SAMDA Tank

One thing seems to be pretty constant in the land of watches, KingWangers (and KingWang loves to watch) people are just filled with snobbery, ignorance, self deception and tribalism. The Chinese watch market is well known for some real bargains and some recent (perhaps ending) movement upwards into high end. The little SAMDA Tank is no pretentious high price watch, it cost me just AU$20 shipped. It is perhaps the very essence of what attracted me to Chinese watches in the first place.

Doing its very best to make a very low priced entry into the almost forgotten valley of the Cartier Tank or the Gruen watch for men (who don't feel they want or need the compensation of a big divers lead weight on their arm at all times) that's stylish, compact and robust. Yes, robust, I bought this little watch back in March 2024, and so I've been wearing it for about a year now. 

When it first arrived it was on a dressy little black leather strap with a deployant clasp. The blued hands are a nice touch (but on sunny days they mostly look black).

From the get go I wanted to wear it as a daily driver, so I removed that strap (because it didn't look like it'd stand up to things) and put it on an old leather strap that I've had for 5 or so years (and gets cycled through a few watches). The lug width is 20mm (as is most of my watches) and so its able to join the strap family immediately ..

You may notice between those two pictures (and about a year) that almost no marks have appeared on the watch. This is (IMO) because of the choice to reduce costs by giving the watch a chrome plating (chrome is hard so resists scratches). By not making it out of machined then polished stainless steel costs are kept down and the watch looks bright and attractive. In fact its often worn under my wrist and yet still (despite lots of keyboard and mechanical work) there are no marks.

Its my preferred watch for working on stuff (like my motorbike) because its so thin it never catches on things (when reaching into small spaces).

Its just over 7mm in thickness and its stunningly light (meaning you don't feel 'wrist fatigue' after wearing it all day). The watch itself is very light at just under 21g (won't get that without Quartz or a big budget).

The strap adds very little to this ...

Despite wearing it on sweaty summer days the back of the watch remains clean and corrosion free.

 Even the crown remains looking good (and I'd half expected that jewel to fall off)

So what's not to like?

Well, as I mentioned people in Watch Wanking poohoo anything not mechanical. Myself I'm rather agnostic and have about as many watches with Quartz movements as I do Mechanical ones. Yet because its Quartz this little light weight watch has remained within a minute of time set when I first got it, in fact it may be within 20 seconds (its hard to say as it doesn't have a second hand).

Crystal is harlex (and Wangers seem to demand Sapphire), yet still also has no visible scratches (heads popping in KingWang's empire).

Original strap wasn't to my taste, so there's that.

The style and execution of this watch is not for everyone, but for someone who wants to know the time, doesn't want to spend a lot of money and isn't a Wanger this watch may just turn your mind back to a time when men could wear an elegant and slim watch (rather than apparently needing a big bold statement) such as this one (pic stolen from the internet).

The Cartier Tank has a solid history and some famous men who liked it.

SAMDA or SANDA or something else

Lastly there is the debate about the name of the company referring to the picture of the back of the watch I see a lower case n but with a watch at "ten past ten" on the dial. 

Maybe its just like an artwork of letters and nothing more? Whatever, its at least a nice bit of whimsy from a nation (China) where language is pictographic ...

So there you go ... if you can get past your cognitive Wanger bias against Quartz, then this must surely be the low hanging fruit of value for money in reliable and functional Chinese Watches.

Win Win

FAFO

Good old FAFO ... 

Usually this is represented as a linear relationship between fucking around and the "found out" outcome; I don't think this is actually correct and the chance of death increases with the level of "fucking around" people do.

Accordingly I put this together

Eventually (when you reach a level 10 of fuck around) you actually won't find out.

listening to your inner voice

I decided that I wanted to change the (rather antique style) grips on my SR500 for something more comfortable. 

I'm pretty happy with them but unlike the older styles, the ends are "uncovered" on modern grips. This left me the task of attaching end covers for aesthetic and functional reasons. I ended up selecting these:

as (before I'd taken the grips off) I figured they'd be suitable no matter what I found (empty hollow bar end or filled in with something. As it turns out the Yamaha bars had solid steel rod inserted into the bar to assist with damping vibrations. So I had to drill and tap a thread into this.

This task was done by:

1. carefully identifying the center and then marking that with a center punch
2. drilling a small pilot hole (that was straight and con-centric to the bars)
3. successively drilling this out to the final diameter needed for the thread cutting tool
4. cutting that thread (there's a technique) 
5. shortening the supplied bolt
6. screwing it in and using light grade thread locker on that 

Left hand done, I moved over to the right where I met with problems on step 4

Because of an additional complication on the RHS, you can't imagine how much I feared this outcome and had taken every possible precaution against it by 

• turning gently (two fingers)
• only turning till it bound
• back off at least one, sometimes two turns to feel for the 'break' of the cutting tool swarf 
• backing all the way out to double check the measurements of drill depth 
• knowing how far I'd been able to turn the cutting tool into the newly cut thread...

Of course now I haven't fucking got a cover on that side because when you break these off in there, there's just no drilling it out ...

On the place it broke, I'd felt that while the screws had enough thread I did not test that on the many occasions I'd backed out. I should have been doing this to be clear exactly how many turns of thread the cover mounting screw had (and it only needs a few right!!).

Had I done that I may well have saved this issue, had a good looking bar end on the right and maybe just more loctite on that one ... FCK

This is as much a warning to  others as an exercise in accident analysis and self punishment

FCK!