It's Alive! My Franken-Watch Lives!
Practicallyย everyone knows who Dr. Frankenstein is because books, movies, television shows have embraced his most famous creation… Frankenstein’s Monster. Yeah, that giant undead guy with a flat head and electrodes protruding from his neck. Mistakenly, many people call the monster “Frankenstein”, but that was really the name of the creator, not the monster itself. This monster was cobbled together using parts of cadavers to make a brand new living beast brought to life with a bolt of lightning. The original movie is as epic as a 1931 black-and-white film with sparking Tesla Coils can be.
Seiko Modding. Orion Watch.
In watch collecting communities, the phrases “Frankenstein watch,” “Frankensteined watch” or even “Franken-watch” have become common terms to describe a watch that is made from many different parts. Just like the original Frankenstein monster, the parts can come from other unrelated donors, and that is seldom a good thing. This practice can be used deceptively recreate rare watches and scam buyers. Or, it can be used as a last-ditch effort to make a watch whole if original parts are not available. Exchanging a watch’s original parts with replacements often devalues it so “Franken-watch” is NOT usually a complimentary description.
While “Franken-watch” is mostly used to describe an undesirable timepiece, there are instances when it might be okay to mix parts. As long as theย mad scientist doing the work is transparent about his intentions, there are opportunities to create one-of-a-kind watches that never existed before.
The creation of new watches from spare parts has a long history in the watch modding community. Seiko modders are the most prevalent with parts specialists popping up to supply upgraded hands, dials, bezels and watch bands. Watch modders can create a decent facsimile of almost any famous watch using these aftermarket parts. Admittedly, the modded watches do not always look like the original “name brand” watch, but some get close enough to fool people a few feet away.
Untouched Victorinox Swiss Army Convoy Chronographs
For my modded Victorinox Swiss Army Convoy Chrono “Franken-Watch”, I took a simple approach. Instead of pulling off hands and dials to make a unique watch, I decided that I couldย get the look that I wanted by taking the whole dial and movement assembly from one watch and sticking it into another watch.
The best part of each Convoy would be used to make a new custom watch
In particular, I wanted the gorgeous red dial of a stainless steel model and the light titanium case of another model. The Victorinox Swiss Army Convoy Chrono has a big eye 30-minute totalizer, applied markers, and a semi-gloss sunburst dial. I think it is a cool look even if only the numbers 1, 8 and part of 11 can be seen. Cutting off numerals may not be for everyone…
The big eye dial of the red model is awesome
The lightness of the PVD-coated titanium-cased Convoy is a joy to wear
Luckily, I wanted to swap the parts between 2 watches that were the same exact size, same model family, Convoy Chronographย and made by the same manufacturer, Victorinox Swiss Army. This made my task significantly easier than if I was trying to change dials or hands at a component level. Because the dial, hands,ย and movement were connected as a unit, all I had to do was move the assembly from one case to the other.
I planned to swap the movement/dial assembly between these 2 Swiss Army Convoy Chronographs
Before I attempted this movement/dial swap, I previsualized what it would look like in Photoshop. This can save a lot of effort. If the sketches don’t work out, then I would leave the watches as-is. Luckily, I liked the results so I proceeded with the transplant.
Victorinox Swiss Army 241255 + 241160 = Franken-watch
The process is theoretically simple, but I did experience a few hiccups along the way. To start, I removed a pin from each bracelet, which allowed the watch to sit flat. Usually, I put the watch into a specialized holder that allows me to have leverage while protecting the watch from scratches, but my photos don’t show that. I then used a special wrench to remove the screw-down case backs.
Carefully press here to release the crown stem from the movement.
The next step was to remove the crowns from the movements, and that is what gave me trouble. I am familiar with this process and have easily done it before, but not this time. The quartz movement in the Victorinox Swiss Army Convoy Chrono is an ETA G10.211, a standard and fairly inexpensive engine. For many quartz movements, there is usually a small hole with an arrow that indicates the release lever location. Inside the hole is a lever that needs to be pushed down using a tool similar to a pin remover used for bracelet sizing. Admittedly, I am not a watchsmith, but I will say that this movement did not want to give up the crown. Apparently, there is a certain technique of angling your pointer tool slightly off top-dead-center to catch the lever inside. If you ask me, it’s like trying to throw a dart through a straw.
Remove the plastic movement retainer ring using tweezers
The first Swiss Army Convoy Chrono watch disassembled…
Eventually, after much cussing, I removed both crowns from the Victorinox Swiss Army Convoy Chronos. The plastic retainers were removed next, and I slid the movements out. It was then just a matter of swapping the movement-and-dial assembly into the desired case and reversing the disassembly steps.
Both Convoy watches disassembled and ready to swap dial/movement assemblies
The result should have been two watches that wore each other’s dials, but my experiment yielded only one working watch. Oops! Like I said before, I am not a watchsmith so I would have to put the blame on my technique. It looks like I damaged the fragile crown stem levers in one of the ETA G10.211 movements so that the locking mechanism would not re-engage. This is a disheartening outcome, but at least it happened on the donor watch and not the watch I was trying to make.
The Convoy Chronos after their “out-of-body” experience
Meet My Modded Victorinox Swiss Army Convoy Chrono
I have always been fond of the Victorinox Swiss Army Convoy Chrono. This sporty watch has a slab-sided tonneau case with an integrated bracelet, extra-chunky square crown guards and a big-eye 3o-minute totalizer for the chronograph. It has a quartz movement and a mineral crystal so it might be considered a cheap watch, however, that does not mean that it’s not a fantastic grab-in-go companion.
Victorinox Swiss Army “modded” Convoy Chrono
Wearability is the key to the Swiss Army Convoy Chrono’s success. The case size is roughly 41.5 mm wide if we don’t include the 5.5 mm crown. The lug-to-lug distance is about 43 mm with the integrated bracelet angling down towards the wrist. The height is only 13 mm, which is one of the biggest advantages of quartz watches. I have both stainless steel and titanium case variants and I think they feel almost perfect on my wrist. The Convoy Chrono is large enough to have a wrist presence, but they do not overwhelm myย 6.5-inch wrist. The integrated bracelet tapers from 25.5 mm at the case to 21 mm at the clasp, which means that it is proportionally correct.
The red dial is even more lively once inside of a blacked out PVD titanium case.
There is one detail that differentiates the stainless steel Convoy Chrono from the titanium version and that is weight. The steel version weighs in at 176 grams (6.20 ounces) and the titanium significantly less at 114 grams (4.02 ounces). I weighed these Convoy Chronos sized for my wrist, which means very few removable links were included in those weights. I can feel the difference on my wrist and nowadays, I tend to favor lighter watches. I like barely feeling a watch and not suffering from wrist fatigue that can set in with heavy watches that rub my wristbones. Titanium has another advantage over steel and it warms to the wearer’s body temperature more than cold stainless steel that resists warming. This warming effect and the reduced mass makes a titanium watch feel like a part of your wrist.
A stunning one-of-a-kind watch made by me. I might be a little too proud, but I like it!
Even if I ruined a donor watch movement during my Frankenstein experiment, I am pretty happy with the monster watch that survived, which combines the best characteristics of two Convoy Chrono models into a one-of-a-kind, customized model. It is like owning an affordable Victorinox Swiss Army version of the Only Watch. It features the wonderful red dial and the ultralight, black-PVD-coated titanium case and bracelet. The look is stunning in my opinion, and it looks like a model that Victorinox Swiss Army could have made, but never did.
My new Convoy Chrono creation is stealthy and flashy at the same time…
This was my first foray into watch modding beyond the typical strap swap, and it has given me the confidence to try other mods to Victorinox Swiss Army watches. In the future, I plan to buy the tools required to swap hands and dials on a component level, which will open more possibilities for watchย customization. These tools will also allow me to attempt my first movement swap to fix the ETA G10.211 that I busted. I have high hopes that I can accomplish the transplant. Wish me luck that I will be as successful as Dr. Frankenstein resurrecting the watch corpse from the dead. Now, where did I put my Tesla coils?
My first modding experiment had successes and failures, but I am glad I did it.
