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Custom Seamaster today

"Although MQ does have great looking dials. Personally, I wouldn’t deal with him again. I bought my 94010 case set from him with custom engravings. The whole experience and communication was a pain. Not only that, on arrival, the quality and accuracy of the case set was pretty poor for the price. Especially the case rehaut, which was wokky. The crown and tube proportions were off as well as being poor quality. Not to mention the bezel, with a flimsy-foil buckled tension spring and insert fit for the trash." "Those engravings are similar to mine, they hardly scratch the surface." Sorry to hear about the bad quality. This is none of my business of course but I will always believe some of these guys buy $30 cases and detail them or have them detailed for another $30. A real pro like Rolojack can turn an average case into a showpiece but I believe most of the characters who supply high priced 'hit or miss' watch cases are not much good at what they do...either that or they are simply crooks. I know this does not help but it is the way it seems to me. As for shallow/off center engraving...I have done some case engraving with an old 'New Hermes' engraving machine and it is not hard to do. Set up takes as long or longer than the engraving but it determines the quality of the job. Proper depth is not hard at all to do. Oxymoron...the old Hermes engraving machines are branded 'New Hermes'. The case band can be refinished and the reference number engraved again but it will reduce the OD of the case a little bit on that side and it might be hard to match the grain that is on the other end. If you sand the other end to match, it will make the engraving shallow. The OD reduction usually does not show but it is quite a job because the sanding has to be done at a 90 degree angle so it will not round off the case band edges. It can be done on a belt sander but the belt must have a solid plate or frame behind the sanding belt to keep the sandpaper flat against the case or it will rapidly round off the edges. You also need a flat, level table to lay the case on to keep the case band at a 90 degree angle to the sanding belt. I used a 3/8" wide sanding belt so the cut would not have flat spots but it was a real hassle and I would not do it again unless I had to. This was on some DW cases that had a word misspelled...'stinless'. All that being said, the 5512 and 5513 cases I got from Yuki in May 2014 are first class all the way. Also got a very good 1680 case from a member that came from IG44. I never did a tudor project because an Eta rlx project costs about the same and I have some rlx cases. Vintage 'New Hermes' engraving machine.