it for parts. The dial has some scratches to it and its seen better days but the movement was nice and clean. The indices are amazing plus the rich blue of the dial. I knew this one would be a good candidate for restoration!
it took months to get round to doing it and first call was to see if any crystals were available. Off to Cousins website I went and with some part number searching I came across the one I needed. It was from SK rather than a Seiko Original but that did not matter to me. when it arrived it was then that I realised this was a faceted crystal, I honestly had not noticed this on the original due to it being broken. what also set it apart from any other facet crystals I have is that it was acrylic and faceted on the underside. Good thinking as this would prevent damage and make it easy to remove scratches with polywatch if / when required.
I then restored the case and bezel with contrasting high polish and brushed finishes before fitting the crystal. The end result was fantastic however there was one last twist in the tale….. the dreaded 19mm lugs…
19mm is not common so finding a suitable bracelet or strap is more difficult and there is less choice. I figured a bracelet would be good for this one and ended up buying a cheap £5 one from Cousins that has brushed and polish finishes to match the case. This bracelet was 20mm lug width so I decided to file down the ends carefully to fit.
All in all a very nice outcome and a beautiful watch was brought back from the dead.
