Plastic Surgery - My first watch mod

[boludaso]

Recently purchased this fun and cool looking watch. Problem, with middle age eyes it was hard to see the hands and the light yellow chrono hand. I contacted Vaer to trade in, and CS gave me a ton of options. Before agreeing, I happened by my watch guy and I mentioned the dilemma to him and he said, just buy new hands and I'll install them.
Went to Aliexpress and bought 2 black sets, and orange and blue set. Settled on black hands and replaced the white hand on the blue subdial.
I decided to do the switch myself. Went to HF and bought this. Set up on the kitchen counter and went to work. https://www.harborfreight.com/head-lamp-magnifier-58788.html

Things learned:
1. The people that put together watches for a living, hats off to you.
2. When removing hands from movements...they like to fly away to never be seen again.
3. Sharp objects next to dials like to leave marks.
4. The tweezers left a slight glaze on the blue subdial, but cant be seen w/o magnifier.
5. Aligning hands must have a secret recipe.
6. If the chrono hand is not installed correctly, when being returned to 12 it will eject.
7. Sasquatch not real, unicorns are, your mom is funny...yes, your mom.

Pics from start to finish.

 

 

Edited August 21, 2024 by boludaso
spelling

[gpraceman]

On 8/21/2024 at 4:24 PM, boludaso said:

Things learned:
1. The people that put together watches for a living, hats off to you.
2. When removing hands from movements...they like to fly away to never be seen again.
3. Sharp objects next to dials like to leave marks.
4. The tweezers left a slight glaze on the blue subdial, but cant be seen w/o magnifier.
5. Aligning hands must have a secret recipe.
6. If the chrono hand is not installed correctly, when being returned to 12 it will eject.
7. Sasquatch not real, unicorns are, your mom is funny...yes, your mom.

Many people put down a plastic baggie over the dial and hands and then gently pry off the hands.  The baggie helps protect the dial.  Using plastic or wood tipped tweezers to pick up and place the hands helps as well.

This is how it starts.  You buy a few rudimentary tools and do a mod.  Pretty soon, you will be buying a good set of tweezers, screwdrivers, and much more to start servicing the watch movements, watching lots of YouTube servicing videos, monitoring eBay for other tools, and so on.  It gets addicting.

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 8/21/2024 at 11:24 PM, boludaso said:

Recently purchased this fun and cool looking watch. Problem, with middle age eyes it was hard to see the hands and the light yellow chrono hand. I contacted Vaer to trade in, and CS gave me a ton of options. Before agreeing, I happened by my watch guy and I mentioned the dilemma to him and he said, just buy new hands and I'll install them.
Went to Aliexpress and bought 2 black sets, and orange and blue set. Settled on black hands and replaced the white hand on the blue subdial.
I decided to do the switch myself. Went to HF and bought this. Set up on the kitchen counter and went to work. https://www.harborfreight.com/head-lamp-magnifier-58788.html

Things learned:
1. The people that put together watches for a living, hats off to you.
2. When removing hands from movements...they like to fly away to never be seen again.
3. Sharp objects next to dials like to leave marks.
4. The tweezers left a slight glaze on the blue subdial, but cant be seen w/o magnifier.
5. Aligning hands must have a secret recipe.
6. If the chrono hand is not installed correctly, when being returned to 12 it will eject.
7. Sasquatch not real, unicorns are, your mom is funny...yes, your mom.

Pics from start to finish.

 

 

Not tweezers for removing hands unless you have the specific pair, even then........what you need is some good quality hand levers and a piece of shaped paper to slip under the hands to protect the dial.