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SD - May The Force be with you FGD

Guys, I think we may be jumping the gun with this. Mike has some of my watches plus a gen 7750 movement, and I'm not worried about getting them back. He is young, he's having some personal issues that I don't believe he knows quite how to deal with and he's in a place where he is not making good decisions. I'm not defending his actions, and I understand everyone's trepidation, but there's no reason to believe he's going to rip anyone off. He is out there on the internet, easy to find, easy to follow. If he were a crook you wouldn't be able to find him. He is a watch fanatic, in spite of that last post, made without much thought admittedly. If anyone of you remember when you were his age and if you ever had 2, 3 or 4 things hit you in a short period of time, it can seem like your world has crashed in on you. I believe he is in one of those places and he's let his emotions get the better of him. Give hm a littler time. I believe he will make things right when he gets to a better place and realizes the repercussions of these last couple of months.

That's a stunning PAM Benjamin! For me the Transocean again

So here it is guys. I never thought there would be so much interest in this review. My post on the announcement of this review led to a lot of views and replies. That was very cool and flattering. I hope I can now live up to all the high expectations! First off I would like to thank Angus from Puretime for sending me this movement to review. He is one of the few dealers that is really engaged with all the different fora. As a matter of fact he sent me an entire watch. To my best of knowledge this specific 3135 (short A3135-v2) copy variant is only available at Puretime. I will do a short review of the entire watch when I put it up for sale and will ad a link here. But for now I will concentrate on sèc the movement. So enough with this colloq advertisement, on to the review To manage some expectations I would like to say that I did not have a genuine 3135 at hand to do a thorough 1-on-1 comparison nor did I have spare Rolex parts laying around. I’m blessed with a supplier that lives 10 car minutes away so I don’t need to keep an expensive stock of genuine spare parts. I serviced several gen 3135’s so my comments will be based on my experience. I will also use pictures of the genuine movement of the net to clarify certain things. This review is not an exact science meaning there is a possibility I will overlook certain aspects of the movement: mechanical and visual. Please feel free to ad them in the comments below. I pondered a while about the best way to do this review. I know 10:10 watchmaker did a tear-down of the Yuki 3135 (short Y3135) and I know Watcher did a short photo review of it. With their courtesy I will be using some pictures from them in this review. In my opinion this review would be the best of use if I would compare the A3135 to the Y3135 and the genuine 3135. A big challenge to do so. I will review the A3135 on a couple of aspects, and where possible I will involve the Y3135 and genuine 3135. I’m just making this up while I'm writing this …. Index 1. Looks 2. Performance 3. Interchangeability 4.Summary Looks Comparing the Y335 and A3135 to the genuine we can see a lot of visual differences. I tried to highlight the main differences in the picture. I very well could have missed some but it gives you a good Idea. Overall I would say the A3135 wins the ‘looks-competition’ hands down. Mainly because of the very gen-like engravements. Also the finish is way better than that of the Y3135. The bridges are nicely beveled, striping is nice and fine and the pearlage is ok. The balance apposed to the Y3135 has fake micro stella screws that ad to the overall gen-like appearance. More on that later. Both Y’s and A’s 3135 most noticeable difference with the genuine (apart from the engravements) is the balance. It’s not free sprung and therefore has two regulating arms instead of one. The winner of the looks competition: the A3135. One thing I did notice is that the serial# is missing. Angus posted a picture of an earlier prototype which did show the serial. I don’t know if the factory changed it’s mind or someone forgot to engrave it on this movement? Performance Well upon receiving the A3135 I tested it on the vibrograph. It showed very poor results as you can see on the picture below. With an amplitude of just 188 degees and +32 sec/fast a day this watch is not wearable in this condition. You are better off looking at the sun to know the correct time…. So the tear down begins. Know that all pictures were taken under a bright light.. which even would make Paris Hilton look like a pimple face . First we need to remove the auto wind-bridge to let down the main spring. The thing I noticed immediately is not only a visual difference to the genuine but also a difference in design. The A3135 does not have an extra shock absorber for the escape wheel. Something the Y3135 does have. A very nice feature which ads to the sturdiness of the movement. Also there was no oil on the jewel where auto winding intermediate gear is connected. A very critical spot as all the build up tension that is generated by the rotor is transferred to the main spring through that jewel. All rep movements come this way so nothing new.... Than for the balance. It is nowhere near the real deal when it comes to design and materials. A gen Rolex balance is free sprung. Hence the 1 arm. I won't go into details as this write up is already taking up enough of my time and energie but you can look it up on Google. Also the genuine Rolex balance has a Glucydur hair spring and Micro Stella regulating screws. This is just your typical rep balance with imitated non-functioning Micostella screws. Thereby this balance had coils that were out of alignment. You can see how the space between the coils at 1 is smaller than at 2. This was corrected so that all the coils are now evenly centered. Little blurry but you can see the difference. Also you can see how rough and unfinished the underside of the bridge is. But who cares. It does not affect anything. Here you can see the barrel arbour jewel. The spot where the most tension is generated in the entire movement. Also