- 12/3/18
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Hey guys, as a distraction from my Rolex addiction I decided to throw together a Grand Seiko GMT tribute build. I had always been curious about the NH movements so off I went.
Here is the gen I used for inspiration. This is a stunner, I see why people would buy this beauty.
www.grand-seiko.com
There are tons of options for parts on Ali Express, here is what I used.
Case
Dial
Hands
Movement
The caseset is really beautiful and very well made. No sharp edges or stuck screws. No cross-threaded caseback or crown like you can get on some reps. The brushing, polishing, SEL fit, clasp fit are all quite nice and comparable to most upper tier reps. A real gem for the $96 I paid after a coupon discount. The caseset is entirely sterile.
The rehaut is pretty deep. I thought about shaving it down some but the hand stack on the NH34 is pretty tall. Shaving a rehaut won’t change the height of the crystal if the same gasket is used. You can see there is some amount of rehaut that could be decreased down to the second hand, but what would be seen there in the absence of rehaut would just be the crystal gasket and the inside of the bezel so I’m not sure that would look any better. I might try a rehaut shave if I make another one of these.
The case tube has a half cut on the inside opening that was a puzzler initially but it locks into the movement holder so that’s how it’s supposed to be. You don’t need any movement tabs.
The rep dial is great for $13. It’s a decent enough depiction of the gen, the texture is amazing at this price point. The lettering is done by stickers, which can be bought separately also.
I actually bought a few extra sets of hands. I like to experiment with some different custom mods. I tinkered with the notion of doing all blue hands and painted a few sets some different colors of blue. There was one metallic blue that I thought looked great until I put them on the dial, hah. Then not so much.
Some other combos
I stripped those steeled blue hands and one GMT hand and painted them all a darker blue but didn’t like that either. So I stripped them all again and in the process saw how good they looked bare. Nice and smooth, mirror finish like the gen. So I used them like that. But I didn’t care for the GMT hand original blue - it was too light and it had some odd texture to it. Plus a big pet peeve of mine is a GMT hand hole surround showing its color under other hands that are entirely silver.
So I re-painted the GMT hand and left its hole surround bare. This is pretty much a necessity when painting hands anyway as pressing a freshly painted hand will almost always ruin a painted hole surround and you have to touch it up in place, ugh.
So final hand choices
The NH34 movement was (mostly) quite a pleasure to work with. It’s simple and tidy. I was surprised to see PLASTIC gears used in several places. The stem functions are nice, actuation is crisp and distinct. Stem position 2 does a quickset date change when rotated backward and a GMT hand incremental jump when rotated forward. So similar functionality to a 2836 ICHS. Quickset date change is nice! The automatic date change is a slow walker starting about 11:15 and finishing about 12:05.
The movement comes with a built-in nylon movement holder that locks in to that half-cut tube opening. The movement holder also acts as a dial spacer. This is exactly the same arrangement on a TC Sub but the NH34 is even simpler as the dial feet fit into the movement holder with no clips and there are no separate screws to keep the movement and the movement holder together. The caseback has a rim that pushes the movement holder down so no movement tabs are needed. Genius really, so simple with minimal parts.
I said (mostly) a pleasure above because after mounting the GMT, hour and minute hands the first time, the minute hand wouldn’t move. Huh!? I was baffled because the hand was tight on its pinion. I took the hand off and sure enough the pinion wasn’t rotating. So I had to take the other hands and dial off and then do some more disassembly to see what was up. It turns out the canon pinion (for the minute hand) had dislodged from the minute wheel. I was starting to harbor some ill thoughts toward Seiko when I remembered I had test fitted a minute hand previously and removed it so I undoubtedly had done the dislodging. Still surprising that it happened so easily - note to self - check canon pinion rotation before mounting hands!
The movement is easily regulated, I wasn’t about to go to the ends of the earth for a 0.0 beat error this is way good enough. It's a low beat movement at 21,600 so the dial is a liar liar.
So for the price I think this is a very nice rep. It’s a tad small at 38mm. I’ll probably give it to my wife, I’m sure she will love it.
So there’s the full story, thanks for looking!
Here is the gen I used for inspiration. This is a stunner, I see why people would buy this beauty.
