making my work watch visually workable

 A little while back I bought a Seiko 5 (SNK805) as a dabble back into analogue watches after a few years in digital / training watches. Keeping with the practical view I was attracted also by a fully mechanical watch which I could wear as a daily driver. However it turned out that while I liked the watch for many reasons I found that seeing the time (especially when just taking a quick glance) was a more deliberate effort of "reading the time" rather than the decades honed ability to "see the time" (more or less instant recogntion of where the hands are). 

This lead me to buy another watch which was more practical as well as a bit more smart casual where I could see the hands better. I now wear that watch as my daily driver and this nice SNK hardly comes out of the box, except when I'm working and so its become my work watch (or beater as the A Merry Cans like to call it ... in their usual curious way {a beater here is a category of wanker}).

However even then it took a moment if I wasn't wearing glasses (such as when working on my motorcycle electricals) mostly the problem was being clear about which hand was which, as both hands are quite similar in shape ...

In sharp enlarged screen size like this its mostly pretty clear which hand is which, but with diminishing close vision (exacerbated in lower light or wearing sunglasses) it took too much attention (or putting on my glasses, normally reserved for reading) it came out more like this

I've left this smaller to make it more obvious. As it happens the aging process gets our eyes eventually even if you started out needing glasses.

I wanted something which was not absurdly arty meaning something which would normally be fitted onto a watch, and found this replica of a Citizen Divers watch hands (a picture of which I found on the net).

Divers watches (before they became the domain of "never been diving watch wankers") are  the very essence of practical and with a high requirement of unambiguous clarity of reading; which I thought was quite suitable.

The hands arrived and I did a quick lay over of them to see how it looked.

It ticked all my boxes.

Now I understand why there may be some aesthetic objections to this but I'd like to say that the very nature of a field watch is practical and functional, so it is sort of a highly specific "Jewellery" category. 

With the hands now fitted it looks like this

Which has grown on me substantially in the last few days that its been there. Not only is it highly legible without my glasses but adds a classic 70's look to a watch which tries to look like military field watch. The large size of the paddle which is the hour hand instantly draws your vision to wards it and then the minute hand. Which is just what I wanted.

Some other win win aspects of this are that while the minute hand is visible to me its far less visually significant, which is EXACTLY what I have always wanted out of a watch. Indeed I've often considered a one hander such as this UNO

which is the ultimate in uncluttered reading if you ask me. Entirely sufficient to know the important stuff like: 

• what hour it is,
• is it on the hour near or just past the hour.

Stuff like minutes are the stuff of schedules and train time tables (because lets face it one has to be at the Airport much earlier now). For time critical stuff of course I rely on my phone now too.

This however is a great compromise because you can have a minute hand to pick out that if you wish (and on a smaller dial like this that's a significant bonus)

The Down Sides

The astute will have noticed that my SNK now no longer has a second hand. This was not (at first) an aesthetic choice because I was sort of slavishly reassembling my watch. I had decided to refit the original second hand (because I liked it) and unfortunately munged it up on reassembly

I discovered that it was very difficult to coordinate the (low priced) bench press type that I used to refit the hands and now believe that I would have been better off with a simple hand tool where I could feel things and use my depth perception to better place the hands. The hour and minute hands went ok, but the accuracy needed for getting the shaft down this hole meant that it was a no go. Rather than risk damage to the watch movement I just removed the second hand and left it.

I don't really feel that a second hand brings much to the table on such a watch particularly when "hacking" (or the ability to perfectly set the minute hand and second hands together) isn't present (but you can sort of do it). The only other useful function of the second hand is to show you its working.

Given that its an automatic (without hand winding) if I pick it up and the time is wrong then part of resetting and winding (before I put it on) will be to check the rear mechanism through the display back

So while its an accident I think I prefer it this way. 

What it looks like to me in daily use is like this:

I can see the grass clearly without my glasses, but not my watch (just like the above). But even like this you can see the time even if you can't read the numbers.

Takeouts

things I've learned from this:

• modding a watch is dooable but you need to have patience and preparation
• cheap tools are going to give you grief
• modding a watch can with a little planning and shopping around make a watch you like better.
• take your time, expect some small setbacks

Lastly I recommend this blog post.

Happy Modding :-)