Seiko & Citizen Watch Forum Message Archive

my question is how it can mechanically allow helium to escape while preventing water to enter if it doesn't lift; in which case water could also enter.

I just wondered if the ring itself is a permeable membrane rather than just a mechanical seal.

Helium gets into the watch by seeping between the molecules of the gaskets and perhaps the crystal itself but water doesn't. Helium builds up slowly in the watch and would eventually leak out under it's own devices if left alone. The problem is that you don't want to come to the surface and have all that pent up pressure inside the watch which will stay for some time as it would take equally as long to leek out as it did to get in.

My thinking is that Seiko may have used a special crystal gasket/retaining ring material that allows a much faster egress of Helium through it's permeability than by some mechanical lifting of the crystal.

If pressure from inside the watch can lift the crystal then pressure from outside could also force water inside. Pressure isn't exerted just from the face of the crustal but in all directions around the watch.

It would be interesting to find out exactly what Seiko did...

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If the only tools you have are quills, you tend to see every watch as a story waiting to be written . ---

A. Fischetail