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The full size egi donor cases we have access to are, well, kinda crappy, lugs are short, lug holes are in a bad spot, getting the bezel off and back on with out warping it is next to impossible, I could go on, but you get the point. This one was made in house everything except the second hand and the movement, while its got a few parts that would be changed to more gen like appearance, it's all made like the gen. I didn't have any round stock in the required size for the76mm length of the case so it started life as a plate. This was then turned to the final over all diameter, and the shape of the lugs turned I to the face and back Then off to the mill to cut out the shape, drill the required holes etc Once that was done, the bezel, case back, rotation hold down ring and crown guard were made. (Forgot to take images of those processes[GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]) Once all the parts were made and fitted, some fine tuning was done, cutting in the sharp angle at the lug to case (pain in the butt!) fitting the little brass slide tabs that keep the bezel on and allows it to rotate, cutting the overly complicated crystal, cutting the notches, milling the spring pin holes, setting up the bezel so the markers line up correctly... Fitting the removable movement ring (will accommodate 240's with a 3 piece dial) and getting it to all work together. Finishing touches, made dial 43mm, markers screw in lug bars, blasting and lightly aging the finish. It all came together to end up like this. Thanks for taking a look

I'm going too just attempt to cut and paste my RWI post. But fall all of you who know me and that I brought a real 116610 case a few months ago. It ended up being a 116610LV serial number. Well I built it too a fully real 116610 but I used an LN bezel and LN dial. Well today I got too trade for a really nice 116610LV that was a noob V6S. it had a yuki from Craig and real full 116610LV bezel, real crystal. The yuki has a real auto winding bridge and a real date wheel. The 97200 on the V6S is real minus the clasp. The prior owner brought a new real 116610LV dial. So Here is what I did. I am going to just attempt to cut and paste the RWI thread. Ok. Here we go. I wasn't going too do it tonight but I just couldn't wait. Few things. The watch that I got from Therealgoat is good. It is a V6S and it has a real CAR crystal and it had a real hulk bezel that Zocker installed with a rigged up noob nylon ring. Therealgoat thought that it was a real crystal ring and it turned up too be just a noob one. Lucky for me, I have so many parts that I have a noob V7 bezel and nylon ring and I have it with a real rolex ceramic black insert. So my 116610LN 100% rolex bezel will stay as a back up. The case is in fact a V6S and in great condition. Someone went out of their way and engraved it really close to rolex engraving. Not bad. Not the standard noob engraving. The clicks are actually real rolex clicks too which is great. The 97200 is all rolex but the clasp. The two full sides are 100% Rolex. Happy with that too. The yuki is running amazing. Craig did it and it has a real date wheel and a real. auto winding bridge. I am thinking of putting a real 3135 in that bad boy. I put my real 116610LN dial in it. Here is the odd thing. The hands. Only the min hand is Rolex. The hour and seconds hand is noob. So I will be ordering a set of 116610 hands. At the end of the day this will be a case and clasp only fake 116610LN. The 116610LV is perfect! 100% Rolex down too the new nylon ring! The one on Therealgoats was a noob and destroyed. It was kind of an easy job. I just took my hands and dial off and put the new real 116610LV dial on it and repressed my real hands and popped it back in. As everyone knows pressing the ceramic bezel isn't hard. So that snapped in with the new nylon ring like it was made for it. Enough of me typing. Here are pictures. Here is the real dial too the left and the Noob V6S dial with the real bezel on the right. Showing the back of the 116610LV First thing I did was change the bezel on the real 116610. Now this case when I got it I had it run to see if it came up stolen and it was never registered and it came back as an LV. Which tonight it became whole again. For the last few months its been living as an full Rolex LN. Although if Rolex would offer this watch, the LN dial with the LV bezel, I would be all over it! Trust me, I thought of just leaving it like this! LOL. Now here I had to throw in the V6S with the Rolex 116610LN bezel in. This is the real dial on the real 3135 on the left. I wanted to compare the noob dial and the Rolex dial. Another shot of the Rolex dial on the 3135. This 3135 I have too thank a buddy at TRF. It is a brand new Replacement 3135. It came from the factory with factory test dial and holder. Same when I got the 3186 for my 116710LN. Great guy. Here is a shot before I put the real dial on the real 3135. When I put the watch back together. If all of you can see on the top of the pic. That pitting mark on the bottom. Because of that mark I got the real 116610LV case at a great deal. The final result! A fully authentic Rolex 116610LV made by me! Thanks too a bunch of people here and other forums. The final two parts, the dial and bezel assembly, I have too thank Dave for selling them to Therealgoat and for him falling in love with my 1680! LOL. Now too put my real dial on the Yuki 3135. I was debating on doing it now or to wait till I ordered the hands. But I have too many jobs open at my desk from my shoulder surgery so I decided to button it up and just replace the hands and maybe movement at a later date. This is just too show that the V6S band is a real 97200. The clasp is a V6S clasp though. I will find a real clasp somewhere down the road. The end result. Now this is a V6S case, real crystal and real bezel real dial real date wheel. Real min hand. LOL. I will put all real hands in ASAP. The Yuki is a Craig Yuki running in top shape with a real autowinding bridge. I may keep it till it dies or throw in a real 3135. I'll figure it out. That hour and seconds hand has too go! But end result of the V6S with all the real parts but the case and clasp and Yuki.

