Complete idiot’s guide to (successfully) replacing hands - 7S26

[Ragnarok]

As per thread title, I have never tried messing with the component parts of any of my Seiko watches, and I have read some of the online ‘how-to’ guides which always go along the lines of “all you do is…”

I learned a very long time ago that anything worth doing can never be successfully achieved with an “all you do is…” mentality.

So, I made a titanium wrench to remove the back from a sacrificial Seiko 5 (which worked out pretty cool ) and I have an inexpensive hands removal tool, with an equally inexpensive hands setting tool (a double ended device of different diameters that resembles the end of a mechanical pencil, minus the lead).

My question is very simple really.

How do you seat the hands without pressing too gently (chance would be a fine thing) or without pressing far too hard, which is what I am really worried about, given that I am 6' 4" and 240 pounds

Any fool can screw things up handsomely but I’d rather avoid being said fool on this occasion – plenty of time to make a right old mess of it another day, and I’m pretty sure I will at some point.

So, how much pressure is enough ?

Is there a way of ‘feeling’ the hands seat properly ?

This is going to be done with minimal tooling and lots of patience and only to satisfy a curiosity.

If necessary I could arrange to clamp the watch centrally beneath a miniature press to guarantee a constant downward angle, but I would rather do this with the hand tools if possible.

Any mods I am considering will be done by someone who actually knows what they are doing so this is purely a 'curiosity killed the cat' thing.

I guess a lot of people get this itch – I just want to minimise the chances of messing up and, having seen the results of someone who claimed to know what they were doing, I am keen to avoid such monumental screw ups myself, if at all possible.

So I let the watch run down until it stopped and I have the back removed and the hands removed, after making a dial guard from acetate sheet.

How do I get the whole lot back together again without killing the movement or without using too little pressure to effectively seat the hands ?

Thanks in advance.

[cold_beer839]

Use a lighted magifying glass on a stand for hour and minute hands and a 10x loupe (with a good light source) for the seconds hand. Jewelers visor is also handy. You also need a proper set of hand setting tools. I use a small wad of Bergeon cleaning putty on a toothpick tip to 'stick' the hands to, then position them over the shaft for pressing on (tweezers, even nylon tipped, can scratch, mark, and damage delicate hands). Movement holders are optional, I just use a hard flat surface. Remember to line up the hour and minute hands so they hit the hours correctly, the seconds hand can go on any which way. Make sure the hands don't strike each other and they are pressed onto the same plane relative to each other (in other words not crooked).

[xristianos]

My understanding.

The hour hand has 1.50 diameter.
The minute hand has 0.90 diameter.

If you use your hand presser 1.20 -1.40, then it will push the hour hand onto its position (1.50) without going too far down (being that the hand press can not go down any further but the hour hand can). Same goes for the minute hand. If you use 0.70 - 0.80, then it will push your minute hand to position.