w0lf

Give it a shot, D, you won't regret it. And the great news is those crystals are exactly the same today (just ordered a couple recently) as they were when I got them 2 years ago for my 63 & 29, now that's a rare occurrence in the rep world.

Thank you, Chief Your cyclops is simply a must, many times I wished that I stocked up when they were available but I didn't have a watch to put it on then. Later I was only ever able to find two pieces with Bwhitesox and Dluddy's help. Though not many of these high end models were made and most have settled nicely with their owners, I would like to suggest one more mod to everyone with old school ETA28xx models. I've talked about it before but I think it can bear repeating. Folks with original factory crystal should absolutely swap their crystal with MM104 crystal, transferring their Chief and SSSurfer cyclopses of course. This crystal comes from Jackson Tse / Military Time It's stock P/N: MM104- http://www.jacksontse.com/mm104.html It's one of the best rep crystals I found, very clear, neutral and with great refraction so it's a total must have, unless you were able to get a gen crystal and had the rehaut & crystal bed modded to fit. It works with all old Eddie Lee, River and Honpo 2836-2, 2893-2 and 2892 + 9040 based watches and costs only $35. It's truly a night and day difference as many of you now learned with top shelf crystals from N & H factories.

Well, the new 29 isn't going to be quite the same. Aside from the lack of dial minute markers and other changes like a historic roller lever crownguard, it also looks to be slightly different in the profile. I can't quite put my finger on it but it may have to do with case/bezel design. The older Honpo was designed with ETA2893 in mind, whereas the new upcoming model will be based on an incorrect and thicker 2836 movement. I initially thought that there's not enough difference in the movement thickness @ ~1mm, but more shots have been posted, and the new model's profile does look a little chunky. I'm not sure if it will be a showstopper when on the wrist, but thinner cases do wear nicer and look more gen-like. I'll know for sure when I had a chance to put them side by side and measure their thickness with a caliper. The 29B is actually spot on in terms of thickness and lug configuration, to the old honpo:

It's the original honpo CG that came with the watch, The Zigmeister did his magic on it.

My babies are back from the Great White North and I'm happier then ever! Huge thanks to the mega-talented R&J team and Watchmeister for helping these projects come to fruition While there is still one more on the way, I'm no longer PAMless Build/Parts lists: o PAM29B Honpo base w/ ETA2893 (OFFICNE full deco) Finepics relume (with amazing refinish by The Zigmeister) Finepics 2893 DW Chief Cyclops MM104 crystal (much clearer than stock Honpo or old cartel) OEM crown / Custom The Zigmeister tube Full OEM handstack OEM semimatte calf o PAM28A Honpo base w/ ETA2892 & Soprod 9040 (OFFICNE full deco) Original Honpo 1st gen dial The Zigmeister 2-color relume (white base + aged Tritium mix) Lello 2892 DW DSN 1st gen 1-piece crystal Genuine PVD crown / Custom The Zigmeister tube Genuine handstack Genuine semimatte calf Custom double-screw A-series buckle Honpo PAM27A Caseback (Correct millesimation/serial range for PAM28A) PVD by Jack@IWW o PAM48K MBW base EL 1st gen PAM48 dial relumed by The Zigmeister MBW matching relume hands Taka 7750 v2 DW Hi grade A7750 The Zigmeister custom fab polished & flush CP OEM antique brown gator A few more shots of the 28A since it's a huge crowdpleaser I'm debating whether I should swap the DSN 1-piece crystal for an MM104 crystal with SSSurfer cyclops or leave it well alone, I know it's a slippery slope. I featured this 29B in my Honpo writeup awhile back. It has since then been fitted with OEM hands, the dial has been refinished by The Zigmeister and since it's an older watch the movement received a full teardown service. Later I'll try do small a writeup comparing my wife's gen dial/gen handstack MBW PAM48K franken to this one with a masterfully relumed EL dial.

