Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Watch #8. First salvage of discarded watch Casio Forester FT-500

This Casio Forester FT-500 is a valueless watch.  But, with an analog dial it looks cool and has been traveling around in my broken watch bags for years.  Someone had started to do a battery change and lost the small screws holding on the back cover on.  It was being thrown out so I snagged it from the waste can.  These are tiny screws not found at the local hardware store.  I looked at ordering a random box of watch screws from Amazon but the cost exceeded the value of the watch.  Not hard to do.  

Recently I purchased a watch lot off eBay.  There was one movement I needed to restore a Seiko, the rest of the watches I could not care less about. 

After harvesting the desired movement, I noted one of the watches had a similar backing to the Forester.  They were a little longer but did not bottom when I put one in.  Of course yet another battery size to be acquired.  A 1.55v 364/363 Energizer is now driving the movement and it runs perfectly.

I use it as my weekend watch.  Frankly I don't need another weekend beater.  But hey, there is some satisfaction in breathing life back into an unwanted watch.  Patience and care gets you there.   And like all quartz watches, you can lay them down for a week or two.  Pick them up and they are still running with the correct time.  Although I marvel and love mechanical watches, I think we, including myself, all too quickly kick to the curb the reliable quartz watch.