Dr. N.
Your correspondent had the opportunity to personally try a watch that I have already told you about, the Vostok Amphibia. It is a Russian-made, self-winding mechanical diving watch – or at least, that's how it should be. A little mishap in the pool led to some interesting discoveries…
What is the Vostok Amphibia?
The Vostok Amphibia is the cheapest mechanical diver on the market. It is a self-winding mechanical watch developed, in its current form, in the 1967s, but whose fundamental concepts date back to XNUMX.
It is in every sense a real one vintage clock remained in production to this day, defying time and the technological innovations of other manufacturers. As seen in this article, even today Amphibia are made with the technologies of forty years ago: plexiglass, case with a not very large diameter, excellent readability.
In Soviet times, the production of the Vostok Amphibia served primarily to satisfy the needs of the military. Therefore, quality control was quite good, and the components practically always lived up to expectations. The effect of this approach is evident in watches from the Soviet era: these are highly reliable, robust objects that run even after decades without any maintenance. Their precision, although lower than the more refined - and expensive - Swiss productions, remains acceptable for normal daily use.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, watch companies - like all previously state-owned production complexes - were privatised. Unable to pay the suppliers, the State sells the shares to them. Suppliers therefore find themselves having to manage the sale of a product that, all things considered, they have no great interest in altering, given that innovating it would involve having to make changes in their production lines. In the XNUMXs, in Russia, foreign currency was the most sought after commodity; therefore the focus is on exports. There is no money to invest in updating production, and in a certain sense this is a good thing, because what was good is preserved.
However, some savings are made, and I want to talk to you about these.
The "little problem" of the Vostok Amphibia
Due to the financial difficulties mentioned above, the Vostok Amphibia underwent some production simplifications. The hand-wound version with internal anti-magnetic outer case is no longer built, believing that the public who want a hand-wound watch can be satisfied by the Vostok Komandirskie, even cheaper than the Amphibia, but made with a chromed brass case and waterproof to just three atmospheres.
The Vostok Amphibia in current production are therefore all equipped with a steel case, automatic movement made by Vostok, bidirectional rotating bezel without clicks in chromed brass, plexi glass, case back with threaded ring - conceptually perhaps superior to the same screw case backs - and crown lives. This last component was the cause of the misadventure I will now tell you about.
A swim in the pool with a diving watch certainly shouldn't be a problem, yet, after a few dives and a few strokes, your correspondent noticed the formation of an unpleasant halo inside the glass. The immediate solution was to leave the watch with the crown unscrewed exposed to the sun, to let some of the moisture dry. The rest of the work was done at home, removing the case back and passing the hairdryer over the glass of the watch, taking care to keep the temperature not too high, a distance of at least twenty centimeters between the hairdryer and the watch and the upward movement, so that the flow of hot air did not overheat the mechanical parts. It is a procedure that must be carried out with great caution, to be avoided if the watch is expensive or if you are not familiar with it: therefore, I assume no responsibility for any improper manipulation...
In the second part, we will find out if and how the problem was solved.
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