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I took some time off on a couple of projects (sorry Flex!) and focused on the cartel 6263 that has been recently released with the the asymmetrical pusher configuration, but has crappy sub-dials. I bought the white PN dial. Besides the big crappy sub-dials, the rest of the dial isn't actually too bad. But the killer is the sub-dials. They are a larger than gen and the hour sub-dial even bleeds into the outside track of the dial. Definitely 2 thumbs down! When you turn over the watch, you will notice that one of the pusher notches doesn't seem to be cut as deep as the other... There is a reason for this, which I will explain later. Opening the case...a shot of inside the case back. Once again not too bad, engravings are deep, fonts are pronounced... Shot of the famous Seagull movement that was used in this rep. But waitaminute...the Seagull has symmetrical pusher configuration, so how can the new cartel vintage Daytona's have asymmetrical pushers? Here is the cartel's answer to the symmetrical/asymmetrical problem... For the top pusher, the cartel fashioned a little "L" shaped arm that attaches to the pusher. This "L" shaped arm actually compensates for the difference in distance between a symmetrical and asymmetrical pusher position. The offset is a good 6 to 8mm. This also explains why one of the pusher notches is not as deep as the other one. The cartel had to machine a groove in the case to fit the "L" shaped arm and as a result, the corresponding pusher need to be shortened. Though not noticable at first or even second glance, the top pusher is a bit shorter than the bottom pusher. I give the cartel this credit...very ingenious, but when the watch is flipped over, the notch is a sure tell. Otherwise, when the watch sits on your wrist, the notch is not noticable at all. In my exploration, I also discovered that the seagull can never have the proper sub dial spacing for a Daytona. I bought an InGod44 PN dial just for the purpose of modding the cartel to give it the same sub-dial spacing as a gen Daytona. I discovered this... InGod dial on top and the cartel dial on the bottom. Notice how the cartel hour sub-dial post hole is slightly lower than the InGod? Yup...a gen-spec dial is not a direct swap. BUT...I wasn't going to give up, so I proceeded to tear apart the Daytona and I discovered the following. As you may well know, the hour totalizer (sub-dial) is static for the Seagull movement...in other words, it is not functional. Here is the little gear responsible for holding the hour totalizer hand in place. The hour gear needs to be moved slightly upwards, but the gear is set into place by a pivot and a pivot hole machined into the top plate of the movement. I had to either move the position of the pivot hole or remove the pivot. I decided that to remove the pivot would be the easiest way. So I proceeded to file down the pivot, until it was gone and the gear sat flat on the surface of the movement plate. I then took the cover plate...Notice that the plate keeps the hour gear in a specific spot. So I enlarged the hour gear hole by using one of my trusty broaches. But the gear had to stay in its new position, so I used some cold weld adhesive to affix the gear into the proper place on the movement plate. I used slow set cold weld adhesive as this would provide some extra time to move the hour gear into the proper position. I quickly reinstalled the cover plate and placed the InGod dial onto the movement. I then aligned the post to the new dial. Here is the end result... After the adhesive has dried, I used dial dot tape to install the InGod dial. Notice that the hour post is in the middle... The hands go back on... ...and the final product...the subdial issue for the vintage cartel Daytona...solved!!! Okay...back to Flex's projects...

Mainly for the older members, 😀 Do the Cartels still issue TRL's

Last I heard of this was CrazySaleMan's listings for his WWWWatches with "custom DRTRL". Rumors were he was a little slow faxing them out, but people did eventually get their TRLs. I dunno, I'd steer clear of him. He looks "iffy" at best.

It's not a Turn-O-Graph, the shape of the knurling is wrong and the tic marks on the insert would be small oblongs instead of short bars. I think you've got a Hamazawa Le Gant bezel there from the 70s QS (QuickSet) version.

Merry Christmas all the members! Since the old tutorial of modding Daytona photos are broken because of expensive photobuckets, I am going to make a new post! Pick out the movement and take off the dial and the first plate with 3 x tiny screw. And you can see the 6@ position is stick on the plate! Why? Because SN Factory did the “frozen” work for st19 already. Take out the wheels, you can see there is glue... stick on the plate. Remove it and turn it over, shave the pivot. Sorry forgot to take photos. This is viet dial on unmod position; you can see the original pin is under the had hole. Next step, enlarge it! , put it back to confirm the hole is enough large. Put on a tiny bit of glue and put the pin and the plate and dial. Make sure the wheel is sit centre! Double check and take out the dial. Not with the plate. Ensure is the correct position and screw that 3 screw back in the movement. And that’s it! I finished the mod in 5 minutes. Hope you all have a nice holiday. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro