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Indeed 🙌👌

Best thing to do is to choose images of a 5517 gen that you like and ask your watchmaker to try and match the appearance. Rep top, gen below:

Really appreciate your feedback. It's frustrating as my helenrou dial has (to my eye at least) a better overall look. However, the structure of the lume on the kuared dial is closer to the finish on your gen sub. I may have to ask the watchmaker to use the helenrou dial and get him to match the kuared hands to the to helenrou colour 🤔 Really appreciate your feedback. It's frustrating as my helenrou dial has (to my eye at least) a better overall look. However, the structure of the lume on the kuared dial is closer to the finish on your gen sub. I may have to ask the watchmaker to use the helenrou dial and get him to match the kuared hands to the to helenrou colour 🤔 Really appreciate your feedback. It's frustrating as my helenrou dial has (to my eye at least) a better overall look. However, the structure of the lume on the kuared dial is closer to the finish on your gen sub. I may have to ask the watchmaker to use the helenrou dial and get him to match the kuared hands to the to helenrou colour 🤔

My hands-on experience with clones is limited to A4130s (see my Big Kahuna & Golden Cuckoo threads for details). Sorry.

I have not. That’s a bit over my head at the moment. But I went with the clean cause of the better movement. Have you heard positive things on the 3285 movements in these? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looks good! Have you peered into the case to view the movement? I would love to see some macros of that.

Overall, I think it looks reasonable, but the yellow 'patina' is an obvious tell. It is very difficult for a factory to produce a realistic patina. If the dial is offered with whiter lume, I would opt for that. While rare, I still occasionally see gen Subs of the period with whitish lume. So you could pull that off if the rest of the dial, watch & you look the part. Faking patina is definitely more ART than science. It requires ALOT of knowledge, experience, testingtestingtesting & hand-work to produce a 'natural' looking result. For a factory produced dial, I think it looks good. But I doubt it will fool a serious collector. Here is a macro shot of the lume on 1 of my gen Sub dials for comparison --

Thanks for educating me

Shortly after I installed the gen balance, I also replaced the rotor, which includes the bearing. The 1st pic is of the Big Kahuna's original A4130 rotor/bearing. The 2nd pic is the gen 4130 rotor/bearing. As you can see, both 4130 rotors contain 7 ball bearings. The only difference between the rotor bearings is that the tiny tabs that retain the bearing race (where the balls circulate) is more visible on the gen when viewed under magnification. Other than that, I do not see much difference other than the slightly smoother finish on the gen metal surfaces. But, unless you see them side by side, I doubt you could tell the difference anyway. However, the new 4131 contains what Rolex calls an 'optimized' rotor/bearing, which contains 40 or so ball bearings & a different bearing race. Alot of people, who have only seen the current 4131 rotor bearing, think the A4130's rotor bearing must be an 'obvious tell' of fakery because it has only 7 ball bearings, unaware that that is actually correct for the 4130; only the current (4131) movement has the 'optimized' rotor/bearing. As to the A4130's rotor being 'loud' -- that has not been my experience. Certainly, in comparison with the old secs @ 6 7750 Daytonas, the A4130 is nearly gen quiet. Shaking an A4130 will not give you away like some of the old 7750s often did. Only with your ear right up to the caseback can you hear a difference between the A4130's spinning rotor & the gen's (& the subtle difference may simply be due to a lack of proper oiling by the factory). Unless you plan to install a display caseback (as I did), I would not worry about the A4130's rotor/bearing.

I’ve recently gotten back into reps with my clean v3! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My apologies for troubling you all again but just wanted to give you an update. I purchased the case and bezel set from Kuared watches in Vietnam. Happy with those. However, I had to purchase a hand and dial set afterwards as the helenrou hands wouldn't fit the 1520 rolex movement. Kuared sent them and they arrived today. I'm not sure about the caking on the dial plots and wanted your views. Is this acceptable as aged looking plots or do I take him to task? I'm wondering whether my watchmaker can tidy it up

the problem with that auto wind module is the lack of enough ball bearings and i think that makes it really loud. the new ones i had seen appear to have the correct number of ball bearings, if that is real picture the dealers have there

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Thanks for the link, much appreciated! I’ll keep an eye on it! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't think you can find any already made DD decal for a 18XX or a 18XXX ... plus the fact that applying a decal on a dial is not that easy if you want a high-end result which is, IMHO, mandatory for a vintage 18K DD. At the moment I'm working on a really damaged 18XXX dial that I will turn into a yellow "stella dial" (for a 18238). When it's finished I'll send you pics so that you can compare to the original below. If your dial plate finish is not damaged and with only the printings erased I can also reprint on it without modifying the finish. Price for such a work would be around 250€, including dial lume and handset relume ... more or less depending on the condition of your dial. Cheers from France Envoyé de mon moto g(9) power en utilisant Tapatalk

Here's his ebay store, but he doesn't have anything currently listed. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=266215073657&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l170197&_ssn=bivintagestore2014

Congratulations, this looks superb! Would you have a link or some more info for the eBay seller please? I can’t find the case or hands? Cheers!

could you please post some pics of your dial ? Envoyé de mon moto g(9) power en utilisant Tapatalk

Okay so I have an 18k presidential day date just that is older and was showing some wear on the dial. So I thought it was a good idea to clean it myself and did more harm than good. I don't have the money to pay for a new one since I inherited the watch and could never in a million years afford a rolex myself. Whats the best place and best way to go about getting an entire dial decal? I have plenty of computers and printers is there a site anybody would recommend for printing one off and applying it to the dial?

My build.

Would like to pick up a few handsets if available. Please let me know

Because Explorers are relatively simple designs, a number of reps have been able to clone them for a number of years. The difficult part is cloning the 3285, both visually & functionally. I did not see much in that thread detailing the movement.

Thanks!

I can’t as I’m not a watch smith. But as I remember it these will accept Gen everything. HUGE thread on these. https://forum.replica-watch.info/threads/big-noob-explorer-216570-chs-thread.284033/