Saturday March 25th
Finished casing the first four MMT’s tonight. Not enough time I am affraid to regulate them in 6 positions to ship by the morning. Spent a lot of time dialing in details for the assemblies to come like the stem length - which is a lot of back and forth, cutting, grinding and fitting. Then you fit a few to make sure the number you arrived at will work not for just one watch but all of them, taking into account the variances among the parts being fitted together. I still hope to have a few more ready in addition to these first four ready to go by Monday.
I also decided to skip shipping on Saturday morning, as is my norm, so that I can save some time to finish more watches and orders before I leave. I leave town on Tuesday and rather than do a run to the post office Saturday and Monday I decided to delay all the shipments until Monday, which will save me about 4 hours prepping and packing orders.
During the week I started to comb through the vendors that will be exhibiting this year at Baselworld. The sheer number of vendors is quite mind boggling. I hope to add some capabilities as well as to find suppliers that can do some more exotic case types like cases shielded from magnetism and the like. I will post a report and any pictures I can take when I return. I will be back in PA on the 9th of April.
Some other product updates:
* Milsub date dials have arrived. I still need to QC them before putting them up for sale on the site.
* Stainless steel inserts are done. They will ship to me after I get back.
* HA3 GMT inserts are also done. These will ship with the steel ones so nothing in hand yet.
**Please note that the stainless steel and the HA3 inserts’ costs have gone up so the price will be going up as well. The price will officially go up sometime between the 6th and the 10th of April so if you want to purchase one before the increase now is the time.
As an aside if you haven’t seen/used “Google Earth” it’s a fantastic tool. I downloaded it so that I could see what Basel looked like and get a better idea of what the neighborhoods around my hotel and the convention halls looked like. It appears I will be able to walk between my hotel and the convention halls if the weather is nice. And fortunately for me the hotel-ship that I will be staying on will have a view of a park and what I think is downtown Basel, which was more than I was expecting. I was expecting a view of a nice container port and perhaps some oil pipelines, which is what you would see if someone offered to put you up on a ship here on the East coast of the US.
Shipment updates
The first four Blackwater’s will ship early the week of the 19th. I hope to have at least four more done before the week is out and I leave for Basel. Unfortunately I haven’t had time yet to get the crystals I need off the to the AR coater so the early orders that included this option won’t ship before the week of the 9th. Sorry for this delay.
Two sample cases are at the machine shop for the second trial at fixed bar installation. No word at this time when they will have an answer regarding this. Hopefully before I return on the 9th.
Saturday March 18th
Quite a bit of work finally got done this week. Most of it shipped this morning but some of it will have to wait until early next week.
Product updates:
* Stainless steel inserts should be done by late next week and should begin shipping after I return from Basel.
* HA3 inserts are expected to be back in stock in about 2 weeks. They are currently at the platers for anodizing
* Blackwater assembly has begun and the first four will go out early the week of the 19th.
I will be traveling between March 29th and April 9th to attend the Baselworld show in Switzerland. Parts orders received after March 22nd will ship after I return. Please note that the online store will continue to take orders during my absence but that Account History updates won’t be available. I will respond to e-mails if I can while I am away, assuming that I have a reliable internet connection, but otherwise I will respond when I return.
Sunday March 12th
For the first time in about two weeks a number of watches got done tonight. Over the weekend inserts for the Blackwater got QC’d and assembly for the first group will begin tomorrow.
The stainless steel inserts will be back in stock soon. A batch of the blanks have been completed and after they are engraved they will be ready to go.
I am a few days behind on “orderstatus” e-mails and will get to those on Monday. When contacting me over the next 6-8 weeks kindly keep in mind the following:
* I won’t be able to answer the phones pretty much exclusively unless a customer can’t reach me via e-mail
* I will be pretty much dedicating myself to preparing for my upcoming trip to Basel and building watches.
* E-mail will still be the best way to contact me. I will respond to order status inquiries as soon as possible and general inquiries when I can. If you don’t get a auto-reply receipt for you message please keep in mind that you will only get one auto-reply per day and please check any SPAM filters/folders that you may have. If you don’t get the auto-reply there is a reasonable chance that your e-mail didn’t reach me.
* The delivery of the Blackwaters and the general backlog (compounded by my having been sick the last two weeks) will make the next 2 months or so very taxing on customer communication but I will do my best to keep up.
Saturday March 11th
Been sick the better part of this week so frustratingly not enough work got done. A lot of paperwork got done but not a lot of watches. Also my accounting system will be down through the weekend for some end of the year tax adjustments so no orders will be shipped until Monday.
There is some good news:
* Inserts for the Blackwater just came in so ordering will re-open on Sunday
* I’ll be working through the weekend to begin trying to catch up
Thanks for everyone’s patience.
Seiko Parts FAQs
I hope to update this with more information as I answer e-mail from customers. As this list grows and I will upate the main site FAQ as well:
* Do our dials fit the quartz Seiko divers? Unfortunately not. The chapter ring is molded directly to the dial instead of being a separate piece as on the mechanical Seiko divers. In addition the dial feet are in a completely different position from that of the mechanical 7s26 movement.
* Do our parts fit the mid-size Seiko mechanical divers? Yes and no. the parts that we offer will fit the movement in the mid-size watch but the case is too small for the length and diameter of the parts that we offer. For example the dials will end up with much of the markers covered by the chapter ring because of the smaller case opening. In addition, the hands probably won’t clear the chapter ring as you try to install a movement with the new dial and hands because of the smaller case opening.
more to come….
Current status of last remaining parts
The inserts are stuck in Customs right now. Over the weekend it required some additional documentation and I have been by informed by FedEx that they have everything they need and hopefully the package will pass through Customs in the next day or so. This rarely happens….but I guess had to happen on this project right?….Murphy’s Law.
Was under the weather for the better part of last week. Feeling much better today. Crystals will be heading out for AR coating later this week.
Monday March 6th
Well it turns out I have been sick for the last week. Didn’t actually realize it until around Thursday of last week. So unfortunately not a lot of watches got done and not a lot got done over the weekend as I recovered. I should finally get back to the bench today.
Just checked on the bezel inserts due for the MMT “Blackwater”. The final parts got stuck in Customs over the weekend for some documentation but I am told the package will hopefully clear Customs in the next day or so and finally be on its way.
If you haven’t noticed yet the blog has now been updated with a subscription feature so that you can get automatic e-mail updates according to one, several, or all of the categories available. I hope that everyone will find this feature useful.
Thursday March 2nd
The production list and serial number assignments have been completed. It took quite a few hours, which kind of surprised me, to organize and incorporate everyone’s requests. I will be e-mailing all of the pre-order customers for the Blackwater a PDF copy of their sales order which will also have their serial number and their production number (i.e. their place in line). It may take a few days until all of the e-mails go out because of the time it will take to modify and e-mail all of the files.
In other news:
* The Milsub date dials finally are approved and the mass production is expected to arrive around the middle of April.
* The inserts for the Blackwaters won’t arrive until Monday/Tuesday. They finally shipped earlier today.
* General ordering for the MMT Blackwater will re-open later next week, sorry for the delay
* HA3 inserts are expected back in stock around the beginning of April. We lost a supplier that had to be replaced but we are finally half-way through the production process. The stainless steel inserts are still in limbo at the moment. I am waiting to hear from my supplier.
Earlier this week I announced our latest project an homage to the early Blancpain Fifty Fathoms/Tornek-Rayville dive watch. If you have any suggestions regarding this project please e-mail me. The drawings are almost done but not finalized at this point.