This is a custom made tritium dive watch for a dear from of mine, Rich Andrews. He has provided me with valuable information regarding military watches in general and also sent me several parts that I needed for my project watches. Naturally, I wanted to pay him back with something he had been looking for: a HUGE dive watch with tritium luminescence and automatic movement. So I looked around here and there and after careful research, found a perfect case. It was a Ruhla NVA combat dive watch. Original Ruhla dial was defective in that it would not sit properly aligned to the rest of the watch. Movement was a mediocre quartz. Otherwise the case was perfect: big, massive, and heavy.

I had the watch fitted with tritium dial and hands from one of the parts Rich had sent me. I believe it was originally from Stocker and Yale Sandy 590 field watch. A hacking 17 jewels Bulova automatic movement was fitted to the watch. A scrupulous reader might notice that the second hand is from a Benrus dive watch. This was used because the one from Sandy 590 (which is a quartz model) would not fit onto the automatic movement.

The fully indexed bi-directional bezel is thick but smooth. The teeth on the outer ring is reminiscent of a mechanical gear. I'd say you can safely turn the bezel with dive gloves on. Original crystal to the watch was a flat mineral glass that sat far below this bezel. I hate flat crystals for tactical reasons (i.e. gives off too much reflection) so I requested it to be replaced with a dome-shaped acrylic crystal. My watchmaker couldn't find a suitable crystal thick enough to fit the case so he had three acrylic crystals molded into one. The resulting piece, as you can see, has something of a magnifying glass effect; it makes the dial appear closer to you than its actual position, which is positioned far beneath the crystal.

One of the most interesting aspect of the watch is the canteen style screw down crown. The outer crown unscrews and detaches from the case completely. A tiny inner crown is then exposed for setting the time and date. Outer crown is designed for providing water tightness and protecting the inner crown from outside shocks. The drawback to this approach is that the inner crown had to be so tiny, I had much trouble manipulating it. Also, there was no chain attached to the outer crown. The owner must be very careful not to lose it or else the watch would look very funny. But otherwise the detachable crown alone makes this watch a unique modern-day pseudo canteen style military timepiece.

The case back is also screw-down type to provide water tightness. It came with a clear plastic sticker marked "Passed QC9". I suspect "QC9" stands for Quality Control Personnel No. 9. All Ruhla watches should have NVA issue markings on the case back but this example is missing them. Not even the manufacturer's name. I guess you can safely say that this is the sterile of sterile watches.

The watch takes a whopping 24mm strap! It doesn't have to be a one-piece nylon strap as it has spring bars. In fact, the watch came with a 24mm black rubber dive strap similar in style to the ones found on Seiko dive watches. To give you an idea of how big this watch is, I have placed it side by side with a Vietnam-era Hamilton GG-W-113 for comparison.

Well, I sure hope this gave you some impression of how big the watch is as I forgot to measure the exact dimensions before sending the watch to Rich. My wife was simply dumbfounded at how monstrous it looked when I briefly wore it for a day to check the accuracy. Enjoy the photos, and click them for detailed view!