Vostok Amphibia 090 Black Bay Mod

Can you really call it modding? I mean really, taking a watch and bunging a new strap, bezel and bezel insert on it is not the most technical accomplishment is it? It is about as far as my techincal skills stretch though. It is, however, easy, relatively cheap, fun and it means anyone with a few simple skills and tools can customise a Vostok Amphibia watch. One can really change the appearance of the Vostok Amphibia into something a little bit different (not that they don’t look rather different to start ) very quickly. Have a look in the Watchuseek F10 Russian Watch forum  for some inspiration, there are plenty of ideas there.

The inspiration for this Vostok Amphibia 090 Mod is the Tudor Black Bay I suppose, or any other watch with a black face and a red bezel! So I started off with a Vostok Amphibia 090 (model 09016M) which I purchased from Ebay and is duplicate of another watch I already have. The “M” of the serial number 09016M denotes a matt type finish to the watch case. The watch specs are the pretty much the same as the for the Vostok Amphibia 090 Special Edition.

Before

After

I purchased a replacment bezel from Dave Murphy at Murphy Manufacturing Co. Inc. This is the coin-edge, insert style, VO1050 – if you are going to do this with a Vostok Amphibia 090 with its tonneau style, make sure that you get the right bezel for your watch, Dave Murphy makes a couple of different ones. His bezels, and other ones you can find on Ebay tend to take any bezel insert that fits the Seiko SKX007. My insert is a red one from Dagaz Watch Ltd. It is the one he lists as the BB Red – Style Bezel Insert for SKX which I simply glued into the Dave Murphy Bezel. The strap is one I use on a few of my Amphibias, the affordable Rivieria brown leather watch strap from SecTime.

I mentioned in a previous post that I am surprised that no-one has got round to producing replacement hands for the Vostok Amphibia, judging by the amount of bezel replacement and bezel insert mods that everyone seems to be doing, I would think there would be a market for it. One only has to look the multitude of replacement hands produced for Seiko watches to imagine the possibilities for Vostoks mods with some plongeur, snowflake or some paddle style hands. I recently saw a great Vostok mod on YouTube in which YouTube user The Distinguished Gentleman modded some ETA plongeur hands for an Vostok Amphibia, but that is beyond my capabilities.

Anyway, here are a few more picture of my Vostok Amphibia 090 Black Bay Mod.