ZF 15720ST BLUE DYE MOD
For all of you that love the grey diver and were slightly perplexed by the huge tell made on z factories excellent diver release, this if for you chaps!
Having searched far and wide for someone to replace the grey rubbery anomaly wrapped around my lovely new diver with a shiny dark blue one, knock back after knock back later, including from our mates @ ZF and APSF, I lost my mind and decided to buy some tools, crack open my kettle and die my gasket BLUE myself with absolutely no idea what I am doing!
Quick disclaimer :
I am a complete novice, so apologies to any experts who might see this who think maybe my process is in parts misguided, please feel free to point out what could of been done better, as it may assist other inexperienced members who want to follow my lead from making any mistakes/oversights. As a complete beginner I have made this as complete beginners guide, so there is blatantly obvious steps for this very reason to ensure anyone can do this.
Enjoy!
Tools purchased:
Watch grease £5 [from amazon]
Rit dark blue fabric dye £10 [from amazon]
AP-5230AL tool £16
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Watchmaker tool kit £39:
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Please set aside a small Tupperware box or cup to keep the lugs and screws, they are tiny and if they land on the carpet they will die.
Step one:
Easy part:
Remove the small caseback screws using the the smaller flat head screwdriver from the tool kit.
Step two:
Once the caseback is removed you will need your AP tool to release the lugs that are set inside the holes you see on the back of the exposed watch casement.
They will screw up to the surface, and when they do, carefully drop them inside your container one by one using the tweezers.
Step three:
Once all the lugs are removed the hexagonal bezel screws will become loose. Carefully remove one by one using the tweezers and place into your container. If they are sitting to deep within the holes to grab, using the flat screw driver head, ease the screws out through the hex holes by pushing upwards from the lugs holes on the bottom side until they pop out.
Step four:
The bezel is now removable. Remove the bezel and gasket and set to one side with the dissembled watch.
Step five:
Take a small metallic saucepan and boil with approx. one pint of water. Use metallic items without worry. You can wash them after and use them as normal no problem and the dye will not stain them.
Once the water has boiled, reduce the heat so the water is not boiling but nearly boiling. The water will be perfect when small bubbles are appearing from the bottom of saucepan.
Add the dye solution. I used half the small £10 bottle. Mix with the water until the dye has evenly blended.
Place the gasket into the water for one hour. If you want a lighter tone , remove before the hour, or leave in for longer for darker tone. I found that an hour was enough.
Wash and dry the gasket then grease the gasket which will improve water resistance.
Step six
Replace the gasket into the dial casement.
There are small slots around the dial casement.:
The top of the gasket has small inserts that are designed to slide inside these dial casement slots:
Carefully position and align the inserts of the gasket with the dial case slots. Once they are in place, using one of your tools, softly push each insert so they fit snuggly into each slot:
Step seven
Position the bezel onto the dial casement so that it aligns with the screw hole positions. Carefully use the tweezers to place each screw into Position. Do not push them all the way in yet.
Step eight
You will see that the hexagonal screws are sitting just outside the hexagonal holes in the bezel. They will not be in the correct AP alignment:
Using the screw driver or tweezers turn the screws into the correct alignment. Once they in correctly aligned, push the screws into the bezel using your tool.
To stop the screws from falling out and from losing alignment and having to repeat this step, turn the watch onto its front whilst quickly placing your other hand or a hard surface over the hexagonal screws to keep them in place.
step nine
Now the watch is on its front, you have to secure the screws using the lugs.
Using the tweezers, pick up the lugs and one by one, place into Position and screw them back in. (make sure your lugs are cross sideup:
Once the lugs are back in, screw the caseback back into Position.
You have the blue dye mod!
Gen:
Before:
