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Just completed, 5513 today

A few weeks back, someone purchased the very last stock of MBW watches, because the owners are closing down their shop. I wasn't really planning on building another watch, since I already have too many on my bench, but I figured what the heck, this is your last chance to own a piece of rep history. As chance would have it, around the same time I got my hands on a very nice gen old stock Tropic 127 Top Hat Crystal. These are pretty rare and differ from the current T127 in the sense that they look like a top hat and don't have a beveled edge. Pretty hard to get and expensive for a piece of plastic, but the crystal is really what makes the watch, just like a suit makes a gentlemen. Vintage Rollies will look significantly different with one vs. another crystal. The other part that makes a watch look the part is the dial. To distinguish the 1680 a bit from my DRSD, I wanted this one to look tropical. Through a friend, I managed to get a Tropical brown 1680 Red dial with genuine specs. This was a blessing and a curse, because the rehaut in the MBW 1680 case is really made for 5513 dials, so it's about 0.5mm too narrow, so my dial was a 0.5mm too big, or to put it more accurately, my rehaut was 0.5mm to narrow. Thankfully, I'm not the type to back away from a challenge and I now have the right tools to correct that. To be honest, I got tired of waiting for other people to do such work for me, often to dissatisfying results, so I started accumulating all tools I need to do case reshaping, crown/tube/crystal installation, servicing movements... you name it. It takes a bit of practice, but it's totally rewarding in the end (and this is from someone who makes his money in an entirely different industry! I think we had one set of 15$ screwdrivers from amazon at home before I ventured out and got all this equipment). Having said that, there are still a few select guys here that I trust with my watches and I still send them to these guys for certain specialty mods that I believe they can do a lot better than I can. But I do as much of the work as possible by myself. Case Work:Reducing the dials diameter by 0.5mm would have been a tough challenge without damaging the dial and it would have made the chapter ring too narrow for a 1680, so I had no choice but to make the rehaut bigger. Using a digital caliper, a Dremel Flex Shaft Attachment and a carbide burr, I started carefully opening up the rehaut and additionally carved a little edge into it to hold the dial. To visualize the process, take a look at the schema below. I basically had to cut out the red part to use the gen spec dial: You can probably imagine that this was tedious work, I had to disassemble, carve, sandpaper, polish, measure and assemble the watch at least 20 times over and over to get it right. Personally, I need to hold the case in one hand and the burr on a flex shaft in the other to do this right, which is of course pretty dangerous, so I don't recommend doing this when you are tired! It's possible to use a Vise instead of holding it in your hand, but I felt I got better results using both hands. In the end, it was totally worth it, I adore this dial! I slightly aged the rest of the case + lugs as well without overdoing it. Crown Guards:In addition to the rehaut, I also slightly filed down the crown-guards, not too much, since the 1680 tends to have thicker crown-guards than the 5513 for example, and the CGs are already pretty good on the MBWs. For a lot of other cases (or for other reference numbers), you'll have to trim the CGs from the outside, which is a lot of work. As you can see here, the gen 1680 has thicker crown guards: You also see in the picture above that the gen 1680 has a I__I shape around the backside of the CGs. Most reps don't have this, they are shaped like this: \__/ - which is incorrect for the 1680. Mine is of course shaped like the Gen Bezel:As you can imagine, the black stock bezel insert looked hideous with the tropical dial, so I had to find a way to make it look the part. This was the first bezel I tried to age, so I figured it's probably a wise idea to experiment with the stock bezel and not with an expensive aftermarket. I used a combination of 400/600/800/1200/1500 & 3000 grit sandpaper, UV lamp and a blow-torch to arrive at the tropical brown look you can see below and I'm pretty happy with the result. I may change the insert for a different fat font insert at some point and repeat the procedure, but for now this will do just fine! I sanded and polished the bezel ring a few times and glued the insert in-place with a tiny amount of resin. Crown/Tube:I re-tapped the case with 3 different M3x0.35 taps to accept a gen spec tube from Clark and installed a genuine 703 crown. I created a counter-sunk for the tube using a round carbide burr. Lug Holes:I used a 1.25mm drill to drill the lug-holes for proper 2mm springbars, only to find out that the MBW rep bracelet's center-end-links don't accept 2mm spring-bars (grrrr). So now I need to get a different bracelet or change the last link that connects to the end-links. It's not feasible to drill a bigger hole into the last center link, I tried with various HSS drills and increased their size by 0.05mm increments, but the metal on these links is just too rigid to open up the hole properly. The drills that I use to drill holes into cases for crown/tube aren't gonna cut it with the bracelet's center-end-link. If anyone has an idea about the bracelet (either opening the last center links hole, or changing the last center link to something more suitable), I'd be happy to hear suggestions! As far as I know the hollow link MBW bracelets are the next best thing to a gen bracelet. Considering the time, tools and money I put into the work and the parts I could have probably gotten a genuine 1680, but honestly, it wouldn't looks as pretty as mine. A cheap gen would look like any out-of-the-box rep if you ask me! The pretty and tropical gen specimens go for a 20k and up. Look at the watch before and after, if you ask me there are world between them!

