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The thank you watches

There's no time like this present.

By Life & Muse

September 29^th, 2019

When I got married in February, I opted to not have a bachelor party. The intention was to always do a destination party of sorts after our small ceremony. But of course, as time passed, priorities changed and we ended up deciding to forego any extra events.

My best friends, feeling cheated out of a celebration (my interpretation), decided to plan a trip to Spain this summer in my tribute. A non-bachelor bachelor party, if you will. Personally, I saw it as a great excuse to eat, drink, and indulge with some of my favorite people for a week, so who was I to fight the idea?

For all their time, energy, and thoughtfulness in planning the trip and, more importantly, their impact and influence on making me the person I am today, I wanted to give the five of them a thank you gift. A small token of appreciation and even a subtle, albeit unofficial, nod to would-be groomsmenhood.

Watches. I got them watches.

I’ll skip ahead and cut the suspense now: I decided to gift them watches. The only real surprise here is that the idea came from my lovely wife.

But if I had simply gone to a store and purchased some watches, this wouldn’t be much of a story. So instead, I spent about 3 months learning to take apart and customize watches by hand so that I could give each of them a truly personalized, one-of-a-kind gift. Let me explain.

The Seiko Diver

Seiko is no stranger to the watch industry and has a long history of crafting affordable but incredibly well made timepieces. The Seiko Diver, known more intimately amongst inner circles as the SKX007, is a perfect example of this claim.

Seiko SKX007. Photo courtesy of hodinkee.com.

Having debuted in 1996, the SKX007 boasts 200m of water resistance, a solid stainless steel case, a 120-click unidirectional dive bezel, and a 7S26 caliber movement. And at a price point that’s just a touch over $200, the SKX007 is probably one of the most practical automatic mechanical watches you can get on your wrist today. It’s also no longer in production, which makes it an even hotter item on the secondary market.

“SKX007 is an exercise in functional minimalism; there is absolutely nothing extraneous about any aspect of the watch.”

– Jack Forster, Hodinkee

But what really fuels this watch’s cult following is its active community of modders – a group of hobbyists and enthusiasts that leverage Seiko’s system of interchangeable parts to customize their SKX’s to their heart’s every delight. From bezels, to dials, to hands, to straps, and much, much more, there’s very little that can’t be swapped out.

By late May, the scent of finger condoms, contact cement, and literal blood, sweat, and tears filled my home office, as I found myself with 6 SKX007’s, an 147 piece watchmaker’s toolkit, and a smattering of parts I ordered from a merchant in Singapore. With YouTube tutorials and stubborn perseverance in my corner, I endeavored to build my friends a set of watches worthy of their wrist time.

Here’s what the process looked like.

The watches unmodded and straight out of the box. I shelled out a bit more to get the SKX007J model just to have "Made in Japan" printed on the dial.

Crystal and chapter ring

The first step was replacing the SKX's standard hardlex crystal with a more durable and scratch resistant sapphire domed crystal. To accomplish this, I screwed off the caseback, unpinned the crown, removed the movement, and used a watch press to pop out the original crystal and drop in the new one.

While I was at it, I also swapped the plastic chapter ring (the inner ring with painted second markers on it) with a clean stainless steel one.

Carefully unpinning the crown (the knob on the side of a watch) so that I can remove the movement and dial.

The heart of the watch, still in motion, in my hand.

Using a watch press to swap the original hardlex crystal with a sapphire domed crystal.

The watch case surrounded by its components. Clockwise from the top: the dial, crystal, caseback, chapter ring, spring bars, and crown.

Fitting the new stainless steel chapter ring and sapphire domed crystal into the case.

Painstakingly removing every particle of dust using a bulb dust blower.

Carefully dropping the dial and movement back into the case.

The watch with its new stainless steel chapter ring and sapphire crystal.

Bezel and bezel insert

The bezel (the outer ring of the watch) and bezel insert (the ceramic plate that fits into the bezel's trench) are probably the most noticeable aesthetic changes I made to the watches.

Given that the SKX is a dive watch, the original bezel insert shows 60 minute markers whose purpose, when the bezel is rotated counter-clockwise, is to help divers time their descents under water.

While I didn't want to limit any of my friends' ambitions to become divers, I thought that a dual time bezel insert would be more meaningful since we live in different timezones and are all avid travelers. A dual time bezel insert simply allows the watch to keep track of a second timezone in addition to the local time.

Prying the bezel off with delicate strength.

Replacing the gasket in the new bezel. The gasket is the thin rubber ring that helps to seal various parts of the watch from water.

Two watches with new bezels, ready for bezel inserts to be dropped in.

Applying some contact cement in the trench of the bezel to adhere the bezel insert. Yes, those are finger condoms.

Carefully placing the bezel insert into the bezel, lining it up just right.

Done! With the new bezel and bezel insert, the watch looks completely different from where it started.

Finishing touches

For another touch of personalization, I chose custom straps and bracelets for each person to suit their individual styles. I went back and forth for weeks debating who would want what, and in the end, I still got most of them wrong. Thankfully, I had the foresight to bring extras for everyone.

And finally, to top it all off, I had each watch engraved with our trip's date and their initials. Bling bling.

Making sure I didn't mess anything up (I didn't).

A modded SKX with a black calfskin leather strap from Hodinkee.

Personalized engravings on the back of each watch.

Signed, sealed, delivered

End to end, it took me about 3 months to complete all 6 watches. Some parts of the process were easy, some were annoyingly difficult, and some that were previously easy would sometimes randomly be hard. Trial and error was the name of the game, and the scratches love marks on each of the finished products are a testament to that.

Fast forward to August, having kept the whole project under wraps for months, I finally revealed the watches on our first night in Barcelona.

“These aren’t fancy watches,” I explained. “These are just everyday watches, made better every time you beat and bang them up. These are watches you appreciate more over time, not in spite of their imperfections, but because of them.”

Friendship metaphor, check.

In the wild

Far beyond learning a new craft, completing a creative project, and being able to deliver a meaningful gift to my best friends, what plucked the heart strings most was seeing them wear – and authentically enjoy – the watches throughout the trip and even long after we had all returned home.

I'm a little biased, but I think they look pretty badass.

This trip was incredibly special to me. With 3 expecting fathers amongst us, some new budding watch obsessions, and a handful of blurry memories, if this trip didn’t warrant a set of milestone watches to commemorate the occasion, I don’t know what would.

Shoutouts to Hodinkee for the SKX007 info, DLW for all the custom parts and design inspiration, Lume Shot for the tutorials, and Hodinkee, DLW, Crafter Blue, Strapcode, and Windup for the straps and bracelets.