bone dry… Here you can see the train gear exposed. Also the Balance bridge regulator screws can be seen very clearly. Where the genuine balance bridge can be regulated by turning these screws (end shake adjustment) these are merely for show and non functional. They are one piece and force fitted into the base plate. They did oil the jewels of the train gear, up and down side. Most of the time when we see oil in rep movements these are the spots that get oiled. The reason for this is because they are easy accessible and quick to oil. Here you can see a dirty gear from the gear train.. So now let’s have a look at the dial side. Here we immediately see some major differences with the genuine. Not only in looks but also in function. I won’t go into the visual differences as they are irrelevant on this side of the movement and you can search for them yourself. I do however want to mention the small jewel that is meant to guide the date wheel. It is present on the Y3135 but on the A3135 they used a metal version. We all know jewels minimize friction so a jewel is preferred. However I could not determine whether it really affects date-change reliability as everything works like it should. Than there is the keyless works. Where the Y3135 mimics the keyless works very good the A3135 is totally different. Not only in looks but also design. I have no idea why they did this. So forget spare parts. Genuine Rolex parts will definitely not fit. Here you can see the dirty keyless works. The cut outs on the setting lever are really shallow (arrow). This makes it a little finicky to get the crown in date-set position as one easily pulls through the date position. You need to be really gentle, like with your girlfriend….does not affect anything other than you have to use some more 'finesse' when searching for the date set position. When I came to the main spring I immediately knew what caused the low amplitude and bad performance. Besides little oil throughout the movement the barrel and main spring were very dirty…. And this is how it looks after cleaning, the proper amount of braking grease on the barrel wall and oil on coils and floor. But proper oiling is for another day… To conclude I want to show you some pics of the reversing wheels. They are constructed completely different than the genuines. They can not be taken apart. The reversing wheels of the Y3135 are just like the genuine. At least in terms of construction. I can’t say anything about dimensions off course. Interchangeability Like I said before. I didn't have a genuine movement or parts laying around and I did not have the time or energy to go look up all the genuine dimensions. Therefor I will give you the dimensions of some critical parts of the A3135 and I will let you do you own investigation. What I do know a 100% sure is that the keyless works of the A3135 is not interchangeable with the genuine. Diameter balance wheel= 9,99mm Diameter date wheel= 21,75mm Height main spring= 0,95mm Diameter minute wheel= 1,02mm Diameter hour wheel= 1,45mm Diameter second hand post= 0,20mm Diameter reversing wheel= 7,00mm Diameter reversing wheel jewel hole= 0,25mm Overall movement diameter= 28,4mm Overall movement thickness (without rotor) 5,4mm Here is also a scan of the dial feet position. You can use it in your own build to decide if a genuine dial will fit. IMO the feet are at the right position. The thickness of the dial feet is 0,92mm (-actual size- with the dial feet circled in red) The stem’s thickness is indeed increased just like Angus mentioned to 0.55mm. Screw thread is 0,85mm Summary The A3135 mimics the Rolex 3135 very well but when it comes to construction and design the Y3135 wins. This is purely based on the fact that the Y3135 copied all the design features like the keyless, date wheel guiding jewel, escape wheel shock absorber perfectly. If it is looks you want than the A3135 wins. Both the Y3135 an A3135 have several tell signs but the A3135 just looks the most accurate. Off course mainly based on the nice engravements and overall finishing of the bridges. But neither will fool a watchmaker for a second off course. Most movements assembled in China are incorrectly oiled and dirty. For the A3135 his is no different. After service it can be as reliable as an ETA or clone. The Y3135 for that matter is designed almost identical to it's genuine counterpart so I believe that if serviced correctly the Y3135 can even be as reliable and sturdy as a genuine 3135 ...but now I'm getting out on a limb. So basically both movements have the potential to be reliable when serviced even though it asks a lot of skill and time from the watch maker to correct all the problems.... If I would service these for a living I would definitely charge more for these 3135 clones than a regular ETA oR clone. The 3135 clones are simply more sensitive to oiling and proper adjustment of parts to get it performing up to par. The A3135 from this review was fully cleaned and oiled according to the Rolex spec sheet. It is now running at an amplitude of 275 degrees and within COCS norms. This is the best this movement can do without replacing the main spring with a genuine. So why buy the A3135? For me the only advantage of the A and Y3135 for that matter is the crown position, ability to take genuine hands and genuine like 'time setting'. As Rolex has closed case backs no one will ever see the movement. And although the A3135 is accurately decorated and better finished, it still doesn’t fool anybody. So if looks don’t count and only mechanics and movement design matters the Y3135 would be a better choice….If you don’t care about crown position, gen hands and all that stuff just go for an ETA or clone. They are a lot cheaper, parts are widely available and they are virtually bullet proof after proper service. Food for thought The balance click on the A3135 was milled wrong making it impossible to tighten the screw. A washer needed to be added. The exact same thing applied to the Y3135 as did 10:10 repair mention in his review. Two different movements with the exact same strange production flaw…. Different movements same sub contractors? Who knows? Well that was all folks. Hope you liked it! Mark ------------------------ Performance shot after service. Running and performing flawlessly like a gen

