Tawatec auto as daily beater

[MikoDel]

Tawatec auto as daily beater

As you can see by the time, it wan't too long after the first photo was taken that I finally found the missing bezel. Yaaaay! It's been weeks. It was in the bottom of one of my rope baskets... tree climbing line. I was looking for it on the ground by my shed on onsite where I was working. It's a good thing, because Tawatec will not ship parts. Actually, in her email she said "Luminox will not ship parts" so maybe the two brands are the same. This from the store in Rhode Island, or wherever that ONE single authorized US dealer/service center is.

Any significant pressure on one side of the bezel can be enough to make it pop off. Since I wear the watch on the inside, I have to be careful when picking things up, not to exert too much pressure on the bezel edge. These Tawatecs, despite having bezels that like to jump off (I also had a quartz Taw that did the same thing) can be great daily beater watches.

Now, that quartz I had failed within a month's time, which kind of soured me to the brand for awhile. The stem became stiffer and stiffer and then froze altogether. It still ran, but I could not set the time! But I purchased this automatic before that quartz, and also from a different dealer. I thought I was on borrowed time with this one (pardon my pun) but it's now been 16 months with the auto. It's working great.

The crystal is plain glass, and it had scratches probably within the first few days of ownership. But that's ideal - seriously. You don't want to wear a near-perfect timepiece for activities you know are going to take their toll. I have two other watches that I wear daily, a Casio Pro-Trek and a G-SAR, but if it's going to be a rough, tough dirty job, like tree work, the Taw is my go-to.

The blue tritium shines brightly in the middle of the night, and the watch is big but light and comfortable, especially with this aftermarket black metal bracelet. (Which, incidentally, is no longer available as far as I can tell.) And it's waterproof to a point. I have been swimming and in the shower with this watch many, many times. I do not SCUBA.

If you like tritium and are fond of automatics, but don't want to splurge for something so dear you won't use it for hard work, I think the Tawatec EO Diver automatic (not the Titan series) is a good choice. Not cheap, but not crazy either. Cost me 288.xx Euro after shipping, around $350 today, from MilWatches.com. Bernd and the folks at MilWatches are responsive to customer inquiries.