For a comprehensive information site I recommend here:
http://www.dodde.eu/Site/Welcome.html
done very well by a strong enthusiast of this watch. In this article, I post mostly pictures and some little details of my very own watch.
One of five hundred made (possibly more...but not much more) is this very well known (to those few hundred fortunate individuals...) but rare Citizen watch:
 |
| My surviving example in this year of 2016, after having brought it through some careless use, like while fixing my car, only because it was super tough. I had thoroughly enjoyed the watch since purchasing it in a watch shop in Chadstone Shopping Centre, Melbourne, Australia in the early post-Millennium years. Don't remember the year. |
 |
| It grabbed me as a super tough...true to its name...with metal injection moulded Duratect titanium which basically meant that the moulded titanium was further surface hardened by one or several of Citizen's proprietary processes all labelled with the 'Duratect' heading. |
 |
| Duratect titanium, taking its toll after several years (a good decade plus...) of my very own abuse! I'll just say it took my bashing very well indeed. The Duratect surface hardening technology (perhaps it was the earlier type) still shows microscopic dings and dangs all round the bracelet and the watch case as shown above. These shots were captured with a Nikon 105mm macro lens. The edges suffered the most as compared the flatter regions. No surprises here. |
 |
| These photos above were captured a couple of years earlier. The ones below are recent in 2016. |
My watch had suffered two breakdowns to date. The first breakdown was a good 10 years ago approximately. It had the same symptoms, watch stopped completely and would not respond to any amount of sunlight charging. Back then I had it figured out to be a bad battery, yes despite being an Eco-drive (Non perpetual calendar) powered by sunlight, a battery of sort is needed to keep charge.
I had it sent in to Malaysia's Citizen service centre in Kuala Lumpur costing me RM400 back then. It came back working fine till recently. The same non-charging symptoms had arisen again. I'm guessing its to do with the battery technology.
This time in 2016, Malaysia's Citizen Service Centre rejected my watch saying that they do not have the parts anymore. So I tried Singapore and wouldn't you know it, Singapore had no problems ordering parts for my watch. They had the seals and recommended that I change the crown also to which I gave a resounding yes.
 |
| Kudos to the Singapore Citizen Watch Service Centre...You're the best! |
 |
| Part numbers for seals and crown of my watch. B872 is the calibre of the watch. |
 |
| Technician who took apart my watch on the spot recommended a change of the crown to ensure seals are fresh to 20 atm (200m) water depth. |
 |
| Singapore's Citizen Service Centre... |
 |
| Singapore's Citizen Service Centre... |
 |
A rare picture from the Net. A watch case within a watch case. This watch boasts the highest anti-magnetic rating amongst watches to the tune of 16,000 gauss. How strong is 16,000 gauss? Simplified, here we are into the territory of big electromagnets of the kind used in lifting steel structures or check out this youtube video of a 1.5 Tesla (15,000 gauss) MRI machine:
Youtube Dangers of MRI
|
 |
| The culprit for my non-performing watch state...battery technology from the pre-millennium era. |
 |
| Earlier adjusted bracelet...I prefer to centralise my watch case and clasp on my left wrist a bit more...so a re-adjustment by myself was done. |
 |
| Added an extra link on one side while removing one from the other to balance it. |
 |
| Simple push in with a blunt tool to remove and install links...You can see this is a tri-fold clasp with a diver's extension. All titanium. |
 |
| I still have my original bits of the bracelet left from brand new. Bracelets are adjusted to the current configuration I'm wearing now in 2016. |
 |
| Rubber/Silicone (Your guess good as mine) cushioning had gone a bit out of shape but still doing its job. No replacement parts available for it though. The inner watch case back being a monobloc like a Seiko 1000m Marinemaster, actually had a stuck on piece of stamped (with raised lettering and Citizen symbol) alloy or stainless steel piece that had dropped off at some stage of my watch's earlier life. If it was meant to drop off, I'll agreeably think that it should. Cost-saving way of Citizen to make this earlier generation of titanium watch I think. To Duratect treat or manufacture a case with titanium having raised letterings or symbols may have been prohibitive at the price point of this watch in those years, perhaps. |
 |
| Picture from the Net of the original stuck on alloy(or stainless steel) piece portion of the watch back case. |
 |
| Brand new watch crown. It may seem off-centred...several online pictures show the same phenomenon on other watches. The wedging lock action and positioning of the floating (in rubber /silicone) inner watch case may have slight movable offsets. |
 |
| Loosened crown shows the V-shaped wedge of the seating surface as the crown is tightened. |
That's all for the time being folks...
No comments:
Post a Comment