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Hello Gang, I want to show my new build. This is a 5513 Sub build for a colleague. First I want to take a 5513 Milk Case, but after inspection I noticed that the gen Tropic 19 is too loose and don't fit properly. I also noticed that the gen Inlay don't snap in. So I decided to take an old Case with gen specification that I found in my drawer. I reshaped the Case, drilled the Lugholes and opened the CG's. Installed a gen Tube and a old Vintage Crown. Dial is a Viet 5513 Gen Inlay I colored the Hands to match the Dial. Oldstyle Springbars where fitted also Movement is slow Beat. Bracelet is not the best but it's marked 93150 Cheers Tribal Gesendet von meinem 2107113SG mit Tapatalk

" so you like Pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain......" Pour yourself a drink and settle in for the build story... So as some of you may know, I am not a sub guy, but then built a 5513 a few months back and now I think that is starting to change. I have always admired the early subs but never got around to building one....well that day finally came. Raffles released a new tropical dial for the 6205 so I added it to my last order with a 6538 case set . (check the forum for my earlier tropical explorer build thread) Parts arrived and I was very pleased with the fit and finish of the case set and the dial. value for the money is quite high with these parts from raffles. machining on the case is great. Yes the bezel still has the wire retaining spring but overall very impressed , I asked raffles if a 6mm crown would fit the tube on the case and he said no, but it sure does. no issues. saves me alot of work swapping tubes. the crystal popped out no problem ( no glue) and it has a gasket , which was a bit of a surprise. I wonder if a Clarks T19 would fit on this case without a gasket. may be something worth trying. Anyway I started off by aging the case set. dulled the polished sides and added a few dents and scratches.. decided to stop here, wanted warn and used and old looking but not over the top. I can always do more, but its really hard to go back if go too far.. you will see how I prove that later on . Used an Asian 2824 clone with a modified setting lever for 2 positions and removed the date wheel. I like these clone movements because they are lower beat than gens. they beat around 21800 and have a bit of a choppy sweep, The keyless is a PITA as many of you know... Aged the lume a bit with some brown air brush paints to break up the evenness of the lume colour and give it some depth. installed the dial and hands and was in the home stretch and then noticed that the keyless was out of wack. no biggie, since becoming proficient in fixing the keyless , its just an extra step so I stripped it down , fixed it and reinstalled the dial and hands , checked the alignment of the hands and not noticing that the dial was not completed seated flat against the movement, the hour hand puts a nice scratch on the dial! DOH! armature bone head move glad it was only a 35 dollar dial and not a one off Vietnam piece..... anyway , since it stuck out like soar thumb. I decided to take the ageing further on the dial with some water damage and gave the dial a "spritz " of the same brown paint. it disguised the scratch quite well and was less obvious so It worked out.. Gently faded the bezel but it needed to go further with this , it looked more like a tire, because of the contrast between it and the dial.... but this past week was filled with obstacles... work, coming down with the sniffles, -30 temps and a dead car battery all added to it Anyway. made it to my studio so that I can continue the ageing of the case. I brassed the bezel which I knew was mandatory and was very happy with how that came out , so I headed back to the lab to get this build complete. DIAL: Back to the dial , since I had already scratch it , I figured I would experiment a bit so I tried adding some dry paints to give it a bit of a faded appearance..., wasn't there so then I gave it a quick spritz with some vinegar and popped it in the oven around 275-300 for a few mins and this was the result. The lume darkened, and the vinegar damaged the print in a few spots, but the paint masked it so it looks just like movement grease and dirt...so not a total disaster!! ? not what I was after but again, better than a new looking dial with a scratch on it , for a 70 year old watch. HANDS: So I had to go back and touch up the lume on the hands to better match the darker lume on the dial and after reading a few older modding threads I seen that some guys would brush the gilt hands on their watches to give it an older look... my scotch pad was a bit too new and I feel I went a bit far with it. lesson learned , these were the wrong hands for this ref so no biggie. I am going to swap in a set of pencil hands anyway. I will be using an older pad and a lighter touch for the next attempt. again....errors are part of the process. The bezel is wrong for a 6205 as it should have a no hash bezel. I happen to have in my parts bin, a tiger concepts red triangle no hash so I I test fit , needed a bit of work but got it to fit the bezel....now it was on to ageing it. I decided to bake it, after having success with my previous insert on my 5513 I figured , that was the route I wanted to go. first I scuffed it up a bit with some 2000 grit to knock off the top finish and gave it a soak in some bleach....then into the oven....set to broil for the better part of an hour. checking it occasionally .....the final time I pulled it out and WOW!! so after it cooled I completed the assembly and snapped some pics. a few teaser pics before the big reveal...... love how the bezel turned out....better than expected really. not seated properly but you get a peak....what color is it?? how did the bezel turn out??!! Ladies and Gents... I present to you my 6205 tropical sunrise.. tried a few bracelets , including my Ruby rivet but settled on my custom straight end link raffles rivet it just encapsulates the 50s tool watch look. A watch that spent most of its life out on the seas in the tropics , soaking up the rays ...only to find a pampered retirement after nearly 70 years.....so the story goes. The fade on the bezel is unreal!! I am very pleased with how it turned out!! a metallic brown that ties the brassed bezel and tropical dial together beautifully!! I just cant bring myself to distress the bezel with some marks....until I can replicate this effect I am gonna leave it as is and let it happen naturally with wear...as I am no doubt going to wear the [censored] out of this piece for a while. The red triangle wasn't common on this ref in fact very rare, I have only seen one gen with one and it was from the original owner. so its plausible. but the red does kinda stick out against the browns. I will order another silver one from TC and see if I can replicate this effect!...but DAMN!! Imagine if this bezel was gen? I could sell it and retire to the beach , but to find a watch with both a tropical dial and bezel...1 in a million... plausible I suppose but the odds are off the charts...unless you happen to build it yourself.!! in the variance of light , you can see it goes from a blackish brown to a warm chestnut. pretty wild. The dial did fade out and look baked by the Caribbean sun , despite its damage It looks the part, especially on the wrist. overall I cant complain it looks old and chocolate tropical , compared to how it appeared new out of the box. artsy I do plan on swapping the hands with pencil hands and go another round with another proper bezel ...I have a 6mm +brevet crown that I am going to shape and swap as well to complete the build. tossed it on an old light brown nato, now single pass strap ....talk about a warm rich color combo. It reminds me of a black bay bronze. Is it too much? that is for you to decide. Like it or hate it. this is where were at. I will update this post once I have swapped the parts in. Would be nice of there was a slightly smaller case and bezel option for the 6205 as it was 37mm where this one is over 38 at case and 39 at the bezel .but now were just splitting hairs...need to find a bubble back that fits this case maybe JMB can machine the back for me like he has done on my 6350 As always, comments and questions welcome. Thanks for looking. p.s sorry for the ear worm if you picked up on the song lyrics , it was a theme party after all.. lol