My new baby 1970 5513 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got mine at last today. Will be taking this puppy apart this week. Stay tuned Mark -------- Ok guys, I made this promise in the most terrible time. Next week I'm away on business all week. The week after is my holiday vacation so I have some more time on my hands to continue. In the mean time I won't leave you hanging. After all the kind words I already started the tear down but did nog completely strip it down yet. But I will post some pics and share some thoughts. Will continue next week and give some more information. First off. The movement not only looks great. It performed superb on arrival. The readings do not suggest it would need service. But than again... Readings don't always speak the truth. In this case they do. At least so far.... A very very clean and we'll oiled movement. Nothing like I have ever seen. All jewels are nicely oiled and the hair spring coils are perfectly spaced. Rotor attachment Most parts of the auto-winder are the same as the 2824. (2824 parts on the left) Lost the pic of the reversing wheels but they are also the same. Same accounts to the pallet fork. o-ring in crown Some say the dial side looks like the a7750. That only accounts to the keyless works. I would imagine that is interchangeable also. The rest seems newly designed. End of part one. So what do I think so far? I like it. Well designed, clean, oiled and build to last. Due to the fact some parts are A2824 and some parts are A7750 it even doesn't scare me that much (like the aP3000) when it comes to parts. My guess is this movement is designed and made by Seagull. It has all the characteristics. Stay tuned for part 2 PART 2 Thanks the reminder GentLe. I forgot about this thread due to the holidays (shame on me) So you might have guessed it, I completely pulled apart the rest of the movement. You will see some additional pictures below with a short description and at the end my final thought about this movement. Random picture Base movement and gear train. Basic, clean, well finished. I would say bullet proof! Gear train jewels also properly lubed Naked and pretty! Clean but dry main spring + barrel Keyless (7750 parts below. They are an exact match) The long main spring generating exactly 75 hours power reserve. Final thoughtSo what do I think about this movement? I love it. It is really well finished. The way the plates are machined and plated and also the way the decoration is done, all very good. The movement was perfectly clean and well oiled overall. It is designed and manufactured from the ground up and my guess is that a big movement factory like Seagull or Huangzou is behind it. So how does it perform? Well as mentioned earlier the auto wind module is designed like the ETA28xx series. Which has proven itself over the years. So no worries in that department. The keyless design is from the ETA 77xx series. Also no complaints there. The rest of the movement is pretty basic like a hand wind UNITAS 64xx series. It's also as big as one. The only part I was curious about was the PR design. But they designed it flawlessly. Now that I write this I can truly say that they have combined the best of 3 worlds (movements) and put a cherry on top! I don't think we will see a lot of these movements breaking down in the near future. After service it is now running and performing exactly the same as before the tear-down: perfectly If I had to to be finicky I could mention 2 attention points of this movement. - The barrel walls were dry: in order to provide the proper slippage to the bridle and diminish wear greasing of the barrel wall is in order. - The tiny washer underneath the PR-indicator wheel was causing problems and needed to be corrected. Due to an improper bend the PR-hand pinion was tilting making the hand unparalleled to the dial. Of course the state of these rep movements can vary. This one can be clean and perfectly oiled (besides the barrel) whereas others can suffer from all sorts of problems. I have seen that many times before. The inconsistency with rep movements is very high unfortunately. You simply don't know until you take it apart. I know the V2 is out with the movement decoration plate but I prefer the movement without it. All those fake gears, levers and plates can be spot easily by anybody that knows even the tiniest bit about movements. Stuff just looks off. The V1 may not carry all the correct markings but it shows a real and beautiful decorated movement with real jewels, gears etc. The V1 is a nice C-cup whereas the V2 is a fake D-cup.... That's all folks Mark