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I thought I'd share this Tudor 7922 big crown build that I finally have near completion after a few months of messing around with cheaper builds. Added are some thoughts that might help others since this is a very uncommon build. Specs: Rubyswatch 6538 case ETA 2451 18000 bph, non hacking DIY movement ring from a silix case Athaya 8mm crown and tube Vietnam 7922 gilt dial, aged by hologramet Jkhorological hands Default Vietnam plexi shaved ~1mm Phong insert and pearl Tropic dive strap total cost: ~$1400 Notes: •Case I've noticed that a lot of people advise that the dial is the most critical component of a rep and that you should start with the best available dial and go from there. I'd have to disagree and say that the case is the most important part. Before getting the Vietnam case I tried the HR and Silix, and both of them nearly put me off from wanting to continue wearing a vintage Sub. They're just too big in diameter and don't look right on the wrist. To me the early Submariners are basically regular sized watches from the era (read: SMALL by today's standards) but with an oversized case in order to make them super durable and functional for divers. It's a specific look. When you watch the early Bond movies, the 6538 does not look like a big, eye-catching watch. There are certainly some awesome looking HR and Silix builds, but to me the 1-2mm dial and case difference is a deal breaker. I'm probably in the minority here as I'm partial to smaller, vintage, particularly military watches. With that said, I think ability to accept gen parts is an even bigger factor. If you bother to wear a rep watch in the first place, you're probably attentive to detail, and over time you are going to want to improve your build. The cheaper cases are dead ends in that regard. Getting the Vietnam case opened my eyes, not only to how elegantly designed the early sub cases are, but to how easy it is to improve on this build with gen parts in the future. Regarding Rubyswatch, this case was not perfect. The finish is spectacular: chamfers on the lugs are excellent in my view, lug holes are perfect, caseback and bezel function smoothly, engravings look great, and everything is brushed or polished as it should be. There is a minor flaw in the way one of the lugs is cut on its inside edge, but I'm being very picky there. Unfortunately the crown and tube I got were very bad. They didn't screw together properly and I stripped the threads in about one day. The tube itself was bare inside with no gasket and the crown didn't fit snugly as it should. Worse, the tube hole drilled into the case itself is not straight, it inclines as it heads into the watch, so that when I installed the Athaya tube it was noticably drooping downward off the side of the watch and would never have aligned with a movement stem. Long story short, I managed to bend the Athaya tube upward, probably about 3°, to exit the case properly perpendicular to the "ground", and the crown functions as it should. Despite the trouble, I would recommend dealing with Rubyswatch, I'm sure she would have accepted a refund or gotten a replacement if I had asked. Just be prepared to do some work if you want to pay half of Phong's prices. As far as this build goes, from reading around (here and VRF) I determined that early Tudor 7922s from ~1956 were cased with 6538 cases where the 6538 is struck out on the caseback and replaced with 7922. The 7922 big crowns were perhaps all military issue watches (MN, USN, etc.) total numbering in the 1-200's. There is a lot of confusion because later on, ~1958, Tudor seems to have released small crown subs labeled 7922 and big crown subs labeled 7924. Interestingly, the later 7924 used its own case that looks slightly fatter and has more bull-nosed lug ends from the side (more like a 5513 or 7928). So repping the 7924 seems like a lot of work since no one makes that case. I would need to fix the caseback and between the lug engravings to make this case totally accurate. I should also age it but so far I can't bring myself to do it. •Movement It was a pain in the ass to get this movement working after I lost the correct cannon pinion but the slow beat rate is something you immediately notice in the gen watches so it was worth the effort. Hopefully it won't cause trouble for a while. Originally from an interaktiv build