WS 25 Battery change on MechaQuartz IWC Caliber 631 R397 (SR726SW)

Case edges clean on both the watch case and the case back, now pop it on and you are done. Wait! Did you turn the watch over - or better lift it up holding it in horizontal position - and check whether it is running? Now that is another step I used to forget in the past in my eagerness to share new pictures with forum friends.
After seeing that the watch was ticking in one second intervals, I popped the back on with my finger tips. In case of an IWC or any other nice watch made to reasonable tolerances,  you could expect that.
A hint for watches that you cannot close with your finger tips, be careful to have the dies of the case press resting on the steel part of the case and not on the crystal. Otherwise the last second press to close the case back could become the first chapter of another story e.g. "How I tried to find a crystal for a Vintage Seiko". I use a very inexpensive case press "Made in India" and it came with nicely made dies and has helped me to close many watches. These presses cost maybe USD 20 to 40 and are a fraction of the price of most Swiss Made presses of course and suffciently for an occasional closing of a snap-on shop. However I am sure if I were to run a professional watch repair shop, I would buy a Swiss Made case press simply because I expect those to outlast their Indian equivalents and thus justifying a higher price. Also I am very happy to call a case press my own. Gone are the times where I tried with all imaginable house hold items to press down on snap-on cases, always fearing to crack the crystal, scratch the watch or hurt my fingers or ruin the items I used as "alternative case presses".
I noticed that more expensive Quartz watches with snap-on backs are a lot easier to close. The worst examples I have found where promotional watches or children watches. Sometimes the tolerances were so big that I had doubts I could snap the case back on without ruining the watch. Take your time chosing the right dies and look with a loupe from the side to check the pressure points, those are the hints I would like to give for the closing of the snap-on case. Check and check again, it will take less time then to replace a scattered crystal or even worse, a scratch dial and bent hands.
Now we are almost done. Thank you for reading so far. On the next page I will summarize important steps for a Quartz battery change from my perspective as an autodidact watch tinkerer that might be quite different from the view of a trained watchmaker.

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