It took me a while to get all the parts I wanted, but here it is, 5 months of work paid off! When you start a project like this, you ultimately end up buying more parts than you need, often as part of bundles or because you're getting a better deal on them that way. I have another 4-Liner that I finished today, will follow-up with photos of that one soon Big shoutout to nanuq, cc33, dbane and kime for helping me with advice throughout the process. Case+Bezel: Vietnam/Phong/dbane Crown: Gen Rolex Bevels+CaseWork: dbane Movement: Gen Rolex Cal 1030, winding mechanism serviced by me Dial: custom MQ Lume: custom MQ (plot at 6 is slightly whiter to mimic the radium plots usually found @6) Hands: Michael Young Crystal: Clarks T19, shaved down to reduce height Stem: Gen Rolex Assembly: me I have to point out the beautiful work dbane did on cutting the FAT bevels, because the bevels looked like absolute total [censored] when I got the case (I was sold a lemon). The early 6538's had these fat bevels and they they are really part of makes the watch unique. Getting a beautiful GILT dial was probably one of the hardest tasks. I had lots of back and forth with MQ and only thanks to the eagle eyes of nanuq, cc33 and dbane was I able to catch damage done to the initial dial I was offered. In the end, MQ made a completely new dial for, which really makes the watch. The next best thing would be an ivan dial, but his dials are twice as expensive at around $2k and I had to make choices so that the cost for this build wouldn't get completely out of hand! Anyway, here are the pictures:

Having purchased so many Panerai reps and a gen, it is a watch brand which is distinctive elegant simplicity, and historical Italian heritage. Of all the Pam watches in my collection , the substantial at 47mm , the 372, which carries a pedigree and very clean lines the likes of which are hard to find in. 47mm, this beauty is one of the best offers on self wind stainless steel.

Hi guys, As part of my contribution to the forum, i always make a point to do comparisons or analysis of reps so we have more information on these boards. There's just too much taking of info and too little giving back! I was lucky to be able to pick up a used Cartier Santos 100 XL for cheap and decided to do a quick comparison to my ultimate rep version: A couple wrist shots to kick this off: My first thought was that the dial of the rep was just slightly duller than the pearl effect of the gen, pretty hard to describe but there is a slight difference there. However, this is impossible to detect unless you have a gen right next to it. Overall feel of the watch on the wrist is pretty spot on with the gen feeling just a bit more 'solid' and heavier. Case shape and size is very accurate and no complaints there. As expected the rep sapphire doesn't come close to gen and is much darker. The engravings on the caseback is where we start to see the difference, albeit slight. Fonts on the 2656 being the most obvious and the alignment of fonts are off but again who's gonna notice when it's on your wrist and without a gen to compare side by side? Also noted the caseback screws are more rounded then gen: The clasp has a few notable issues, mainly the rounded screws of the rep as compared to the flatter ones of the gen: The deployment clasp was well replicated apart from screw shapes which frankly shouldn't matter since it can't be seen when worn Engravings are sharper on the gen but at least the right fonts and sizes were used on the rep! One peeve was that the clasp was fit upside down vs the logo, obviously not a big issue but something that may not be fixed that easily. Not quite sure if it's unique to my piece so do let me know if that's the case for fellow owners. Basically when you don the strap the logo should be legible right way up to the wearer, then clasp should be closed inside then outside (not sure if I'm making sense here), but the rep was the other way around. Whilst the lug pins are pretty similar, the rep ones are of poor qc with one of mine coming in a different shape. Doesn't affect the functionality though. Construction of case between lugs were less sharp but did the job nonetheless. Lume was pretty spot on but the gen obviously lasted longer than the rep Summary: All in all a fantastically replicated piece and truly deserving of a super rep status. Best bang for buck and the gen being something very affordable as well does not make this an easy call out on the wrist! Hope you guys found the review helpful!

