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It is one of those watches that for me, was so close to being right, that getting a relatively affordable one that I could make just so was too tempting.
I now have it back from the modding process, and couldn’t be more delighted.
So, what have I done?
The first thing was to paint the H and M hands white. This is not as per the original A-15 (a US issued Bulova watch), but because the original A-15 had H and M hands that extended a lot further onto the internal bezel scales, and they do not on this re-issue (which is Bulova’s second attempt), so the white is used to make the hands look larger. It also has a nice side-effect of making it more legible.
Secondly, a total re-lume with a good puffy vintage lume, for all main numerals, the re-painted hands, and also the Zero indices on the two bezels.
I think Finn at Horological Underground did great with the re-lume, it really does look old.
The lume also works better than Bulova’s stock lume, so win-win.
The last thing you can’t see, but it makes a massive difference. Finn swapped out the O-rings on the two bezel stems. The crown at 2 moves the outer, minute bezel. the one at 4 moves the inner hour bezel.
It really is quite clever, you can use the combination of the two (together) to measure a long (12 hr) elapsed time, or use the minute scale for a shorter (1 hr) elapsed measurement whilst using the hour bezel as a GMT indicator.
Anyhow, the new O-rings are about double the volume of the old ones, and this has given the bezel crown operation a lot more friction, which is great, as beforehand, those crowns span with even the lightest of contacts, and sleeve movment made them almost useless. No longer.
Lastly, I added a Joseph Bonnie Bonklip, for that old military look.
