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This is the thing I love about this particular forum. The love of vintage...and vintage Rolex at that! When I first joined the rep forums I was after a Rolex - Modern. Then my tastes changed and I sought Panerai and similar high quality modern reps. My tastes however have now come full circle....almost....but now I seek vintage Rolex's. Sadly I cannot afford the likes of NDT and Phong and Minh. I am one of many members enjoying the world of budget vintage builds. I cannot afford the stunning and beautiful Frankens that I see on here daily. But, this is what 'I' love about this forum! This particular forum! Vintage Rolex! To me it's beautiful! Sorry to hijack this thread! I'm done. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well I succumbed to the need to take a closer look at the updated Cartel 5513 and ordered one from Josh. http://www.pf-818.com/-p-9481.html At long last we can say goodbye to to the stubby crown guards, a good excuse for me start another build. Here we go The annoying "Stailesssteel" and 1665 model designation between the lugs. I will sand these out to leave a brushed finish. Comparison of case height with the previous stubby 5513 and 1665 Cartel models (both modded). First the 5513. 1665 with a phong bezel assembly Side by side with the modded 5513 Asian 2836 movement Replacement of dial and handset. Dismantling the bezel assembly and crystal removal in preparation for case work. So far so good. More to follow

Finally, after an agonizing wait, my dial is here! I'm ready to commence my next build ... the iconic Rolex 6204. The first "Submariner". Okay gents, pop quiz: where did I get this bad boy? Is this a Dark Lord dial? It's gorgeous for sure, but it pales in comparison to the glorious case set I've wrangled from a well known member here. Let the games begin!

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

Take it easy there, sailor! I like you too, but... After trying to make a satisfactory hand from pieces, I found the hour hand I finally used at Otto Frei, part number is HAN 7008. $4 per set (includes 14mm hour hand, not suitable for the 6204 or 6542). It still needs some modding. but I looked for several years and could not find the right shaped pencil hour hand. I used 1500 sandpaper and shaped the edges towards the point more. It didn't need much, but some for certain. The Frei hour hand hole is 1.55mm, just a hair too big for ETA. I carefully squeezed the hole smaller to make it fit. At $4 a set, I ordered 3 sets so I could mess up one or two and still be OK. The minute hand is the one from Helenarou for ETA, 13mm. Both hands are silver. It is my opinion, having never seen a genuine 6204 in person and only in pictures, that the hands were not gilt but brass. Brass being used for ocean going tools. I used the 1500 sandpaper to take the hands to bare brass, and let them tarnish a tad. They don't tarnish much at all once in the sealed case. The chapter ring itself on chapter ring dials is 26mm in diameter. The minute hand then must be 13mm to reach the chapter ring, as Rolex did with the 6204 and early 6542, and likely the Turn-O-Graph. They went to the 12mm hand within 2 or 3 years at most, based on pictures I've seen. Somewhere in 1956 or so. The simplicity of the 6204 is captivating. When those long hands reach out across from each other, it is mesmerizing. I wish I could take better pics to show, but you'll have yours soon enough to show us all! Let me know if I can help.

The same here, I received mine yesterday and the only bad thing is the strap. I wanna find one more taller and dark blue. P.S. I love the date's font

cc33, I have a set of those hands already, and am thinking about how to use them best to get that "63 years old" look... they definitely need to be "gilt" though. JoeyB, I like your hands even more. I just need your hours hand and I'm set. Maybe your minutes hand too, it appears to be 1mm longer than mine.

Really digging this one

There are several ebay sellers that have access to the same supplier I think.. I found another one (through some detective work), sells gilt dials incl. hands and shipping for 230USD.

He sells gen parts too so if it's not Minh it's his twin brother in Singapore

Black Bay on Bulang Diablo by Tyler David, on Flickr

Fed Ex just dropped this off. Got to be best sport Rolex deal in the market. Not sure why I never tried one before. Really like the way it looks and wears [emoji106]🏻

Here is where I am at...