Hard Rock Cafe watches

PelliX

PelliX

Well-Known Member
England
Here's an odd one, even for me. I'm not a watchmaker nor a specialist but I do happen to have many of the tools and a passion for fiddling and fixing. These two have been sitting in a drawer for about 30 years after being used. They were stored inside the little Hard Rock Cafe branded tin and sleeve, seemingly completely dry. I have no idea of their history other than that.

Well, fixed the first one by replacing the battery. Again, I'm not a watchmaker so I didn't have the correct SR battery, but some LR's of various types including a suitable one. Started right up again like a ... uhm, clock:

1784654677850.png

Next up, the one the misses wanted to have working badly. Judging by the strap it'd been worn a fairly long time. No idea if it was put away working or not. Well, time to crack her open.

1784654781299.png

I removed the back and found the rubber seal to be ... well, all but missing. Just a couple of tiny strands left. Hmmm, either it rotted away or the last person in here... never mind. A new battery, again of an SR type that I had an LR replacement for, did not bring it to life. OK, surgery time...

1784654964936.png

The crystal is visible and I was actually about to instictively fire up an oscilloscope when I realized I could probably hear if anything was happening at 1Hz with my ears. Sure enough, it was trying. Tried a little touch of naptha (Zippo fluid which I have anyway) to allow the shaft (I bet there's a name for that) to rotate, nothing. I figured out how to remove the crown (yes, it says Push) and took it out. A tiny touch of naptha down the 'shaft' (spindle?) from the top, carefully avoiding the clockface did the trick. Gave it some careful compressed air and left it running for an hour to let any excess moisture dry off. Came back, all good. Put a new seal on the back and closed it up again after reinstalling the crown.

1784655253177.png

Handy tool, that - for all kinds of things. For all the Japanese watch afficianados, it's a TMI YI2IE, here's a close-up:

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What grandfather told me about business I experienced later on in life one was do a great job at a fair price
one more the preacher is the lowest form of human life they expect every thing free
I ran into that one many times bad checks you don't understand I work for the lord I don't know witch god you serve must be the devil
I had a deal with my bank if I got a bad check for a large amount if I deposited $1000.00 in their account the bank would honor it
with a 40% sir charge the customer would enter my shop screaming what ?? something wrong with my work no
the bank what do I have anything to do with the bank..............
 
When I was a kiddo, my parents bought a cool LCD watch for me. The back light constantly glowed in the dark forever. It had a radiation symbol on the back. I can only find a pic of a similar one.

national-semiconductor-4-png.819263
 
Funny, I went looking at those and it seems they used tritium gas, hence the T. The radiation is (logically) well within safe limits. There are a lot of misconceptions about radiation, doses, effects and so on anyway. While I'm no expert I think the likelihood of sustaining radiation damage from one of these watches is about as high as getting a sunburn from operating an open valve amp in the same room. Ever seen a TV repair guy put on a lead suit because of the X-rays? Nope, me neither. Consider that there's arsenic in apples, yet you would literally have to eat kilos and kilos of them in one go to sustain arsenic poisoning - more than anyone seems to have ever achieved. There's mercury in many fish, etc.

Back to those watches... they're actually still being produced:

mwc-europe.com

Tritium GTLS Self Luminous Watches

The self luminous Tritium GTLS tubes used in all of the watches which are in this section mean they are unbeatable when it comes to consistent Night performance and are up to 100 times brighter than watches which use conventional painted dials. The hour and minute hands as well as the numbers...
mwc-europe.com mwc-europe.com

A little pricey, but certainly cool.
 
Hmmm, maybe a slight correction. It seems that while they initially used tritium to 'paint' the dials, that proved potentially hazardous as it's a source of beta radiation. The modern watches using it appear to have it enclosed in glass tubes, thus reducing the chance of any leakage. Not as bad as radium paint, obviously - that was a real killer.
From what I remember, alpha rays are basically blocked by cardboard, beta rays can be blocked by human tissue or even thick clothing to a degree and gamma rays will pretty much whizz straight through you and are the ones that start to require lead protection.
 
Jethro Rocker said:
The missus could have had gamma knife radiation surgery on her brain tumour but it was too big. Surgery it was....
Click to expand...

Yikes, sorry to hear that, man. Radiation therapy is always a risky business, it's ultimately fighting fire with fire. I hope she's doing alright?

Jethro Rocker said:
So many handy fix it people here.
Click to expand...

Haha, thanks. Where there's a will, there's a way...
 
PelliX said:
Hmmm, maybe a slight correction. It seems that while they initially used tritium to 'paint' the dials, that proved potentially hazardous as it's a source of beta radiation. The modern watches using it appear to have it enclosed in glass tubes, thus reducing the chance of any leakage. Not as bad as radium paint, obviously - that was a real killer.
From what I remember, alpha rays are basically blocked by cardboard, beta rays can be blocked by human tissue or even thick clothing to a degree and gamma rays will pretty much whizz straight through you and are the ones that start to require lead protection.
Click to expand...

Some of the modern watches that use tritium tubes, like Marathon, still put the symbol on the dial:

iu
 
gball said:
Some of the modern watches that use tritium tubes, like Marathon, still put the symbol on the dial:
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe it's a legal requirement, that why you find it on smoke detectors (which contain a tiny trace of americanium) or even colour CRT televisions. I think that it probably actually serves as a selling point in this case. I won't be buying one anytime soon, but I like the idea.
 
Not sure what the actual requirement is. Ball, for example just puts the little "T" on the dial...

Ball-Engineer-Marvelight-Crimson-2-2652515450.jpg

Maybe just as long as it is labeled somehow.

I only have one watch with tritium, a 30+ year old Tag, and it has the "T" on it.
 
PelliX said:
Yikes, sorry to hear that, man. Radiation therapy is always a risky business, it's ultimately fighting fire with fire. I hope she's doing alright?



Haha, thanks. Where there's a will, there's a way...
Click to expand...
Oh yeah. Thanks mate. Twas 10 years,ago. Not cancer but still major 15 hr surgery. Gamma knife would have resected it without opening up skull. Not an option in this case. Cheers
 
Jethro Rocker said:
Those watches are cool!
The missus could have had gamma knife radiation surgery on her brain tumour but it was too big. Surgery it was....
So many handy fix it people here.
Click to expand...
I do hope she has recovered fully.

2 years ago I found out I had stage 4 lung crap that metastasized to my noggin. I couldn't play guitar anymore. Craniotomy surgery took care of that for the most part. Gamma Knife daily for one week, a LITT procedure, then on to chemo and a 6 week, daily radiation for lung issue. That much went away at least. It gave a new meaning to heartburn.

I've done a number of PET scans with Nuclear medicine pumped into me. I would carry a card in case detectors went off. No hugging dogs or kids for the rest of the day. So many MRIs.

I was/am a smoker for a long time. I can't really blame it on a watch from the 70s. But I got my mediocre guitar playing, hacker abilities back.

My bandmate lost his 30 Y.O. daughter a few years back from the worst of brain cancers. The same as what took out Rush's Neil Peart. I don't think there's a stage 5 level, but that could be it.

Ok, enough of the gloom & doom. My spouse & I and stepson ate at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas.

I haven't worn a watch since I started carrying cell phones.
 
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