I’ve been playing with the A Diver design for a while now. It has made appearances in a few builds, some personal and some for customers. This latest design is close to its final version. The only improvement left is to have molds made for index frames… but that’s a story for another day.
I started with a Watchdives BB54 homage. Some specs for the record:
37mm wide
45.5mm l2l
11.4mm thick
122g fitted
VH31 quartz powered
OTF quick adjust clasp
Watchdives are a relatively new Chinese factory releasing homages of all the popular vintage and modern classic watches. Their point of difference is that they mostly use a quartz Vh31 movement which allows them to keep their cases slim and elegant with more pleasing proportions. A nice change from the commonly thicker Seiko NH or ETA 2824 clone cases. They have a dedicated following online and are gaining popularity with each release, which is happening at a very frequent pace.
I liked their BB54 homage case so I purchased one to play with and wore it for a couple of days before deciding to strip it and make something for myself. After hours of tweaking and playing around with test dials and inserts I settled on this design.
Here are some of the rough cut bezel inserts I tested before settling on the classic design above. I wore some of these for hours, or a day in a couple of cases, just loosely taped to the watch. With my failing eyesight the one I settled on was ideal for me and my use case. I’m missing a minute track, either on the dial or the insert, but the 15 minute track is plenty for me.
I spent hours looking for handsets to suit the VH31. You can find any style you can think of for the NH automatic movements but the quartz hand sizes are not as well stocked. This led me to design and lume my own, which on the balance makes for a more complete design. When I get around to making silver framed indexes I will want silver framed hands though so that’s a challange for another day.
The final touch was lume on the insert and this forced me to resin coat it. Without the coating the lume could be easily damaged and I’m rather fond of the look. You can see a short video of the lume on my Instagram account.
A few weeks after I completed the watch I got my hands on a sleewk on-the-fly quick adjust clasp. I had to do some irreversible modification to the last links to connect it to the clasp but it was worth the effort. It’s the smallest OTF quick adjust clasp I’ve seen and used, apart from the ones that come on very expensive retail watches Like Tudor’s T-Fit clasp. This made the wearing experience that much better. If, like mine, your wrists swell then you probably know and appreciate the value of a good quick adjust clasp. The best thing about this one is that it can be tightened without unlatching it.
This has been my go to for a while now and will remain in my rotation. The quartz movement makes it an easy choice without having to worry about setting the watch. I don’t feel bad leaving it for a few days and in return it doesn’t stop telling the time… until the batery runs out. I know I know.