Hi, so this will be my first post here on a replica Tag Heuer Grand Carrera Calibre 36. I thought i would share my thoughts on this low-end replica watch. And of course post some pictures I bought this watch from Priceangels as an experiment, but because of its superb design (for me the dial and brown and white contrast) I started using it as my daily "beater". So for the first months it held up great and it harvested lots of compliments. But suddenly the dial-ring (turning part located over the watch-face) pusher/control fell off and rendered useless. But I liked the design so I made some effort to repair it and kept using it. Another sign of the low-end watch was that the Chronograph function never worked - Hence it being a a21 movement. On the positive side, the whole dial was beautiful with nice details and good print and carvings. Whenever my friends checked it out they didn't even consider that it was fake. And i was impressed as well. And maybe not in the replica world, but otherwise the most important function: Timekeeping was very precise a few seconds +/- each day and i could comfortably trust its timekeeping. In addition the power reserve surprised me with about 16h. Otherwise the watch lens produced almost no reflections which made it great in sunny conditions, but i think a plastic material was used so scratch resistance wasn't great. Furthermore the date function was fully working and easy to adjust. Which meant that the two key elements of this watch was working and the watch was doing its primary job. In conclusion it was/is a great looking watch with an elegant leather strap (though not of highest quality) an exquisite dial and accurate timekeeping. This was a great short term daily beater, but due to its quality this watch is not in it for the long run. I'll leave my first post with some pictures for you to admire its design. Best regards -C/P Ps. Is there a review of the Omega Seamaster 300m chronograph Ceramic, in BLUE?

Wore goldie to a business meeting today

As posted in the other thread about this, he is suspended for 2 weeks.

Guys, as a long time member here, I have seen my share of scams, and attempted scams. First off, I can't repeat this enough, buy the seller then the watch. that's the first commandment of buying, not only reps, but genuine watches, whatever it may be where face to face sales are not possible. Second, if something smells like three day old fish left on the dock, then you had better run away as fast as you can. We are not dealing with exotic vintage autos, old masters paintings, etc. there isn't a watch around, outside of a few astronomically priced one offs, that isn't mass produced. So if you walk away from a sale, rest assured over time other watches that are as good or better than this one will come up for sale. And last, please, if you believe that someone is trying to pull a scam, or breaking forum rules with back door sales, by all means contact a moderator. Every post has at the bottom of the posters profile, a button with a little yellow triangle and the word report. If you feel like something isn't right, report the thread and alert the mods. Your vigilance may save another forum member a lot of money.

