The Under £200ish Watch and occasional Opera Thread! Vol2
Discussion
Llentil the llama said:
I also have moved my most recent watch from it's bracelet to a vintage leather strap today. Loving this....
Love an orient. That's a great looking watch! I had a 1971 chronoace for a while back there. It was only 37-38mm, so wore a little small for me, but the movement was first class!
Time for a Skunk update.
It's more of the same, but I have reached a milestone.
Here's a photo showing some real progress since my last post.
I'm going to post that again, with graffiti.
Green lines show tubes that have been replaced like for like.
The blue lines show tubes that were originally 20mm square tube but have been replaced with 25mm tube. These are tubes that were bent quite badly, so I've beefed them up a tad.
In that photo, I still had a bit of welding to do, specifically here:
The tube disappearing into the bottom right corner of the photo was welded to the vertical (in the photo, the chassis is still on it's side) tube first, then the horizontal tube was welded in on three sides. But that angle is a full on genital acher of a hurty bottom to weld. I mean I'm sure a professional TIG welder would liken me to the blouse of a girly and weld it in seconds. But a pro welder sadly I am not.
The problem is two fold, here's a photo I nicked from t'internet.
It's a TIG torch. The bits we're interested in are the Tungsten electrode and the gas nozzle. As you can see from the picture, the tungsten stick out from the nozzle. The tungsten is sharpened to a point, in operation current flows though the gap between the tip of the tungsten and the metal you're welding as a plasma arc. The metal is heated, melts and you poke filler wire into the weld pool as you go. You're aiming to keep a nice tight gap between the tungsten and the pool; something like 2 to 5 mm.
The gas nozzle's job is to direct a shroud of argon gas over the weld puddle, without it, the steel burns white hot and does a fairly good impression of an angry volcano.
In order to get into that corner the tungsten has to poke a long way out of the nozzle, because the nozzle doesn't fit nicely into the V shaped gap. But the more you poke it out, the harder it is to get a good shroud of gas. That's problem 1.
The second problem is that when you do get the tungsten into the V, the plasma flows off the tungsten to the metal over the shortest air (well, hopefully argon) gap. In a tight corner like that it's really difficult to stop the arc coming off the side of the tungsten rather than the tip. When it does this, the arc isn't focussed and the metal doesn't melt. It still gets ****ing hot though.
So, it's tricksy. Time for another photo.
Yes, exciting. Three small pieces of 2mm mild steel. Because it'll save me typing several thousand words, here' some more photos:
And finally:
Yes, it's a fillet. There's more muscle power involved cutting and sizing the small bits of steel, but overall it's much faster to do this than it is (for me) to try to weld into that V. Not only that but less welding time means less expensive argon and less risk of inhaling zinc vapour, the original chassis was zinc dipped. Yes even though there is much more welding here, I can easily get to the welds, so I'm faster and I'm happier that I've done a decent job. The filleted joint should be a bit stronger too.
Next job. The crown and pinion drive sits between two 25mm chassis tubes. Here's the mount circled in a previous photo:
And here's my (part built) beefed up mount:
I've already replaced one of the tubes that the mount will attach to, now I have to add the second one and the two tubes need to be exactly spaced and parallel. I need some spacers...
Two pieces of 30mm square tube were cut to exactly the same size as the new crown and pinion mount. That's the mount just behind the tubes. It's the wrong tool for the job, but I used my bench woodworking sander to get the ends of the tubes exactly square and the length bang on.
Here's the new tube clamped in place with the C&P mount roughly where it needs to be and the two spacers keeping the tube parallel.
That's it for now. I have fully welded this tube in, but I don't have a photo I must not tell lies.
I mentioned a major milestone. I've now replaced all the bent chassis tubes, the chassis is now fully straight! Well, OK, straight-ish. Straight enough. Much straighter than is was.
Hmmn. All the accident bent tubes have been sliced out and replaced. Well all bar one teeny diagonal. But I'll save that for the next gripping instalment, which will have to wait for my next trip to the shed!
