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[Custom Made] Rolex MK1 "Kissing 40" FAT FONT Bezel Inserts

It should be obvious to any vintage Rolex lover that the stock bezel inserts on all Cartel Vintage Rolex watches are outright hideous. I was also never happy with any of the alternatives offered by Phong, Yuki & the rest - their fonts are inaccurate, they are lacking serifs, and both numbers and tick-marks are way too perfect and too straight for a Vintage Rolex Insert. I think many of you have heard about the saying "If you want something done right, do it yourself". So that's what I did! I have a particular fondness to Fat Font and "Kissing 40" Inserts and the bezel insert was that important to me - anyone who ever went from a bad to a good insert will know how much the bezel insert changes the face of the watch. It took me over a year with many revisions and a lot of trial and error to make a bezel insert that is (in my opinion) the closest thing to a real Fat Font insert on the market. Background: To give you a bit of context on what makes Fat Font inserts unique and special: You may have read about "Fat Font" and "Kissing 40" and even "Kissing 50" Bezel Inserts and Genuine Inserts with those features often come with a $2k+ price tag. The reason why such inserts are both rare and so sought after has something to do with how they were produced and when they were produced. The printing pads used by Rolex to make bezel inserts wore out over time and this wear and tear resulted in numbers that started to be less and less perfect. Numbers and tick-marks started to bleed out on the edges and into each other, resulting in features such as the "Kissing 40". Today such imperfect inserts would be discarded, but back in the days, Rolex did not care much for perfection and consistency, which meant that bezel insert produced close to end-of-life of these printing pads made their way onto watches. In making these MK1 "Kissing 40" Fat Font Bezel Inserts, my main goals were: Production technique: Mimic the worn-out printing pads that were used to add the non-conductive paint for the numbers on the insert before they were anodized. "Fat Font" and Kissing 40 were a result of wear and tear of those printing pads I made custom molds for both the aluminium bezel itself & for the Font of the numbers / tick-marks. Font & Serifs: Used a Genuine MK1 Font and kept fine details, such as Serifs, as accurately as possible Including for example "odd" serifs on the base of the number 2 No two big or small tick-marks are exactly the same and they are not perfectly rectangular either - each one of them was custom-drawn. Size & Fit: These have the same inside/outside diameter and the same back-side profile as Genuine MK1 inserts. Outside Diameter: ~36.55mm, Inside Diameter: ~30.3mm They should snap-in to both Rep and Genuine Bezel Rings and don't have to be glued The inserts have a thinner outer edge compared to most Replica/Cartel inserts, which means no more sanding necessary for the insert to sit properly (i.e. slightly recessed) in the bezel ring Color: A color mixture was used during the anodization process that will fade to blue when exposed to oxidizing agents or bleach (and not red or purple). You can also make them tropical brown instead of faded-blue if you like. As you can imagine, this wasn't easy: it took me over year of going through numerous sampling cycles and re-designs in order to get the result I wanted. Not to mention that I drove my manufacturing partner nearly insane and they would have stopped working with me if I hadn't visited them in-person twice and showered them with gifts I primarily made these for myself, but to give something back to the community and in order to recoup some of my investment, I'll be selling a few inserts to those of you who are big Vintage Rolex lovers like me. How to Order: Please send me a Private Message so I can keep track of things Include the quantity and your shipping address. Payment by PayPal Gift preferred Price: 60$ shipped from Europe to anywhere in the world via registered airmail (10% discount on each additional insert) FAQ: Do you offer these inserts Faded or Aged? No - individual tastes with regards to how aged or how faded vary significantly and unfortunately I don't have the time to do this for every insert. However, there are many modders on the forum who offer this service. Do the inserts come with an Acrylic Pearl at 12? No - the inserts come without acrylic pearl. I had too many issues trying fabricating the pearls and since Athaya and Yuki sell them for 5-10$ anyway, I shelved that project for the time being. You could also re-use the bezel pearl from an old Cartel Insert (the 1680 on the pics below re-uses the Pearl from a Cartel insert). Many genuine inserts will also have lost the top part of the acrylic pearl by now, so you could also glue some yellow paste into the hole with epoxy in order to mimic a broken-off pearl Will you make any other Designs (MK2, MK3, Long-5, GMT)? Perhaps at some point in the future - I've done some of the design work already, but whether or not I will produce them depends largely on how many inserts of this production run i'm going to sell. Will they fit a Cartel 5512/5513/1680/1665? Yes. They should also fit in MQ/Phong/Vietnam/Genuine Bezels I've seen another Genuine MK1 insert on the internet that looks fatter/slimmer - how can that be? As Explained somewhere in the middle of this post, "Fat Fonts" were the result of worn out printing pads, so other inserts that are MK1 and less fat were created earlier when the printing pads were less worn. Some other inserts were created later when inserts were even more worn out (for example, the following ultra fat insert, where the 5 started to bleed into the 0: https://imgur.com/a7wjKOP ) Are these perfect? Probably not - nothing is 100% perfect. However, it is my opinion that these are by a wide margin the best inserts you can get, unless you want to spend 2000$+ on a Genuine Insert. Pics: Snap-in Fit in a Cartel Bezel, will sit slightly recessed as on a Gen Bezel: Slim Edge Custom MK1 Insert (left) next to a Cartel Insert (right):

