Leaderboard

I print the date window portion all back as the dial is, no outline for the window at all. When fully dried it should be tight. I then cut the opening in an 'X', from corner across to opposing corner. That makes 4 little triangles. From the back of the dial, I then use a toothpick dipped in the Micro-Set to wet each triangle, one at a time, and draw it over the bevel and out the back, folding onto the back of the dial. The vinyl decals I use have a little, tiny bit of stretch to them. Using the toothpick I pull the triangle taught on the back of the dial. Then hold it there until it sticks. The decals take the shape of the bevel nicely. Some bit of trim might be needed, and I do that with the same wetted toothpick, smoothing the corners if necessary.

Sacrificial lamb?

@automatico, I agree. The main problem is that too many people try and pass off builds as something they are not. You see frankens show up at high end auction houses and on Ebay all the time. Seen plenty of frankens on reputable gen sites, but they are frankens comprised of all genuine parts. So the scammers that try and make a profit by misrepresenting what they are selling influence the view of franken watches. Generally this view is negative--at least by the genuine collectors. Talking about the general watch collecting public outside of the rep forums. That view tends to paint anyone who does franken builds as doing something wrong or that they/we are up to no good. Had a long discussion with a collector the other day about this. He could not understand why I would invest so much time and money into something that was not all original. I could not explain it to him effectively. The funny thing is that most of the people I have met on the rep boards and especially those that are doing franken builds are some of the nicest and most honest people I have met. In general most of us lose money on these builds and it is really for the enjoyment of the process and clearly not for profit or to try and fool anyone. But you try explaining that to a regular collector and they generally do not get it. I know I lost money on every build I did. A couple of them I lost a lot of money.... However, I did learn a lot from the experience and education costs. Over the last several months I sold all my builds and have started a pretty nice vintage genuine collection. I find much of the same satisfaction finding a genuine vintage reference that I did doing builds. It is not like I can go down to the AD and purchase a mid 60's gilt Sub. It takes much time and effort to find a specific example in the specific condition you are looking for. At this point, I do not have any builds going, but I will again in the future. I have a couple of old crappy watches that I am working on to learn. I have been acquiring more tools and setting up my workbench so that I in the future, I can do a build from start to finish on my own. At some point as these vintage watches become harder and harder to find parts for, you may see a shift in the view of using aftermarket parts. Much like we have seen with muscle cars.

Always down to me huh?! [emoji25] the bullied pink ranger!

Well said. I've rebuilt my 1963 Land Rover from the front bumper to the back. There's not a bolt or hose or gasket on it that's more than 5 years old. It's loaded with aftermarket parts from all over the world. I think the only original parts left are the Lucas ignition switch and some glass and sheet metal. So is it still a Land Rover?

Here here R, totally agree! Just one example: look at the proliferation of used/faded gen inserts sold on places like VRM. It's obviously now more than acceptable for the "purists" to openly swap out, say, a service insert on their 1675 for a faded fat font Pepsi to make their watch more "original" or "vintage" (and pay an exorbitant amount of money in the process of doing so lol) and not many seem to turn their up nose at such a swap. And "gen" watches with refinished dials, hands, etc. even pop up in major auction house catalogs from time to time; though they may fetch significantly less (and the real intense purists won't touch them). Personally, the reason why I decided to embark upon building a few frankens was not to labor over something that would just sit in a watch box, but to build something that I could actually wear (frequently) and enjoy without dropping close to $10K and constantly fretting over its use (and lest we forget, these are for the most part TOOL watches). Also, the depth of knowledge attained by those who build frankens is immeasurable, and there is enjoyment to be had not only from building such a watch, but also knowing every last minute detail about it; many "purists" who would scoff at these builds could not tell you nearly as much about the same watch on their wrist that they just happened to pay the $10K/$20K/$30K for because it's "factory gen". And i think as long as deceit or a nefarious sale isn't the objective, then there should absolutely be great pride in building an uber franken, because as many of us know, it takes a lot more blood sweat and tears to build your grail than it does to merely hit "Buy It Now" on eBay.

Nanuq ... Nanuq ... is that you Nanuq? If not, I suggest that you save that watch in a safe secure place til Nanuq dies ... you can easily claim that Nanuq modified that watch specially for you and it may have extraordinary collector's value then! Bill

How do you cut the date window to avoid this? I can see this working amazingly well for no date dials. I am sure it is really hard to cut that window. You'd need a very sharp Xacto blade and a steady hand!

I'd love to be there but will not... Brings back lovely memories from this one...

DOS attack could be fun! P's idea above is a good one, if you have pics of a build, or a special watch, maybe tag them as above?!

Nice dial Jack. Look forward to another one of your excellent builds.