Welcome back

Calatrava, Every rep generation has some flaws, some get corrected in future release, almost invariably, another element that was fine all along is now wrong. There will never be a version that's perfect in every respect, that would not be fiscally sane for the factory because they'll work themselves out of a job. I would still get (and planning to at the end of the week) Noob 111Ms.

In the big scheme of things the extra A/R coating doesn't matter that much. I'm sure this will be dealt with in time by either modders or endusers themselves. Also, the factory may put out single A/R on subsequent batches or go to a different mfg. entirely. They also could be reading the forums and realize they made a mistake and newer watches will be single A/R. The actual A/R properties of this current shop that Noob uses are really quite nice so it just needs to be singe sided. One other thing I've not given due consideration is the fact that I buy 5 or more of these at a time so it's possible I have an early BETA batch that got double coated. Either way, to wrap things up on the matter - do your research, buy your dealer first, speak with them directly to sort out any questions you may have prior to ordering.

hfactory

Chief, you definitely know more about A/R than anyone else on the forum. I would love to hear your perspective on returning to double A/R on Panerai reps of which the majority is black dials and no raised bezel, the exception being Submersibles. I can only go by my personal experience with older models that had double "smurf" A/R and they really got unsightly after prolonged wear, as I don't baby my watches.

The properties of A/R are strengthened with double coats, you are minimizing glare from both surfaces that normally can reflect and refract, this can make the crystal almost invisible under certain lighting conditions.

Nah, mate, it's all good. You know this is not why I wrote it, if one person read it at least to the 2nd paragraph I'm happy Especially if that person is you.

Thanks Pete! I really appreciate your review of my scribbles. About the saying, I've seen it written both ways actually, but thought that venom would get more traction with the reader

Good news everyone! Well, not entirely So there's there's this now much touted and supposedly colorless A/R that came out on the overhauled Noob 111M and 219M. Seems like it will be the choice of A/R on the factory's forthcoming models that are currently on pre-order, notably the PAM29M. This new A/R is in fact different from the previous 111M batch that had a light but noticeable turquoise tinge if you caught it just right. By the way, the HFactory's A/R on their 005M & 000N is very similar, as in it's no longer colorless as was the case with early models like 219L, 177L, etc., wonder if they're now using the same vendor? Right, but I digress as the subject of this writeup is the new improved A/R on overhauled Noob watches and other bits on my mind all relating to the Noob factory. This latest batch of Noob 111Ms that I received last night has this transparent A/R among a plethora of other improvements over the the initial batch. More on the other improvements later and in a separate thread. This A/R is indeed pretty transparent in almost all lighting conditions. You might catch a pleasant extremely faint purplish tinge to it if in focused spots, very much like OEM late model crystals. E.g the light source reflection will show an extra faint purple tinge but the whole crystal will not reflex with any color. Not something we've seen before from rep factories. BUT, a little venom bittereth much sweet. The factory cheated - this new A/R is double-sided, that's how they're getting it to be so effective. If you want further evidence that other models received or will receive the same double-sided A/R, you can see the exact purple tinge that I mentioned in Angus' photos of PAM29M, look carefully at the cyclops. If you already took delivery of the NF 219M or 111M, another way to show this "wonderful A/R" in action is to breathe on the crystal, the water vapor will fog up the crystal and as it evaporates really quickly look at the watch in focused direct light. There is no doubt the A/R is double sided, and you'll see more reports of this. So what is the problem with double-sided A/R you ask? It's quite simple, on a watch like Panerai whose crystal is not protected by a raised bezel like Breitlings for example, the outer A/R will scratch and make the crystal look damaged. There is a reason why Officine Panerai coats their crystals only on the inside. With A/R coating of all kinds, if breach it with something that can make it all the way through the coat to the crystal, it will look like the crystal has a nasty scratch in it. Alternatively, if you just mar the A/R with something blunt that doesn't cut through it all the way, it will look like you've drawn on the the crystal with a pencil, the mark appears like a faint gray hairline. Except you cannot erase this hairline. What's going to end up happening after awhile is the same thing as way back in PAM stone ages-- you'll have watches with damaged top A/R that look like crap. