The Dive Watch Connection

I bought a 035 tuna a few months ago and loved every bit of it except the shiny, high gloss insert. I don't think you'd understand how shiny it was unless you saw it in real life.

After selling it I decided to pick another up and send it to Jack or Duarte for the bead blast job. Neither of them sounded too confident about it because nobody was certain what kind of material it was and how well it would take to the blasting. Since Jack already has a few of my watches I decided to try Duarte for the first time and the outcome was great. To our surprise the bezel did exceptionally well and it was made out of metal.

This may be a subtle mod, but it makes a big difference. The matte black bezel on the Darth is what makes it look so BA, and now this ninja looks like a Darth Jr.


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And now to compare it with an original 035 to see a side by side or the gloss vs matte-


Gloss


Matte

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Gloss


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Matte


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Big shout out to Duarte for doing such a great job. He did this, got out a stripped screw from my 015 tuna for a very reasonable amount, all shipped back in a week.

Thanks Duarte!!

That turned out great. Looks much better. Will definitely go this route should I pick one up.

oh Hell Ben thats wayyyyy better

That looks great. And Duarte does excellent work also.

Looks great.

Definitely an improvement on an already great Seiko.

That looks great!

Looks good. So did he also have to touch up the numbers on the bezel after bead blasting?

That's a killer mod.

Subtle but big impact.

Great mod. Should have blasted the case too!

Wow, I'm surprised that worked. Looks great.

shroud next

Seeing the two side by side really shows the difference. Looks great, but like Matt and T said the shroud needs to be done as well.

^^^
Thanks for all the good comments guys. Well worth the small amount of $ to do this.

59yukon01 wrote:Looks good. So did he also have to touch up the numbers on the bezel after bead blasting?

You know, I thought this as well and I also wondered about the pip:
It does not look like it was touched up or needed touched up. The paint looks original and great. I don't know what the secret is.

kfalk wrote:Seeing the two side by side really shows the difference. Looks great, but like Matt and T said the shroud needs to be done as well.

toxicavenger wrote:shroud next

matt.wu wrote:Great mod. Should have blasted the case too!

I thought about it....
The shroud is so deep I don't even notice much shine to it. It does not reflect a lot of light in any way.

And another thought is, I think this is coated with Seiko diashield, and from my understanding you should not blast diashield.
I don't know much about this but someone can chime in if they know.

This is why I'm waiting for a MM300 to pop up that is the sbdx001. My plan is to blast the case and I read that you should not blast the new MM300 (I think abdx017?) because of the diashield coating.

The glossy insert is why I sold mine, that looks so much better.

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jswing wrote:The glossy insert is why I sold mine, that looks so much better.

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That's exactly where I was. After I sold my first I was like.... This is too awesome not to try to make perfect..

I'm not sure why I sold mine (and bought/sold it again) but the glossy bezel doesn't thrill me. The mod makes it look more expensive.

I'm assuming this bezel is the same lacquered steel as the MM300? If so, I assume you could blast the MM300 bezel?

dnslater wrote:I'm assuming this bezel is the same lacquered steel as the MM300? If so, I assume you could blast the MM300 bezel?

You probably could. I am not sure how it would look with a brushed/polished case like the Mm has. But it might look pretty slick. I like how the stock insert can turn gray in certain lights, so I am not sure it I would want to loose that with a blast job. But good idea.

dnslater wrote:I'm assuming this bezel is the same lacquered steel as the MM300? If so, I assume you could blast the MM300 bezel?

To be honest I'm not sure that the MM300 bezel is the same as the new tuna bezel. I don't think it would work.

Wow!!! ... That's awesome!!! Love it


Shannon

Wow!!! ... That's awesome!!! Love it


Shannon