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Sun, Surf...and a Failed Dive Watch Crystal

5K views 82 replies 30 participants last post by  leewmeister 
#1 ·
I didn't even dive, just surfed a bit and played on the beach. I'm pretty sure it was the temperature change--hot beach to cold ocean. The good news was it stayed water-tight. Anyone know a replacement crystal for the Ministry Amphibia?

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#5 ·
Thanks kindly for the parts tips, fellas. Much appreciated.

Yeah, X2, this certainly surprised me. I'm not an engineer but I presume there must have been a flaw in that crystal somewhere. A couple of small cracks appeared and then just multiplied, always during the heat of the day at the beach, it seemed.
 
#8 ·
Sorry about the crystal but it did retain its water integrity, not sure either mineral or sapphire would have in similar circumstances. Acrylic is more likely to fail, like all plastics, with combinations of age + UV + chemicals.
 
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#14 ·
Sorry it happened! I hate to start a war but stories like these (and a zillion others) are why I could never buy a Russian watch. They are capable of making simple and robust large machines (tractors, guns, tanks etc) but tiny items that demand high precision and consistent quality? Ahhhh no. The Soviet items are just horrible for QC....the new ones seem to be a little better but the ones I have handled were only fair. If they were cheaper in the US I would try one as they are interesting looking. But they go for $60+ most of the time and are nowhere near worth it. For that price one can buy a lot of nice watches with miles better quality.
 
#20 ·
But they go for $60+ most of the time and are nowhere near worth it. For that price one can buy a lot of nice watches with miles better quality.
My $65 Vostok (pictured below, pic taken from web) is about 5 months old. Keeps really good time, has been in the ocean here in Hawaii maybe 10 times. The bracelet was HELL to resize but I got it done. But just out of curiosity, what auto watches that cost 60-70 bucks have "miles better quality"? Not trying to be a d-bag, just curious as to what watches you have in mind...

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#18 ·
Look on the bright side though...

You've already brushed the case, changed the strap, and changed the bezel.

After you've changed the crystal, all you'll have to do is change the hands to an aftermarket set that is more smoothly cut, the dial to an aftermarket one which is better finished and has some lume, and the movement to one which is actually reliable and ideally says seiko on it, and you'll have a really nice vostok!
 
#19 ·
Good eye on the brushing, ED209! In fact, I'm closer to your Seiko goal than is apparent from those shots. I relumed this thing when I first got it--about three years ago--and it actually glows through the night.

This is no great loss, obviously. It was an inexpensive piece to play with when I first started opening up watches and tinkering with them. And it lasted a few years, though I really didn't wear it a lot. (And in fact was about to put it on the sales forum.) I was just very surprised--did a little research and couldn't find anything quite like the crazing of that crystal.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and insights, guys. This was a fun thread.

Here's a mediocre lume shot, from before I brushed the case:

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#22 ·
I bought my Amphibia a year ago and it has been great. It keeps good time and I've never had any problems with it. I've worn it several times in the Gulf of Mexico and it performed admirably. It's built like a tank and I have no reason to think it will fail any sooner than my Seiko 5 or SKX. Those that are dismissing it just because "the Russians are incapable of precision" are simply blinded by their own biases. I'd trust the Amphibia during a dive over any Invicta. And unlike those that are dismissing Amphibias without ever owning one, my attitude towards Invicta is not bias but experience.
 
#23 ·
Oh BS. The problem with Russian anything has rarely been design, but execution of that design. For the Soviet era the drudgery of life in a Communist "workers paradise" watch factory meant un-interested workers doing the bare minimum to get by. Some of the "modern" Russian factories that are indeed more modern and have workers that are incentivized by decent pay mean quality is higher than any comparable Soviet item......... BUT does that mean that a modern Russian watch factory has just as high of standards as a modern Swiss or Asian factory? I dont see how anybody could argue that they do. I am very sure that many Russian watches last a long time and give good service. I am also sure that Russian failure rates are far higher than a comparably priced watch made anywhere else because of the chaotic nature of life in the Russian Federation. When a worker knows they have three hots and a cot waiting for them every day when they get home because they know how much a Dollar or Yen or Euro will buy that day it makes a huge difference. When a county and currency is in a state of massive disruption because of internal conflict (and external) a worker will not produce the same quality product. Those are not bias' showing, those are facts.