A new series of Grand Seiko GMT watches celebrates ever-changing seasons. | Grand Seiko
Grand Seiko official site. Made by hand for those who value perfection. Grand Seiko raises the pure essentials of watchmaking to the level of art.
www.grand-seiko.com
There are tons of options for parts on Ali Express, here is what I used.
Case
Dial
Hands
Movement
The caseset is really beautiful and very well made. No sharp edges or stuck screws. No cross-threaded caseback or crown like you can get on some reps. The brushing, polishing, SEL fit, clasp fit are all quite nice and comparable to most upper tier reps. A real gem for the $96 I paid after a coupon discount. The caseset is entirely sterile.
The rehaut is pretty deep. I thought about shaving it down some but the hand stack on the NH34 is pretty tall. Shaving a rehaut won’t change the height of the crystal if the same gasket is used. You can see there is some amount of rehaut that could be decreased down to the second hand, but what would be seen there in the absence of rehaut would just be the crystal gasket and the inside of the bezel so I’m not sure that would look any better. I might try a rehaut shave if I make another one of these.
The case tube has a half cut on the inside opening that was a puzzler initially but it locks into the movement holder so that’s how it’s supposed to be. You don’t need any movement tabs.
The rep dial is great for $13. It’s a decent enough depiction of the gen, the texture is amazing at this price point. The lettering is done by stickers, which can be bought separately also.
I actually bought a few extra sets of hands. I like to experiment with some different custom mods. I tinkered with the notion of doing all blue hands and painted a few sets some different colors of blue. There was one metallic blue that I thought looked great until I put them on the dial, hah. Then not so much.
Some other combos
I stripped those steeled blue hands and one GMT hand and painted them all a darker blue but didn’t like that either. So I stripped them all again and in the process saw how good they looked bare. Nice and smooth, mirror finish like the gen. So I used them like that. But I didn’t care for the GMT hand original blue - it was too light and it had some odd texture to it. Plus a big pet peeve of mine is a GMT hand hole surround showing its color under other hands that are entirely silver.
So I re-painted the GMT hand and left its hole surround bare. This is pretty much a necessity when painting hands anyway as pressing a freshly painted hand will almost always ruin a painted hole surround and you have to touch it up in place, ugh.
So final hand choices
The NH34 movement was (mostly) quite a pleasure to work with. It’s simple and tidy. I was surprised to see PLASTIC gears used in several places. The stem functions are nice, actuation is crisp and distinct. Stem position 2 does a quickset date change when rotated backward and a GMT hand incremental jump when rotated forward. So similar functionality to a 2836 ICHS. Quickset date change is nice! The automatic date change is a slow walker starting about 11:15 and finishing about 12:05.
The movement comes with a built-in nylon movement holder that locks in to that half-cut tube opening. The movement holder also acts as a dial spacer. This is exactly the same arrangement on a TC Sub but the NH34 is even simpler as the dial feet fit into the movement holder with no clips and there are no separate screws to keep the movement and the movement holder together. The caseback has a rim that pushes the movement holder down so no movement tabs are needed. Genius really, so simple with minimal parts.
I said (mostly) a pleasure above because after mounting the GMT, hour and minute hands the first time, the minute hand wouldn’t move. Huh!? I was baffled because the hand was tight on its pinion. I took the hand off and sure enough the pinion wasn’t rotating. So I had to take the other hands and dial off and then do some more disassembly to see what was up. It turns out the canon pinion (for the minute hand) had dislodged from the minute wheel. I was starting to harbor some ill thoughts toward Seiko when I remembered I had test fitted a minute hand previously and removed it so I undoubtedly had done the dislodging. Still surprising that it happened so easily - note to self - check canon pinion rotation before mounting hands!
The movement is easily regulated, I wasn’t about to go to the ends of the earth for a 0.0 beat error this is way good enough. It's a low beat movement at 21,600 so the dial is a liar liar.
So for the price I think this is a very nice rep. It’s a tad small at 38mm. I’ll probably give it to my wife, I’m sure she will love it.
So there’s the full story, thanks for looking!
Last edited:
38-39mm is perfect for me
