10 for 10 CONGRATULATORY CLOUD WALK

Avid readers of our walk reports may remember that 3 weeks ago I bought a grab bag of ladies watches for only $40. I was able to get 8 of them running using my fiendishly-poor watchmaking skills, know-how and spare parts. I refused to give up on the last 2 and ordered $17.25 worth of new parts. They arrived Friday afternoon, and within 48 hours I was able to get the last 2 working and on a wrist for a walk. I know it's not that great an accomplishment, but I am ridiculously happy with the result.

Notice that the watch circled in orange is a PRESAGE - I thought that was a new sub-brand focusing on enamel and other cool dials, but it turns out Seiko used the name decades ago! So I really wanted it to work. But nothing I did would revive the original movement which is no longer made, and there are no parts available. 

I was able to find a subsitute, BUT. As often happens, of course there was a BUT.  The new movement's stem was larger in diameter than the original stem. It still goes through the same hole in the case, but not into the crown! And drilling and retapping a crown is not in my skill and tool set. BUT after an hour or two of messing around in my parts boxes, I found an acceptable new crown and fitted it.

Then I went to work fitting the second movement into the purple-circled watch. Notice that in the grab bag photo the center of the hands appear to be gold. NOT SO. It was RUST which had caused the hands to drag and spoiled the movement. You can see the center of that pesky minute hand in the upper right corner of this photo which also shows the new movement.

To get the minute hand to fit properly (tighter) I had to stake the center portion -- essentially smash (gently compress) it down a few hundredths of a millimeter. Here's the staking set which I love to use but rarely need.



I found a new O-ring for the back, snapped it together (about 4 times fitting and refitting the hands) and it finally runs like a champ. It's a sweet little watch - easy to read and with a no muss / no fuss design. And notice the hands' center is silver not goldy-rusty.

During a lull in the storm hitting us this weekend, we went out to celebrate and chase some clouds. Here's a view of the harbor, North Island, and Coronado Bridge for you, but NOT at our usual sunrise time of day.



And an early moon over downtown San Diego.



I stopped to look at a very nice rock/succulent display



which my wife took as a clue to go bird-watching. "There's a hawk!" she whispered. I did get a photo before he zoomed off.



It was starting to get dark so we decided to go to the west side of the hill for a bit more liight.



We walked back and jumped into our white Chevrolet, strategically (and accidentally) parked between two proud American flags, and drove a couple of miles.



Interlude whilst driving.



I had to stop for this Lincoln Continental -- which is illustrating what one does when getting the original top to work again costs more than the whole car is worth. Kinda cool in a weird way, isn't it? The world's biggest coupé.



The light over the ocean did not disappoint us.



And we found a nice tree too, with a squawking and whistling parrot underneath it (no photo of the bird, sorry).



Here's a long shot of the OB pier which we walked a few weeks ago. It got hammered by a storm and the whole left side is mangled. 



This angle is down about 1900 feet of pier, believe it or not. Taken from nearly a mile up the hill. Sad walkers were shaking the gates and wishing they could be on the pier. But another storm is almost upon us...



We spotted a nicely-lit residential sycamore in the midst of all the palm trees, and took it as a sign to head for home before we got drenched.



The watches on her wrists!