It's more of the same, but I have reached a milestone.
Here's a photo showing some real progress since my last post.
I'm going to post that again, with graffiti.
Green lines show tubes that have been replaced like for like.
The blue lines show tubes that were originally 20mm square tube but have been replaced with 25mm tube. These are tubes that were bent quite badly, so I've beefed them up a tad.
In that photo, I still had a bit of welding to do, specifically here:
The tube disappearing into the bottom right corner of the photo was welded to the vertical (in the photo, the chassis is still on it's side) tube first, then the horizontal tube was welded in on three sides. But that angle is a full on genital acher of a hurty bottom to weld. I mean I'm sure a professional TIG welder would liken me to the blouse of a girly and weld it in seconds. But a pro welder sadly I am not.
The problem is two fold, here's a photo I nicked from t'internet.
It's a TIG torch. The bits we're interested in are the Tungsten electrode and the gas nozzle. As you can see from the picture, the tungsten stick out from the nozzle. The tungsten is sharpened to a point, in operation current flows though the gap between the tip of the tungsten and the metal you're welding as a plasma arc. The metal is heated, melts and you poke filler wire into the weld pool as you go. You're aiming to keep a nice tight gap between the tungsten and the pool; something like 2 to 5 mm.
The gas nozzle's job is to direct a shroud of argon gas over the weld puddle, without it, the steel burns white hot and does a fairly good impression of an angry volcano.
In order to get into that corner the tungsten has to poke a long way out of the nozzle, because the nozzle doesn't fit nicely into the V shaped gap. But the more you poke it out, the harder it is to get a good shroud of gas. That's problem 1.
The second problem is that when you do get the tungsten into the V, the plasma flows off the tungsten to the metal over the shortest air (well, hopefully argon) gap. In a tight corner like that it's really difficult to stop the arc coming off the side of the tungsten rather than the tip. When it does this, the arc isn't focussed and the metal doesn't melt. It still gets ****ing hot though.
So, it's tricksy. Time for another photo.
Yes, exciting. Three small pieces of 2mm mild steel. Because it'll save me typing several thousand words, here' some more photos:
And finally:
Yes, it's a fillet. There's more muscle power involved cutting and sizing the small bits of steel, but overall it's much faster to do this than it is (for me) to try to weld into that V. Not only that but less welding time means less expensive argon and less risk of inhaling zinc vapour, the original chassis was zinc dipped. Yes even though there is much more welding here, I can easily get to the welds, so I'm faster and I'm happier that I've done a decent job. The filleted joint should be a bit stronger too.
Next job. The crown and pinion drive sits between two 25mm chassis tubes. Here's the mount circled in a previous photo:
And here's my (part built) beefed up mount:
I've already replaced one of the tubes that the mount will attach to, now I have to add the second one and the two tubes need to be exactly spaced and parallel. I need some spacers...
Two pieces of 30mm square tube were cut to exactly the same size as the new crown and pinion mount. That's the mount just behind the tubes. It's the wrong tool for the job, but I used my bench woodworking sander to get the ends of the tubes exactly square and the length bang on.
Here's the new tube clamped in place with the C&P mount roughly where it needs to be and the two spacers keeping the tube parallel.
That's it for now. I have fully welded this tube in,
I mentioned a major milestone. I've now replaced all the bent chassis tubes, the chassis is now fully straight! Well, OK, straight-ish. Straight enough. Much straighter than is was.
Hmmn. All the accident bent tubes have been sliced out and replaced. Well all bar one teeny diagonal. But I'll save that for the next gripping instalment, which will have to wait for my next trip to the shed!
Edited by BrokenSkunk on Tuesday 10th March 14:15
Edited by BrokenSkunk on Tuesday 10th March 14:16
redrabbit said:
Those Phorcydes watches really do look pretty cool, don't they?
Can we have some reviews from our purchasers here when they arrive? At around £110-odd (if my googling is correct) they look great value.