so thanks to him. •Crown/tube The Athaya stuff looks and feels awesome and was really a lifesaver as shown above •Dial These are really hard to find so thanks to hologramet, who I think did an excellent job aging this one. As far as accuracy goes, it doesn't make sense that a big crown would have a 100m dial, but sure enough you can find several examples of seemingly original big crown Tudors bearing the shallower depth rating. Perhaps not many people build crownguard-less Tudor subs because there is really no accurate dial. The Tudor script in particular is different on these compared to the more famous 7928, which all the rep dials do a great job mimicking. See the difference, gen on top: The correct font is taller, thinner, and more calligraphic. They all look like that. It's subtle but a dead tell once you notice it. I realized this too late and just decided to go with the most expedient and nice-looking dial available, since not even Minh Quy seems to get it right. Let me know if you are aware of a more accurate dial... I may try to print one in the future. •Hands JKhorological are the best cheap hands I think. The proportions are off but it's not clear to me if anyone does better, even for ridiculous prices. Are the Michael Young hands still available? Hands are important to me and I might have to spring for gen eventually if I can ever find them. •Crystal The crystal coming with the case seems fine to me, although it was way too tall so I sanded it from the base. Maybe I need to go even a bit further? •Bezel The teeth on the Vietnam bezel don't seem totally accurate but I'm just so happy they aren't the big ugly square Silix ones The Phong insert I got also isn't totally accurate, it should have a narrower triangle and the pearl should sit higher. I really haven't seen one exactly like this on a gen watch, but I love the early, no minute hashmark and rounded font look. Almost all of the gen 7922s I've seen have either the round font/red triangle/minute mark insert or the later squared font with serifs insert that was undoubtedly a service replacement. All three I've described can look really nice and it was a hard choice. I bleached this one for a couple min and I'm really happy with the result. No more [censored] gluing in crappy Silix inserts!! Oh, and I definitely need to do something about the stock pearl!!. Not sure what yet as all my aging strategies would get washed off over time.. •Strap I really like the tropic straps even though they didn't appear until the 60s somewhere. This will be an unpopular opinion but I don't understand using a leather strap on a dive watch, leather is not going to hold up around seawater. But I do have to admit that some of the brown and black ones can look really nice. I'll eventually get a 7206 from Yuki or ruby and deal with that, but this project has already broken the bank for now. ____________ Well that about covers it. Hopefully this was an interesting or helpful read for a few of you. I'd like to hear what you guys think; there are some incredible builds around here and I wish I had stumbled upon this forum sooner. I appreciate the knowledge base here that helped me with the build and hope I'm adding to it a bit.

Very impressive skills @neckyzips. I hope life is running a bit smoother for you now and we can see you on the forums more

Nice Andy , love the title but then again we are PG so what was I hoping for!

If history shows then that could very well be the case unfortunately...

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Keep looking, it ain't rhodium!

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Not sure on the quality of the JF Daytona. But I do have the ARF version and recently compared with a mate who's got gen. He could not believe how close these watches look side by side. Even the pushers were hard to point out . Frankly speaking if you are a daytona lover please do get one as it's incredible watch. There are plenty of discussions on other forums not sure if I can post a link. All the best and good luck. Some pics for you to compare with the JF. Ohhhh yes the chrono is not fully functional on the arf. Subdial 3 and 9 as re frozen, seconds hand and subdial works perfectly fine. Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk Some more Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

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