A poor man’s worldtimer?

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jkbarnes
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A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by jkbarnes »

You know what I’d love to see? Instead of a worldtimer built around a GMT complication with 24 cities crammed onto a bezel, give me a standard 3-hander with a rotating bezel showing just 10 or 11 cities around the bezel. Maybe use London as the reference city with 4 or 5 cities that are ahead of London time and an equal number behind London time.

I’ve seen plenty of aftermarket, 12 hour bezels for Seiko mods. Why not throw a 10-12 city bezel on a watch as a poor man’s worldtimer? I’d buy that in a heartbeat. I’d rather see a few cool cities on the bezel rather than simply the numbers 1 to 12.

Some mix of this would do nicely for me:
-6 Mexico City
-5 NYC
-4 La Paz
-3 Rio or São Paulo
-2 nothing (instead use this position as a +10 - Port Moresby)
-1 nothing (instead use this position as a +11 - Sydney)
UTC - London
+1 Paris
+2 Cairo
+3 Istanbul or Moscow
+4 Dubai
+5 Karachi or Mumbai
+6 Dhaka

Color code the cities for either adding or subtracting hours. Heck, if you color code them, you could add more cities, maybe an inner and outer track like the current C65 Worldtimer.
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by jkbarnes »

Maybe I should launch a Kickstarter...
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by jkbarnes »

Found one! I have to imagine there are more out there.

49978D85-1143-4A8E-A4DD-FB4F29ED484B.jpeg
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by StrappedUp »

There are quite a few aftermarket WT inserts available for the SKX/5KX models. I've seen these in silver, black and blue, but I'd bet on other colours also being available.

Image

Seiko did produce their own SRPxxx Worldtimer models, but these were discontinued some time ago.

Image
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

That would be difficult with a simple three hander, Ryan, unless there was some kind of 24 hour ring on the inside.

That (Swiss?) German one that Andrew illustrated would work, though why on earth the outer ring jumps from Delhi to Chicago I have no idea. That’s crazy. The outer ring needs to continue east to Wellington or Noumea, whichever, then step to the inner ring for the western hemisphere.
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by StrappedUp »

I assumed that there were 24-hr chapter rings available as they are a common modding part as well.
Done a quick search and it looks as though there is an opportunity there as one doesn't appear to exist.

Having said that, I'm not sure how much the Seiko modding community care given the number of non-GMT movement, 24-hr bezel mods I see.
That's one for Curmudgeon's Corner though :D
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Another solution to the 2x12h bezel is to have a simple rotatable bezel marked with the hours 1 to 12. Admittedly, you can only track one other time zone at a time, but that is probably what the vast majority of people want. The Magrette GMT has it as an inner bezel.

There are two problems inherent with city names. Firstly some of them can be a bit long such as Rio de Janeiro, and secondly they start to become less useful if certain cities lose prominence over the years or countries independently change the time zone, as I believe Turkey has done. Another example of that is the debate over the Moscow time zone that we had a couple of years ago.

I posted elsewhere that the city chosen for a particular time zone can reflect the thinking of the time and place it was created for...

viewtopic.php?p=819166#p819166
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by jkbarnes »

StrappedUp wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:19 am There are quite a few aftermarket WT inserts available for the SKX/5KX models. I've seen these in silver, black and blue, but I'd bet on other colours also being available.

Image

Seiko did produce their own SRPxxx Worldtimer models, but these were discontinued some time ago.

Image
That’s very interesting. Looks like there’s a 24 hour chapter ring. So i suppose one simply reads the local time, adjusts the bezel so the local time city is aligned with that local time, then presto, you’ve got your world time. I haven’t seen those world time bezels on any of the sites I’ve frequented for mod parts. I have seen 24 hour beZeus, but not the city bezels.

Amor Vincit Omnia wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:55 am That would be difficult with a simple three hander, Ryan, unless there was some kind of 24 hour ring on the inside.
It’s there. I didn’t notice it at first, but it ‘s there.