Arrived today Can we have some reviews from our purchasers here when they arrive? At around £110-odd (if my googling is correct) they look great value.
https://phorcydes.net/products/ph-2-skin-diver-wat...
Generally looks spot on to my not-well-trained-at-picking-up-small-problems-on-watches eyes. The hands line up at 12, and appear to point to the indices on the hour. The lume block in the hour hand which seems to be slightly short of the point cut into the hand in the photos on the website is actually filling it precisely in real life. The lume blocks in general also appear sharper/better printed than they do on some of the website pics.
The dome of the crown wheel appears to be blued... I don't think it's a plastic film protective cover on it??? I like it anyway.
Bezel clicks around nicely. What are you supposed to do with these, anyway? AIUI, they're for timing on dives but I don't dive and never really worked out how to use them (also I'm not usually a big fan of dive watches)...
The on-the-fly adjusting clasp appears to adjust as promised. Feels like a nicely made thing.
I noticed a while ago some comments mentioning that people weren't keen on screw-bar bracelets.
I am very, very, short sighted which means I can take my specs off and have a focal range of about 2 inches, starting 2 inches from my eyes. I can see things up reallllly close! These screw in bars were still fiddly and quite hard to see what I was doing, so I guess with normal vision they must be a bit of a PITA.
Phorcydes helpfully sent a 1.5mm screwdriver along with the watch for resizing duties.
Unfortunately this is too big for the screws!!! My 1.5 precision bit was exactly the same, so it's not the driver's fault.
Anyone else getting one of these on a bracelet, take note - I had to file down each side of the screwdriver slightly to get a good fit in the recessed screw slot. (I might have had a smaller screwdriver somewhere, but it'll be out in the garage, and it's raining.)
Pic taken before filing. It's fractions of a mm, but still makes a difference.
(I always do this sort of work on a tea towel, it stops little bits rolling away never to seen again
)I took 3 links out for my 7.5"-ish wrist.
It sits very nicely - as other reviews have mentioned, the case shape visually hides the fairly chunky bottom half well. Feels like it will wear well despite the chunk - my jumper sleeve slipped over it nicely rather than getting caught.
And the lume is great, as promised:
I'm considering selling my Luminox now; I've not been wearing it much anyway and this will cover much the same uses.
You use the bezel for timing by rotating the zero time pointer to the minute hand, as the time moves forward, the minute hand aligns with the minutes elapsed, so at 15 minutes the minute hand points to 15 on the bezel.
Decorative bezels with no numbers are useless.
This is my Seiko Monster set just now, with my 2 Seiko turtles.
Decorative bezels with no numbers are useless.
This is my Seiko Monster set just now, with my 2 Seiko turtles.
Dive time bezels are useful for cooking larger joints of meat on a bbq (although I generally cook to temperature not time these days)
They’re also essential for timing the coffee break in a rehearsal session. Its embarrassing if stage management have to come and find the singers LOL
And they look cool.
They’re also essential for timing the coffee break in a rehearsal session. Its embarrassing if stage management have to come and find the singers LOL
And they look cool.
I always preferred (having had but one...) countdown bezels for actually timing anything (other than how long I've been underwater).
Much easier (IMO) to set it to the length of time you want to cook something (only really use case I had) vs. how long it's been cooking.
But maybe that's just me.
It's why I'd rather like a Tudor FXD (having had a thread-friendly Tactical Frog in the past).
Only other watch I can think of with similar is a Sinn 104 but (despite in principle being quite cool) I'm not that keen.
Much easier (IMO) to set it to the length of time you want to cook something (only really use case I had) vs. how long it's been cooking.
But maybe that's just me.
It's why I'd rather like a Tudor FXD (having had a thread-friendly Tactical Frog in the past).
Only other watch I can think of with similar is a Sinn 104 but (despite in principle being quite cool) I'm not that keen.
Looking for that Tactical Frog photo, I was faced with the evidence of my exploring (pun somewhat intended) of the (almost exclusively) Under £200ish Watch world over the last 3 or so years.
Almost all gone now, but they served their purpose in helping me hone my 'collection' (
).
Some classics of the genre in there... if anyone has questions about any of them - AMA.
Almost all gone now, but they served their purpose in helping me hone my 'collection' (
).Some classics of the genre in there... if anyone has questions about any of them - AMA.
nckr55 said:
Looking for that Tactical Frog photo, I was faced with the evidence of my exploring (pun somewhat intended) of the (almost exclusively) Under £200ish Watch world over the last 3 or so years.
Almost all gone now, but they served their purpose in helping me hone my 'collection' ().
Some classics of the genre in there... if anyone has questions about any of them - AMA.
I quite like this 41mm GMT from Corgeut, as I have a thing about getting a vintage pepsi GMT with gilt-y dial, on a brown/tan leather strap at the moment, and 41mm is my goldilocks size.Almost all gone now, but they served their purpose in helping me hone my 'collection' (
).Some classics of the genre in there... if anyone has questions about any of them - AMA.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007681770732.h...
WayOutWest said:
I quite like this 41mm GMT from Corgeut, as I have a thing about getting a vintage pepsi GMT with gilt-y dial, on a brown/tan leather strap at the moment, and 41mm is my goldilocks size.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007681770732.h...
I didn't have this Corgeut for any longer than it took me to re-list it on eBay (after realising just what a slab-side chunk it was) but not sure I'd pay £150 for one. Nothing from San Martin etc that scratches that itch? They'll be more expensive but not by much. Seiko 5 GMT's available lightly used for the same sort of money now, too (c. £200). https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007681770732.h...
nckr55 said:
WayOutWest said:
I quite like this 41mm GMT from Corgeut, as I have a thing about getting a vintage pepsi GMT with gilt-y dial, on a brown/tan leather strap at the moment, and 41mm is my goldilocks size.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007681770732.h...
I didn't have this Corgeut for any longer than it took me to re-list it on eBay (after realising just what a slab-side chunk it was) but not sure I'd pay £150 for one. Nothing from San Martin etc that scratches that itch? They'll be more expensive but not by much. Seiko 5 GMT's available lightly used for the same sort of money now, too (c. £200). https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007681770732.h...
The San Martins and that Watchdives at the bottom are nice, its a shame it is such a stupid name for a brand but I do appreciate the sheer variety of designs they offer even if they are copying. Nothing wrong with the Seiko GMT but a bit too modern a look.
I'm still a bit resistent to these AliExpress brands on principle, so considered the Timex Q Pepsi GMT but 38mm is too small and getting a suitable tan leather strap for it wouldn't be easy given the lug design.
Bobberoo said:
Looks like some good progress being made BrokenSkunk, your welding is far better than the bird s
t technique I'm capable of!!
Thanks, but its TIG. Its supposed to look much nicer than I can make it look.t technique I'm capable of!!Barchettaman said:
Came for the watches, stayed for the welding.
I doff a suitably operatic cap to you, sir.
Keep em coming.
We've seen your operatic cap, it was made of chicken wire. If I were you I'd be looking for any excuse to doff it too.I doff a suitably operatic cap to you, sir.
Keep em coming.
Aw, shucks chaps. Thanks.
732NM said:
You use the bezel for timing by rotating the zero time pointer to the minute hand, as the time moves forward, the minute hand aligns with the minutes elapsed, so at 15 minutes the minute hand points to 15 on the bezel.
Decorative bezels with no numbers are useless.
This is my Seiko Monster set just now, with my 2 Seiko turtles.
Decorative bezels with no numbers are useless.
This is my Seiko Monster set just now, with my 2 Seiko turtles.
Cheers, that makes sense.
The Phorcydes does have distinguishable markers on its bezel, so it could be useful.
If I ever go diving.
Which I won't because even dipping a bit under in the deep end kills my sinuses.
And if the watch is actually waterproof!
After wearing it today, I will say I do like the on-the-fly adjustment, it made it much more comfortable through the day than I have previously found with metal bracelets.
And the company logo on the face is so understated it's almost not there, which I like too.
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