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Hello guys, Plan to make some new parts for Early subs. 1. No hash silver triangle Thin Font insert for 6204, 6205, 6536, 6538, etc. 2. No hash red triangle Thick Font Insert 6204, 6205, 6536, 6538, etc. 3. 24-600 Dash crown 4. 24-600 Brevet crown Any suggestion ? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry JSebWC ... I've been hacking up hairballs since DP had my Dobermans in the champagne fountain. That's not pleasant at all. I can finally say that this one is complete. Sorry for leaving this topic hanging! I had to make some tough decisions and each one was no going back. Do I use an A260 movement? Are parts available? Do I intend to USE this watch, or sit it on a shelf? I never wear my 6536 anymore because the autowind train is about shot, and there's no more parts out there. I want to wear this one instead for the Small Crown itch, so that meant an ETA movement. So we machined the case to make it fit. No going back. Do I want it to look pristine? Sharp chamfers and untouched dial? Well the case is not bright 904 stainless, it's another alloy and darker than most. So it looks well loved and well worn with engrained old grime. That means every other part needs to give the same aged impression. My 6536 has never flooded but the dial is OLD and chipped and gnarly looking. How that happens is probably UV ageing and tritium. I had my choice of the Tonny perfect glossy gilt dial, or the original ancient chipped dished dial. I went with the old chipped dial because it looks right in the case. Then the hands. They are nearly perfect in dimension, but way WAY too shiny and gold and perfect. So they took a lot of ageing. I wish we'd done a little more to ease over the edges of the hands so they look hand stamped instead of machine made. It's a subtle detail I'll have to address at some point. The bezel flat ROCKS, the rehaut is two pieces carefully put together by unknown hands decades ago, to give a neck for the crystal and a sloped inner edge for the dial. It's spectacularly well done, and almost impossible to see. The case is also slightly curved on the sides. Did those come from decades of polishing? Or should they be flatter? When I did my Snowflake I had the case polished to DEATH to make it all curved and sexy. There's no reason a 6204 can't have suffered the same treatment over its 65 year life. So old case, old chipped dial, old aged hands, old worn filthy bezel, what's left? The original insert is the vintage funky pointy-four piece with weird fonts, and looks EXACTLY like gen. It might be, for all I know. Someone sanded its outer perimeter to make it fit the bezel and took it slightly too far here and there. There's no going back from that. Maybe I can paint the sanded edge black to make it less noticeable? A little 3M goo holds it in place. The crystal feels like a tropic-18 very thin and delicate. It's no beastly thing like a T17 or T19. Do I like that? I have no frame of reference to decide. So it stays. In the end the case, engravings, bezel, insert, dial, hands, crystal and beat up Brevet+ crown all agree they are ancient and tired. That's exactly what I was going for. They're 95% correct, I just need to fine tune the finished piece to get everything perfect. But it came out far, far better than I'd hoped for. It will live on a leather strap because all the folded rivet bracelets are too bright and their steel doesn't match the case. That's fine with me, a gentleman 65 years ago would likely have worn this on leather anyway. And now to the pictures!

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Hi Ronin, let's see if these pics help. AFAIK the newer 5513 et al are held on by friction between the bezel and ring. The bezel literally snaps over the ring with an interference fit, and the dished spring exerts upward pressure onto the bezel, creating friction between the top of the bezel and underside of the ring. Press down to turn. For the older models, the bezel snaps over the ring, again with an interference fit. The retaining ring is triangular in cross section, and the wire spring sits beneath it, making friction against the underside of the triangle. I've found I can bend the wire spring to accentuate the points of its hexagon, and get more friction. These are all gen These are my MQ 6538, built with the same gen construction, same triangular ring

It's OK I suppose if you like that sort of thing . Now, if I trained really hard you reckon I could swim to Alaska, sneak into ,nooks pad, tea leaf the thing, swim back to UK and be asleep before the trouble and strife notices? Worth a try methinks Nice one Nook ;-)