July 23, 2022

1 point

Shaving a 5513 dial seat to use a 1680 dial

"But your lathe is professional (big tool) or those little lathe for model building?" I have enlarged quite a few dial windows and dial seats with a small Sherline precision lathe with the case mounted in a three or four jaw chuck. A three jaw chuck is more or less self centering but it still may be off a few hundredths mm or more. A four jaw chuck is more of a hassle because the part to be machined has to be centered with a dial indicator or something similar. For something like a dial window, I mount a pointer and adjust the jaws until the object is centered using the pointer to check runout...or just eyeball it. A three jaw chuck is good for making something start to finish without removing it from the chuck. A three jaw chuck will probably be Ok for enlarging dial seats and windows as long as you 'chuck it up' a few times to get it as true as possible before cutting. A four jaw chuck is more precise but a hassle to set up and you have to adjust it every time you r/r the project. You might need to grind tool bits to make the cuts and this may take longer than the lathe work. A friend has a machine shop but I find it easier to do close work like this on the Sherline lathe. Big machinery can be a hassle to work around and many of the accessories are too big for watch cases etc. Attach the case in the three or four jaw chuck by clamping it inside the case where the case back threads are when enlarging the dial window. I clamp the case in the lathe using the 'case neck' where the crystal is mounted when enlarging the dial seat. You have to be careful not to clamp the case too tight and scratch or distort the case neck. I have clamped the case in the lathe with a (used) crystal mounted to prevent scratches on the case neck but usually not. Sometimes the case back threads and dial window are not concentric. It's rare but I have seen it and it was not enough to matter. Off topic...also have seen some cases with uneven lugs that will rock back and forth on a level surface...a few were genuine vintage DJ. The case backs screwed down Ok so they must not have been bent, maybe the lugs were finished differently on the bottom side. Had a genuine Seamaster 300 that was 'egg shaped'...the case back would come off (with effort) but not screw back on. Had to round it out in a small arbor press and run the case back on and off 15 or 20 times with fine automotive valve lapping compound on the threads. If you can figure out a way to spin the case more or less precisely (and not too fast), you can probably enlarge the dial window with sandpaper. The dial seat will be harder to sand to size. Maybe try this...if you have a spare case back, drill a hole in the center and put a screw through the hole from the inside. Tighten a nut against the case back on the outside. Chuck the screw in an electric drill and sand the dial window while spinning the case in the drill. You may need a helper...and a medic. Ha! No matter how you do it, practice on a low $$ case first if possible.