StrappedUp wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:14 am Having said that, I'm not sure how much the Seiko modding community care given the number of non-GMT movement, 24-hr bezel mods I see.
That's one for Curmudgeon's Corner though :D
I’ve never understood that, myself! Or the 12-hr two tone bezels!
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by jkbarnes »

Amor Vincit Omnia wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:26 am Another solution to the 2x12h bezel is to have a simple rotatable bezel marked with the hours 1 to 12. Admittedly, you can only track one other time zone at a time, but that is probably what the vast majority of people want. The Magrette GMT has it as an inner bezel.
I’ve seen plenty of these and thought about going that route for my Sea Urchin. But at the end of the day, my personal preference is for the worldtimer approach with city names as opposed to just the hours indicators.

Amor Vincit Omnia wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:26 am There are two problems inherent with city names. Firstly some of them can be a bit long such as Rio de Janeiro, and secondly they start to become less useful if certain cities lose prominence over the years or countries independently change the time zone, as I believe Turkey has done. Another example of that is the debate over the Moscow time zone that we had a couple of years ago.

I posted elsewhere that the city chosen for a particular time zone can reflect the thinking of the time and place it was created for...

viewtopic.php?p=819166#p819166
Very true. Any selection of cities represents a compromise of some sort. I very much enjoyed that earlier thread!

EDIT: Haha! I started that thread!

Thanks for all the comments, gents!
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by Victor88 »

jkbarnes wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 4:20 am You know what I’d love to see? Instead of a worldtimer built around a GMT complication with 24 cities crammed onto a bezel, give me a standard 3-hander with a rotating bezel showing just 10 or 11 cities around the bezel. Maybe use London as the reference city with 4 or 5 cities that are ahead of London time and an equal number behind London time.

I’ve seen plenty of aftermarket, 12 hour bezels for Seiko mods. Why not throw a 10-12 city bezel on a watch as a poor man’s worldtimer? I’d buy that in a heartbeat. I’d rather see a few cool cities on the bezel rather than simply the numbers 1 to 12.

Some mix of this would do nicely for me:
-6 Mexico City
-5 NYC
-4 La Paz
-3 Rio or São Paulo
-2 nothing (instead use this position as a +10 - Port Moresby)
-1 nothing (instead use this position as a +11 - Sydney)
UTC - London
+1 Paris
+2 Cairo
+3 Istanbul or Moscow
+4 Dubai
+5 Karachi or Mumbai
+6 Dhaka

Color code the cities for either adding or subtracting hours. Heck, if you color code them, you could add more cities, maybe an inner and outer track like the current C65 Worldtimer.
Karachi and Mumbai are not in the same timezone. India is GMT +5.5. The Tissot Heritage Navigator deals with the half hour offset quite nicely.
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by jkbarnes »

Victor88 wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 6:47 pm Karachi and Mumbai are not in the same timezone. India is GMT +5.5. The Tissot Heritage Navigator deals with the half hour offset quite nicely.
That explains the somewhat confusing color coding for India on the map I was looking at when I created the list!
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by Victor88 »

The Vacheron Overseas World Timer includes a few more half hour offsets - Tehran, Adelaide and St. Johns to name a few - but also the 45 minute offset for Kathmandu. Quite remarkable; but unfortunately in another price category altogether...
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Re: A poor man’s worldtimer?

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Victor88 wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 7:12 pm The Vacheron Overseas World Timer includes a few more half hour offsets - Tehran, Adelaide and St. Johns to name a few - but also the 45 minute offset for Kathmandu. Quite remarkable; but unfortunately in another price category altogether...
Some of those offsets are crackers!

The oddest TZ I have ever been to is Galicia in NW Spain. Santiago de Compostela has the same time as Berlin. At the Summer Solstice (!) the sun rises just before 7 am and sets around 10.15 pm.

Mind you, the Canaries (same time as UK) is a bit similar - breakfast in the dark at Easter!
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