The Big Kahuna's time was last set (to our company's email server, which is linked to an atomic clock) a little more than 1 month ago. I just checked it for the 1st time since then -- it lost 5 seconds! That is less than 2 secs/week! Of the 4 quartz watches I have, only 1 maintains more accurate time than that! Although The Kahuna does contain some gen (movement) parts, it is technically a fake Rolex, whose total financial outlay was less than $3,500 -- & without the games, waiting lists & various other issues that are part of today's 'gen buying experience'. The Golden Cuckoo, fitted with the same contingent of gen parts (&, likewise, w/o any timing adjustments!), continues to run within gen specs, +/- 2secs/day. I will say it again -- these 1165xx clones are 1 of the best buys in rep watch history. As further evidence of their accuracy, I just returned the gen gold 23-704 crown/tube I had purchased for The Cuckoo back into storage because they are nearly indistinguishable from the clone parts these 2 watches came with from the factory. Yes, these fake Rolexes are so good that it is not worth my time to swap gen parts for these fakes.

Update -- The Golden Cuckoo is now fitted with gen hands, balance/bridge, reversers & various screws to replace those that were either damaged or of poor quality. Although I had planned to swap the coronet for a gen, once I had the dial off & compared the clone to the gen -- & you are not going to believe this -- but the coronet on the clone dial is a clone of the gen 116508-0009 in the 2020-2021 Rolex catalog, page 141 if you have 1. Had I swapped the coronet, it would not match the catalog, so it had to stay. Some of the details, like the coronet on this particular model, seem to be unique to the 116508-0009. Another of these unique attributes are the 3 subdial hands, which are not only GLOSS black, but the paint is applied to the entire hand & is so THICK that it forms a cone around the center rivet. It is quite a distinctive look & something I have never seen before on a Rolex, especially when the light is reflected on an angle from the center of the hands. This is the only Daytona model I have seen that is painted this way (the subdial hands on all other Daytonas are painted with flat paint &/or have bare center rivet sections). Really, the only remaining tell -- & you have to know about it in the 1st place -- is the lack of an 'intense black' dial color. The 'intense black' of the gen is achieved much like many high-end black car finishes, which are often composed of a combination of deep purple & blue applied as a fine mist so it appears nearly matte from a distance. The clone is more of a semi-flat black, which, from an arm's length, looks like the gen. But this is the only detail that is missing as you view the dial close-up or through a loupe. If the case was solid 18kt, I would probably finish her off with a gen dial. But because gold plating is never permanent, I decided to draw the line there. Unfortunately, once again, because the clone's original parts are so good, the external gen parts swaps are subtle, so it may be difficult to see the improvements. But, like the gen, the macro viewer is well rewarded for their close attention with a stunningly beautiful handset. Also, because the watch sits about 3/4 mm lower on the wrist with the solid caseback, I may not fit this 1 with a display caseback. 3/4 mm may seem like a tiny difference, but it is quite noticeable when the watch is on the wrist. Still deciding -- gen auto-wind bridge & crown. The clone parts are so good (greatly exceeding Trustytime's pics of those parts on his website) that I am still ambivalent as to whether they are needed. So these are to be determined. This watch is incredibly beautiful. The more I look at her (yes, she's so striking that she's a she -- &, yes, I know what a she is when I see 1), the more I fall under her spell. How John Mayer could make a fuss over a mundane gold & green Daytona & miss this 1 entirely is beyond me. They are not even in the same galaxy & I say that as someone who -- up until now -- thought (most) yellow gold watches look needlessly ostentatious & silly.