If you have unlimited wealth! I'm sure the €20k price for the first one is negotiable! Needless to say, shipping is included. What a deal. http://www.network54.com/Forum/207673/message/1449932824/FS+Extra+Rare+Submariner+Insert%21%21%21

Thanks. A few more in natural light.

Make that 5 Tags Just got this in the mail. 4 gens and this guy.

It's Rolex Time Tully Blanchard!!! Whooooo!

Yeah, unfortunately I had too many bad experience with so called 'expert modders' who had 'raving reviews'

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Gentlemen, a new member registered today as "elwayne" and sent many phishing messages with apparent links to topics here with offers to buy watches. Following his links they go to 66ghz.com and gather username/password combinations. Some people use the same password everywhere. If you went to his link and provided credentials I STRONGLY SUGGEST you login everywhere you do financial dealings, RIGHT NOW, and change your passwords. It just has the stink of a very clever scam all over it. Be careful, people.

I believe that there were some single AR crystals being sold by a member over on RG or RWI, you would need to go over there and do a search in the AP forums for AR'ed crystals. AFA what you need to do, 1. AR crystal 2. AR cyclops 3.Movement service 4. Aftermarket or gen strap If you are in a part of the world (EU) that can safely ship to Germany, I would schedule it in to Domi and have him do the mods as well as a movement service including adding the jewels to the movement. If you send it to Domi, he can do the AR on the crystal and cyclops, also I would have the numbers and hands relumed, mainly because I'm a lume fanatic. From reading the posts about this one, I believe that the seconds @12 subdial hand is the wrong color, but I'm not sure. Read this:http://www.replica-watch.info/vb/showthread.php/199667-Black-themes-SIHH-2014-Noob-or-JF/page2?highlight=Noob+Black+themes Since you are new here, I will give you some unsolicited advice. Read, read and read some more. When you start modding watches, you are stepping off into deep water, with no life vest!! Modding a ROO with just the simple things like AR, relume, movement service and a good strap will more than double the cost of the watch. Most folks would say that you need to add a gen or good aftermarket strap, as the rep straps are pretty bad. Now this will cost you another 200-400 USD. The costs add up quickly, so you need to decide what you want to do and how much you want to spend before you start a project like this. Also remember if you decide down the road that you aren't happy with this watch and you want to sell it. you are NOT going to get your money back. With all the things above, you could easily have 1400-1500 USD in the watch. look at the used ROOS that are selling on the forums. I have bought two ROO's in the past 6 months that got the full Domi treatment, both were around 800-850 USD, so they sell at a big discount when you try to resell them. And by the way, I hate to disillusion you, but even with all the mods, you cannot correct all the faults of a ROO, unless you spend a fortune adding a genuine dial, tachy ring, hands, correct movement, thinning and redrilling the case. All of which will cost several thousand dollars more, IF you can find the correct genuine parts. The AP ROO's are for the most part, very interesting, unique and beautiful watches, they are also some of the most difficult and expensive to mod. Genuine parts are expensive and hard to find and there are only a couple of people in the world who have the tools and knowledge to build a true "Super Franken" ROO.