Again, I point out that I find many of the Russian divers quite interesting and attractive, and I would be willing to try one but only at the right prices. My price on taking a chance on a watch that might crap out even under the light use I will give it is around $30-40, not the $60 and up that they go for for a unit that is not already beat to hell. I have read the above link on the Vostok design and think the design was and still is, very very good. But the ability for Russian factories to turn out that design is suspect to me. Again, when even the Russian jewelry store across the street from me does not even recommend the Vostocks they carry, it is enough to give me pause. The owner, from then Lenningrad (now St Petersberg) wears Bulovas and Citizens because he once worked in a Russian factory. The Sacramento area has a large Russian immigrant population and he carries Vostocks because he can sell them. When I asked about them months ago because of how cool they looked on WUS, he said (In a light Russian accent)" let me show you the difference". He pulled out some sort of Russian watch (I dont remember the model) and a Citizen. After showing me the many QC flaws in the Russian model and none in the Citizen I asked him if that means the watch wont run a long time and he said "no", but you have a far larger chance that it will quit or break than another brand. That is what I base my opinion on. Is the guy I talked to have the best opinion? Who knows but I have no reason to think he was lying. I actually still look for a great deal on a Russian diver and I will buy one when I find one at the right price.........just like I did with my Invictas, because I want to see for myself. But just like with the Invictas, I refuse to pay a lot to take a chance.
 
#25 ·
I wouldn't generalise to all of russian industry at all, and no disrespect to anyone who loves theirs, but I am confident in saying that vostok makes a lot of pretty shoddy watches that are miles behind any of the ~1,500 similarly priced seiko 5s (when I compared seiko 5s favourably to vostoks on the russian forum, everybody jumped on me and said it was an invalid comparison because vostoks are quirky and supposedly not mass produced apparently and break all the time, but I think it is a sound point).

In the last year (around the time of the rouble crash) I bought three new vostoks from reputable sellers, they had light use only and two out of the three are now not working. Actually I don't know about the third; I don't really trust it enough to wear either. I keep meaning to send them back but I wouldn't trust a replacement anyway.

One of my failed vostoks runs fine perhaps 8 or 9 days out of 10 but stops for an hour or two on the other days, making it probably worse than useless (somebody posted above that their's does the same). The other one does not run at all so at least is correct twice per day. Apart from the shonky movements, the hands look like they have been cut out with plastic safety scissors and the dials printed with a cut potato. The dead one spent a couple of weeks on my desk in my north facing office away from any direct light, and when I picked it up and moved the hands the dial around them had faded EXTREMELY noticeabley (I do leave stopped watches out from time to time and have never seen anything like this with any of them). And the bracelets are awful, just awful.

They might be OK watches for $35 (if you get lucky and receive one that isn't faulty) but not for $65. Oh, and speaking of dollars I also resent the regular sellers gouging overseas customers by selling in dollars only, making them almost twice as much money for the same shonky product that they sell domestically. I also bought some used handwind ones and only one of those has since broken, which is better but not great. But if we are going to talk non-dive rated used handwind watches, you can get two or three HMTs from India for the same price as one vostok, and each will be more reliable, and none will have a crude representation of an aircraft carrier on the dial.

I really wanted to like them, but fell out of love with the brand very quickly. I can't help but feel that people who do like the brand just haven't had enough break down on them yet...enjoy them in the meantime though!
 
#27 · (Edited)
I wouldn't generalise to all of russian industry at all, and no disrespect to anyone who loves theirs, but I am confident in saying that vostok makes a lot of pretty shoddy watches that are miles behind any of the ~1,500 similarly priced seiko 5s (when I compared seiko 5s favourably to vostoks on the russian forum, everybody jumped on me and said it was an invalid comparison because vostoks are quirky and supposedly not mass produced apparently and break all the time, but I think it is a sound point).

One of my failed vostoks runs fine perhaps 8 or 9 days out of 10 but stops for an hour or two on the other days, making it probably worse than useless (somebody posted above that their's does the same). The other one does not run at all so at least is correct twice per day. Apart from the shonky movements, the hands look like they have been cut out with plastic safety scissors and the dials printed with a cut potato. The dead one spent a couple of weeks on my desk in my north facing office away from any direct light, and when I picked it up and moved the hands the dial around them had faded EXTREMELY noticeabley (I do leave stopped watches out from time to time and have never seen anything like this with any of them). And the bracelets are awful, just awful.

