In preparation for 68style's incoming Seiko, I have my first Seiko on the bench! It's a new NH36A, straight from Malaysia or wherever they make them now (probably China I imagine). It won't be the same as his, but it will be based on it so I'd like to get familiar with it first.
It's definitely different from the Swiss based movements I've worked on so far, and comes across as something made by and for machines to work on. One giveaway are the massive screw slots, intended for use by machines. This meant I had to grind down my screwdriver to fatten it up for a better fit.
I was shocked at how much oil and grease there was all over the place. We're taught to use miniscule amounts of each, so it doesn't spread all over the place. This thing had tons of grease throughout the keyless work. Not that it was spreading on its own - it was all where it was supposed to be. There was just a lot of it.
There's so many parts, I have to use two parts trays. Going to degrease it, clean it, and put it back together
The regulation out of the box was not great, with a delta of 25 seconds, and 1ms beat error. This is all within spec, but the spec is pretty wide and I should be able to improve it. Remember that 50 year old ladies watch was also around 20 seconds!