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Mbw Rolex 1680 back from modding


Beone21

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Looks damn good to me. I would have had RA relume the hand so the lume isn't as leveled with the hand surface but other than that, she looks great. Looks fresh from a RSC service.

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I don't think you should age the insert either. If you look at a lot of vintage rollies in a collectors shop you'll see that the old bezels are more often than not in remarkably good, that is to say, dark black condition.

Lovely piece wear it well.

True but maybe just a scuff here and there.

Forgot it also Has polexpete silver dwo

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Very nice job! He did great work on the CGs. If anything you could bleach the insert for only about 5 minutes just to take some off the shine off but not enough to change the color. I am doing very similar mods to mine so excited to see the result.

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Very nice job! He did great work on the CGs. If anything you could bleach the insert for only about 5 minutes just to take some off the shine off but not enough to change the color. I am doing very similar mods to mine so excited to see the result.

What's the best way to do this?

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  • 4 weeks later...
Modding was done by rolexaddict.

Usual case work, cg's and recessing the insert.

Yuki pearl, Clark 127 and I went with yuki bracelet. It's marked 93250 but is hollow, combined with wso 580 endlinks.

Also thinking about tc hands.

How do you find rolex addict

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

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On March 16, 2016 at 0:25 AM, Beone21 said:

What's the best way to do this?

You have to be careful removing the insert. I found the MBW inserts to be very flimsy and they are glued to the bezel. First you have to pop off the bezel using a thin, flat but strong tool like a caseback knife or small flathead screwdriver. Then I would use something like a small razor or x-acto to try and separate the insert from the bezel. Wipe the bezel down and put it in a small cup of bleach for about 5 minutes, remove it, rinse it under water, dab it with a paper towel to dry it (you don't want to wipe it because that may add a strange wiped texture that you can't undo) and inspect the insert. If you like it, you're done. If not, repeat until satisfied. Viola :lol: 

28 minutes ago, slay said:

Be warned that RA does poor work and charges a lot of money for that. I made the mistake to blindly trust a few reviews. Can't recommend his work at all.

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic. This is one of the nicest looking case modifications I've seen and I have only heard good things from him. What was your experience?

17 minutes ago, Ueno said:

Looks great, too bad all the MBW's have a low crown position. 

What do you mean by that? 

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Be warned that RA does poor work and charges a lot of money for that. I made the mistake to blindly trust a few reviews. Can't recommend his work at all.

Curious what you mean here. I had 3 watches handled by RA and, although not cheap, he did great work and has great after care. I have sent a watch back because I wanted the hands to be just a little bit more aged. He did it for free.

He repaired the movement of my latest mbw, didn't charge anything.

And most important of all, look at it

Verstuurd vanaf mijn A0001 met Tapatalk

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8 minutes ago, UmpaHimself said:

 

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic. This is one of the nicest looking case modifications I've seen and I have only heard good things from him. What was your experience?

 

Sorry, I didn't wanna ruin the watch for Beone21, but before other members send their watches to the butcher shop....  please tell me what has been modified on that case? I happen to have the exact same watch and the only thing that was modified on this case was the crown-guards (from the inside) and (hopefully) the lug holes. Anyone can do that with a diamond file, sandpaper, cape cod and 30mins spare time. The lugs, the bevels/chamfers and the bezel look exactly like my they looked on my MBW when it came from Thailand.

The hands are polished like a mirror and all edges between the lugs appear to be razor sharp. Is that realistic for 30 year old watch? Sure, if it was left in the drawer for many years. But you don't need to spend 400-500$ on "mods" to get that look on your MBW.

 

My experience was....

A case that was supposed to be re-shaped and vintagized, but wasn't reshaped whatsoever and looked like a new watch, not a 50 year old watch (much like the one above) 

All edges were still sharp, like a new watch.

There were visible dremel skid marks on the watch.

Finish and shape of the lugs was [censored]. 

Bezel insert was not flush with the bezel: on one side it had a finger-nail thick gap. 

Movement stopped sporadically after RA touched it (was running perfect before). 

The stem was cut too short.

There was a 1mm gap between date wheel and dial.

 

 

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Like I said, aside from trimming the CGs from the inside, the MBW 1680 looks exactly like this, straight from the shop in Thailand. I'm not saying the watch looks bad, I'm saying that there is no justification to charge 400$ for (mostly) invisible "mods".

 

For 400$ I'd expect the case to show that the watch had some history (even if it looks well taken care of) and not like someone left it in a drawer for 30 years. 

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On 4/9/2016 at 3:12 AM, slay said:

Like I said, aside from trimming the CGs from the inside, the MBW 1680 looks exactly like this, straight from the shop in Thailand. I'm not saying the watch looks bad, I'm saying that there is no justification to charge 400$ for (mostly) invisible "mods".

 

For 400$ I'd expect the case to show that the watch had some history (even if it looks well taken care of) and not like someone left it in a drawer for 30 years. 

$400! 

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Is that labour or labour and parts I wonder. Perhaps you could post pictures so we can see what you mean or perhaps the mods can investigate. On the one hand it sounds like Slay got ripped off, but on the other perhaps RA is entitled to a defence. I'm very interested in getting to the bottom of this as I am currently collecting parts to send to RA.

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400$ _EXCLUDING_ parts!

I'll gladly pay 400$ for complex work that takes time, patience and special equipment (e.g. re-cutting fat chamfers on my 6538), but not to get a watch back that didn't change much compared to the stock MBW.

I'm by far not the only one that was [censored] off, I vaguely alluded that I was unhappy about some work in a random thread on RWI and 2 or 3 members PMd me telling me they had similarly bad experiences and said they can't fathom how RA gets so much praise.

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