They might be OK watches for $35 (if you get lucky and receive one that isn't faulty) but not for $65. Oh, and speaking of dollars I also resent the regular sellers gouging overseas customers by selling in dollars only, making them almost twice as much money for the same shonky product that they sell domestically. I also bought some used handwind ones and only one of those has since broken, which is better but not great. But if we are going to talk non-dive rated used handwind watches, you can get two or three HMTs from India for the same price as one vostok, and each will be more reliable, and none will have a crude representation of an aircraft carrier on the dial.

I really wanted to like them, but fell out of love with the brand very quickly. I can't help but feel that people who do like the brand just haven't had enough break down on them yet...enjoy them in the meantime though!
I have owned 6 Vostoks. Two of which have admittedly have had problems but comparing them to HMT is freaking joke. I have owned 4 of those. One of them wasn't a complete POS. The finishing is terrible and really you are going talk about Vostok as if their dials and hands are bad (which I disagree completely with) and then praise HMT. Double standard much.

Like I said above I can understand why someone might not like Vostok but to then claim HMT is any way near Vostok, I will call BS on that. I feel fairly safe in doing that since I have owned 6 Vostoks and 4 HMTs.
 
#26 · (Edited)
To be honest, I kinda half agree with Bodyblue about Amphibian in that in some ways there are better watches to buy at that price depending on what you want from a watch.

I mean I would in all honesty I'd trust an Amphibian to swim with over an Invicta or similar priced Seiko. That being said I have had problem with two of the 6 Vostoks I have had (both modern new ones) so I kinda wonder how good the QC is now. In terms of movement reliability, I actually think the Soviet made ones are better. I won't argue that the finishing probably isn't quite as nice as the same price Seiko.

All that being said there are four reasons I'd still pay the same or slightly more then a new Seiko or Invicta, water resistance, domed acrylic crystal, handwinding and design. I find the auto Seikos at that price not that interesting as the Vostok and the Invicta, while the 8926OB is a good watch and I like a good sub homage, I'd have to do a lot of reworking before I would consider it acceptable (removing the second hand wings and Invicta etching from side of case). Also both of them have flat mineral glass and that is an automatic no go for me. One more advantage over Invicta to me is customer service. The two Vostoks I have had problems with the dealers quickly resolved the issue. However given Invicta's customer support I wouldn't trust Invicta to solve such problems.

There are certainly trade-offs to buying an Amphibian over a similar priced automatic watch. It all depends on what you want.

I am a fan of Vostok but I can honestly admit that they are in no way perfect watches.
 
#28 ·
There are certainly trade-offs to buying an Amphibian over a similar priced automatic watch. It all depends on what you want.

I am a fan of Vostok but I can honestly admit that they are in no way perfect watches.
Totally agree. I think at that price point there are always trade-offs. I also readily agree that they are not perfect and I would not expect them to be. There are definite problems with QC, but discarding a whole nation for being "incapable of precision" clearly makes no sense. I trust my Amphibia to survive every time I swim and dive, and I cannot say the same for a lot of watches that cost a similar amount.
 
#36 ·
Again, "Confirmation bias, also called myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses." is shown.

I did NOT say an entire nation is incapable of precision. I said that they have a hard time with consistency of execution, which is the truth. Again, since you have purchased a Russian watch, and I said something against them, I therefore must be attacking you. Calm down my friend, its just a watch, not your immortal soul.
 
#41 ·
I've had my fair share of Russian watches (2 scuba dudes, 2 amphibias, 2 poljots, and some others). The 4 Vostoks I own, none of them have failed. I admit, that perhaps my standards of what I consider to be working may be lower than others, but they kept time well within 10 seconds a day. I think there is no argument in saying that their hands, lume, and sometimes dials aren't amazing. Unlike my experiences with HMT, all of them have failed me within 2 months each, save for my Forum White Pilot (which was built by hmt).

At the end of the day, we all spend money on what and where we find value. It's great to then come to WUS to talk about what makes collecting so interesting to us, and to show off to other our new finds and acquired grails. The odd thread about avoiding a scam or sale is also a lot of fun too!
 
#44 ·
I have bought and sold some Indian watches and I liked them. But the HMTs and Allwyns were "serviced" when I bought them and they all worked. I re sold them to people that had never even heard of them and they like them. When I was going to buy them I researched them and found out that HMT worked with Citizen to build the first watch HMT watch factory in Bangalore. I think Allwyn was helped by Seiko. I have a Seiko 5 that I picked a while back from an estate sale that I found out had an Allwyn movement in it (I know there are a lot of Feikos from India).
 
