Seiko 6117-6019 (World Time)…

Having tackled a number of Seiko’s World Time models in the past, I had the opportunity to work on this one, a second generation model from 1968…

At first glance you could be forgiven for mistaking this watch as a first generation model but there are a number of differences; it doesn’t have the large fluted crown of the first generation model, the GMT hand is red and the hands and dial indices are lumed (see a first generation World Time here).

The most significant difference though is inside as the watch is fitted with a cal. 6117A rather than the cal. 6217A used in the earlier World Time watches. The cal. 6117A is almost the same as the cal. 6117B found in the third generation models, the only difference seems to be that the 6117A doesn’t hack.

It’s always a bit of a lottery buying a watch with a badly scratched crystal as you can never be sure what is hiding underneath and unfortunately this time, removing the crystal revealed a few scratches on the dial caused by clumsy handling in the past…

Another problem with the watch was that the wrong crystal had been fitted, trapping the city bezel. This meant that when the crown was turned to rotate the city bezel it damaged the delicate plastic teeth on the city bezel ring.

Both of these things were pretty bad news as finding suitable spare parts for this model without locating a second watch can be very tricky these days.

While I couldn’t repair the dial I had nothing to lose in trying to file out the damaged teeth on the city bezel and rebuild them. While the resulting teeth aren’t perfect, they were certainly good enough and the bezel worked perfectly again.

With the current dial it isn’t quite back to its best, but with a new crystal it’s certainly wearable again…

Rich.

PS. Many thanks to Ralf (watchbear71) for giving me the chance to take a closer look at this one.