I thought I’d feature this example as it’s one of the lesser trumpeted Seamasters that Omega produced but just as good looking and collectable as it’s 300 & 600 stablemates, in fact with it’s slimmer case it’s more at home with a formal business suit in my opinion. This one arrived for a service and a new crystal along with a relume of the bezel pip.

The caseback is the screw down type with Omegas hippocampus logo featured in the centre.

The first issue as I removed the caseback was the gasket had reverted to a soft tar like sticky mess, the crown seal was the same.

Let’s have a closer look at that gunk. I’ve opened a few watches like this in the past and the residue is an absolute pig to clean up, you have to to remove the movement before you do anything else as it will stick to anything and everything! Once the movement’s out you’re then faced with the laborious process of picking the remains out of the case groove with pegwood and using solvent to clean up the residue. Yuck!

The movement is now out of the case in this shot, note a dollop of liquid gasket on the casing cushion, you have to be ever so careful not to get any on the dial 🙂

After some considerable effort the case components end up shiny bright again.

The watch is powered by Omegas calibre 601 movement, a manual wind 19,800bph beauty. The strip started with the dial side….

….and finished with the going train side.

Once everything was cleaned and inspected it was put away until the new parts arrived.

Once the parts were here the first job was to fit the new crystal.

A new crown was in order as the seal had been destroyed in the original.

The movement rebuild commenced with a new mainspring….

….and proceeded in an orderly fashion 🙂

The dial and handset were refitted…

….the movement was recased….

….and another one is completed! The serial dates this one to around 1968, it’s in cracking condition for a 48 year old 🙂