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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

One day I'll plump for a high end big crown, but for now I'm having fun welding modding my cases. This one is a silix case with lots of meat slapped on, took quite sometime ... Yea yea a lot of work you say, but for me that's half the hobby and enjoyment in creating a unique watch. The specs. silix big crown case+ steroid welds, drilled lugs, chamfered. Athaya v2 crown clark plexi/ shaved down considerably serviced ETA 2846 hr old minute hand / Clark hour/ oshk big ball. HR dial / relumed and made tropic gloss with 6 hour marker slightly lighter. i wanted a single line BC not seen many/ some would say it's 'wrong' but Meh. brass bezel raffles insert ofrei pearl. fat bars few pics, I'm no photographer though just iPhone shots in afraid, tried to capture the gloss.

Sunny today [emoji1591]

Sexy !

Someone told me they (AP) even use the 280 grit one Screws? I have placed them here: Then if heavily chewed I passed them flat over some 1000 grit paper and finished with dremel and some fine metal polish paste of the kit in the pic: I also have around some coarse and fine carborundum engine valve seat grinding paste I use to do this job: But they may be a bit too abrasive for watches Maybe one day I will give them a try...

Vac has done a number of GMTs for me

Thanks, I swapped the stock insert for this one from WSO: http://www.ebay.com/itm/160841349059?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT It was already faded slightly from them but I bleached it even further and aged it a bit. Also, take a look at this thread I started here: All I can say is set your expectations for things to be far from perfect and you'll be fine

Had to look up that Dietrich , well you give me that case and let me put a proper dial on it do a little better job of getting it water tight and I could put out the most comfortable wearing divers there is. If you read up on them they wear like a dream ground breaking case design but IMHO look like a someone on an LSD trip took over from there. Looks great from the back! http://www.ablogtowatch.com/dietrich-ot-3-watch-review/

Like the Breitling Emergency!! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

"Sounds great but I don't like the idea of a Quartz mvt for some reason!" Can't argue with that, quartz is not for everyone. The Santos autos in this size had a bulge on the case back for the thicker movement back when I bought the genuine watch and did not conform as well to the wrist, that is why I chose quartz. Back then the quartz models were a lot thinner and the case back was curved to match the case. I owned a genuine Cartier Tank Francaise automatic in 2005 (about the same size as the Santos) and it had a thin Eta 2000 auto movement in it. Now they use a thinner movement (Eta 2000?) in the Santos automatics and thinned the case backs down and flattened them out. There is an older auto Santos on eBay, item number 301852794938 that shows the bulge in the case back in the last two pictures. It is an earlier model with the regular (not hidden) clasp. A later model item number 291665874995 has the hidden clasp and flat case back. I do not know which case back the automatic replicas will have but the models with the bulge are not as comfortable.

Thankyou Legend, my watch has arrived in time for Christmas and WOW what a gorgeos time peice. It is No3 of 10, I have taken some daytime pics but my photography just could not capture the qualities of this stunning build. The AR coating allows the dial detail to shine through and the evenly recessed besel screws just give that feel of shear quality. However what you cant see is the smooth feel of the mechanism when winding, this is a hand built and oiled movement accurate with a long power resurve and it is going to be reliable, it has been waterproofed and tested so this makes a good choice for holidays. The best way to sum up this build is that you could wear it in a AP boutique with confidence the build is that good. Many Many thanks Legend .nmdsdcid

You know you are a true nut when you are buying it in order to completely disassemble it. Much respect. Following

My new AP Safari for today