#43 · (Edited)
Very true and I can very much relate to that argument. I have said I love my Mosin-Nagant rifle and have taken a bit of ribbing from some friends of mine that like their German Mausers (the ones actually made in Germany) better than my Russian Mosin. I got to pick mine out of a big pile that Big 5 had for the ad ($139 on sale) so I got to pick the best one. But even so, when I got it, it had three different wood colors of stain on the stock and barrel protectors. I had to take the front ones off and sand them down and re-stain them.....and I loved every second of it. But no matter the condition of the stock, the big lug shoots crazy accurate and I will never sell it because it performs flawlessly. Its simple and rugged and that is something I like. The watches I dont mind so much the small finishing flaws as much as I do the poor rep they have for not lasting. If they looked like crap but had a rep as good as Seikos for durability, I would get one in a second. Believe it or not this thread has made me start looking for one again. The local dealers all want over $100 for them which is a no-go. I will have to find one from IN the US that the seller will take it back if I hate it, and it has to be under $50.......probably a tall order.

I dont think flaws are "personality" I think they are flaws. My friend in HS had a crappy old Vega that left him stranded all the time and he said it had "personality"....... I can overlook flaws if the item has some other really interesting positive attributes, like the crystal or WR etc. But if the main purpose of an item fails, like a car leaving one stranded or a watch that does not keep time, that is a hard one for me to overlook. :)
 
#48 ·
Inspired by this thread I wound my other new vostok to see if it is as shoddy as I remember, and noticed that it now hacks when you set the time. And only un-hacks when you tap it gently against the desk. So to correct my earlier post, 4/8 of my vostoks have developed serious faults (as in, they either do not run at all or stop intermittently for no reason and don't actually tell the time) within months. That includes all of the new ones.

I wish they only had bent spring bars. The spring bars, to be fair, are excellent but you don't get the good thick ones with all bracelet variants I believe.
 
#49 ·
I had a 960 Neptune SE....was a bit underwhelmed and wore it maybe 3-4 times. Sold it quickly and easily because it was a sought after version. Did not felt like it will last a long time. Crown action and time setting was shoddy, when screwing back the crown the minute hands moved a bit (maybe 5 minutes either way), so it was hard to set properly. Won't repeat the experience.

What puzzles me is that Vostoks are often mentioned when someone asks for "a tough and cheap automatic watch"...Seiko SKX007 and some other obvious choices are always mentioned and the Vostoks Amphibia. SKX007 feels like a much more high-end watch next to a Vostok....

S.
 
#50 ·
In fairness to Bodyblue, I don't think he's intending to troll anyone, and I think that's a bit much calling him a troll. He has a strong view, and sometimes that view can come across as, well, slightly high and mighty, but again I don't this is intended. If you guys just read back through his posts in this thread, and be impartial without any predetermined notions, you'll what he is saying makes sense. Also, for some reason you've decided to misquote him, saying that he said Russians are incapable of precision, which is most certainly not what he said.
 
#51 · (Edited)
First of all, I am not sure why you are acting as his lawyer. I have no problem with anyone's opinion. Somehow everyone else is capable of expressing themselves intelligently without being rude. And I am not sure what I "misquoted". Here's what he said (post 14 here). I don't see how this is open to interpretation.

Sorry it happened! I hate to start a war but stories like these (and a zillion others) are why I could never buy a Russian watch. They are capable of making simple and robust large machines (tractors, guns, tanks etc) but tiny items that demand high precision and consistent quality? Ahhhh no.
So "They are capable of making simple and robust large machines (tractors, guns, tanks etc) but tiny items that demand high precision and consistent quality? Ahhhh no." doesn't really mean that a whole nation is incapable of making small items that require precision? I get that Amphibias can be shoddy, and I am not denying that. They have high failure rates. Again, I am not denying that. But as anyone can see, other posters can make these statements about a watch or company without making bigoted statements about whole nations.

And as Brad pointed out above, I was expressing my experience and opinion of the brand and he responded by being rude as usual. He might not be a troll, but is definitely incapable of participating in polite exchanges of ideas and opinions.
 
#52 · (Edited)
Oh and here's my Amphibia. Not the best fit and finish in the world, but certainly well made and capable of surviving multiple dives in the ocean:


The bracelet was the worst I have ever seen, but it works great with NATOs. A perfectly serviceable summer beater.

And my modded SKX that feels way better made (but I love them both):


Lastly, my Casio Marlin (for the quartz fans) that feels about as expensive as the Amphibia, a definite step below the SKX (but still loved):
 
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