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Beautiful sunny day!

These two where delivered at my doorstep today.

Here is a TOTALLY modified DW case. All faces reworked ! Top of the lugs, sides... It now has the correct early "tonneau" shape we all love to see. Note the extra clear and correct shaped Verlux crystal. The only aftermarket crystal that is a match to the original T21

Some of you may have noticed that I disappeared a couple of days ago. Please accept my apologies but as it happens Wednesday morning I was taken to the emergency dept. of my local hospital in a fair bit of pain. After much poking and prodding (and CT scanning) it was discovered I had a 6mm kidney stone, painful but obviously not life threatening. So anyway I am back now and ready to take your orders. Ken

At this point I have only installed the Yuki dial, hands and blue insert. The hands I aged with a light scuffing from 3000 grit sandpaper and espresso foam. I chose a dark blue insert from Yuki because the inspiration for this watch was a gen that's bezel faded to a light blue. Without knowing what the base color was for the aftermarket inserts, I decided to get this blue insert and fade it to see if it can work. I bleached it for about 30 min, buffed with 5000 grit sandpaper and then spread nearly dry espresso around it to offset the blue and add a little vintage grime. That's the main thing I would like to know you're opinion on. Does the blue look legitimately like a faded, once black insert or does it just look plain blue? I know the insert is a lighter shade then the reference picture but that was the point where I felt it started loosing that obvious blue look. Reference gen 5513 Gilt My MBW

Here are some examples of dials and cost. Top left is a 100% gen dial. Late model 118238, original finish from rolex. Easily worth $400. Top right is a gen baseplate that has been refinished and romans added. Value of this dial is around $200. The bottom is an aftermarket baseplate with correct feet position for a rolex, painted, not refinished because it's new and never been painted, and romans added. The value of that dial is around $130. As you can see, the value is in an original dial. The better the condition the higher the value. If it's a genuine rare dial, it has value in any condition, as long as it's not been refinished. The better the condition the higher the price. I n bad condition not worth as much. Refinished, the value drops dramatically. On the white roman aftermarket, notice the smaller size of the day window. My reps are better than that

I was born in 1984 and went with a birth year 16550 from HQ. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, there are "refinished dials on gen plates" and then there are "refinished dials on gen plates". You get what you pay for.

here some quickshots of my selfbuild lv. build in an unknown case, but perfect rehaut engraving and 120 bezelclicks. bezel drilled out for genuine inlay. inlay from wso with genuine perl, movement 3135 decoratet eta with tc dwo hands and dial from a tc sub. geniune lens on cvrystal and genuine crown/tube hope you enjoy the pix

Tried the toaster with a long metal pin through the center of the dial as You can push it in and out - but it would be better to have several dials around for this kind of "test":) Water based varnish mixed with brownish/reddish colour works well but is permanent. Aquarel may be washed out again. For the lume dots my fav. results are with acrylic paint mixed with raw sienna or yellow ochre (or Nescafé) and lume powder. When still half wet or totally dry, with care, the dots can be popped out with a stanley knife and be re-done - or filed off a bit with fine grit sandpaper, it all just requires time. not too period correct but I just needed lume in the dark, don´t like to use them otherwise

I would have thought that you can push the crystal retaining ring with your thumbs and the pull the bezel with your fingers, if that wont work, i think i would use a crystal press, I have never had a crystal retaining ring pop off that easy though is that the right ring or the right crystal