Well with Pete and AJ 's impute (gospel in my book) I see my gut feeling was correct, be careful gentlemen.

New arrival for me. After an amazing deal with PeteM. Paid yesterday at 1pm, delivered to my door at 9am this morning.

Fire was kind enough to send me PM w/ thread in regard. Although as I read it price was not openly declared by seller (I gather these carbon fiber ones go for big dollars) it would in my estimation ( you could see where it was going) be a high value sale that must be approved further more back door sales are prohibited and as Recoop is not VIP or better member he is prohibited from sales here in any event. I urge you all to never do this backdoor kind of buy especially on a high end piece it just leads to bad outcomes for all in the long run. If any long time guys are unable to renew membership during this trying time contact a mod or chief for permission to sell or as with most of us you have built up relationships with other members still able to who can help out. PS I know little on pricing of these carbon fiber case APs but it would seem he was out for a score also.

No change here

very difficult to take this picture

3 of my pieces were posted back on Sept 4th, tracking info was sent by Mike, just waiting for them now but as I'm in Oz will take a while to get to me, I'll update when they get safely to me billy

Thanks Martijn! Absolutely AJ, we need the bigger Pam's to make our wrists look normal - that includes mikeonabike as well Absolutely beautiful Longines Sgt. The fit and finish of that timepiece is stellar and worthy of the providence of the brand.

Snap Ben, us Big guys like a Big PAM! AJ

Very sad to have watched this thread unfold. I was really hoping Mike would resolve all outstanding issues with members watches, but really feel hurt now with the way he views us. I really thought he was on the same page with us, and shared our passion

I have used Matt on several occasions, his work is outstanding. He can source a gen dial and the correct hands to fit your movement. Matt also has a technique that allows him to use gen dials without cutting the feet. Doesn't work on all movements, button some it does. He built this Day/Date for me, gen dial, crown and bezel, his case.

Thanks for taking the time to post the photos! Looks great! Maybe even a cheap quartz one would be a good daily beater?

Yes, also the 311.30.44.50.01.002 is 44 mm co-axial version with Sap Xtal - this is a hesilite model. From the dial my guess would be a 1970's Standard Speedy Pro (ST145012).... but... not sure... I like Speedys but am not pro on them. Indicators are: 1) "S and P" in Speedmaster are not on same level and a final "r" with mid-level decline - so not a 80's model. 2) The "T"s in the 6 o'clock position align with the 5 second markers and the thick hour marker is shortened to not cover the seconds markers. Movement likely to be an 861. The change to the plated 1861 was 1996 and this is a good bit older than that... but would be shocked if it housed a 321 or transitional movement. As for the crazy modle numbers they all do have meanings: In the case of the 311.30.44.50.01.002 after the 311 the first two numbers are 30 which means: SS plus assorted metal. Next to mean its 44 mm. Next two mean Mech Co-Axial with no complication (the "0" on the complications part). 01 means she has a black face. and 002 is the sequence number.

Is this the much awaited rep? Looks great!!!

If you're in NY - swing by the FPJourne boutique. Lovely pieces - bargain prices. (check them out online first though)...

I am working on something and hopefully, I will have something available in a week or 2 depending on how lon the validation process is to get approval from a couple payment providers. Will most likely be on CC payments available and it will not be integrated in to the forum software, so I will manually have to upgrade members, but it's better than nothing. I'll get back with more news as soon as I can share more.

Looks like the new Bezel insert is ready!!!!! The pearl is amazing!!!

I will be married four years in September, complements of eHarmony. We rarely have a bad day. Just take your time and have realistic expectations (don't settle and don't expect the first one to be the "one"). It does work

My dream... only 5.500 Euros!

Does tc only have LV version to sell now? Why is everyone using maxi dial with black insert?