Relighting a Vintage Eterna KonTiki Sonic watch

Today I present to you a real submarine, the legendary Eterna KonTiki.

Bright colors, an imposing cushion case and a tuning fork movement, we are right in the heart of the 70s.

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Here, a NOS (New Old Stock) copy to mark the contrast with the one I received.

This KonTiki comes directly from Sweden and has not been spared. Today it belongs to a French collector, p@tek on the forums or b.watch on Instagram.

This one presents this watch in a great article that you can find here: Eterna KonTiki Sonic

Why KonTiki?

"Wanting to prove his theory that Polynesian culture was born in Peru, Thor Heyerdahl and his crew decided to cross the Pacific in 1947 aboard a balsa raft: the KonTiki.

ETERNA is the sponsor of the KONTIKI expedition. The watches worn by these six scientists are Eterna watches. In total: 97 days at sea and 7,600 km traveled. Since this date, ETERNA sports watches have been called KONTIKI."

Text and image taken from this excellent article: Eterna: its history and its emblematic models

Let's get into the technical part.

The project :

The tritium of the minute hand is damaged, it must be relighted .

I open the back with its characteristic medallion.

The bottom seal is very impressive.

Here is the Bulova licensed tuning fork movement: the Eterna Sonic 1550, which is a rebadged ESA 9162.

The tuning fork movements are special, they vibrate and buzz. To find out everything about this little-known facet of watchmaking, I advise you to read this article:

BULOVA Accutron - The tuning fork revolution

I remove the movement from the box as well as the hands. The minute hand is prepared for reluming.

I apply a mixture with a color matching the patina of the watch and let it dry for 24 hours.

The color is satisfactory, I reassemble the KonTiki.

The 70s star has regained her splendor and guess what? ...It's still waterproof!

Thank you for reading this article, I leave you with this video where you can observe the fluidity of the second hand!

Bewitching.

You can find the other blog articles here: Blog 

Joshua Grillet

Founder of LumeVille and watchmaker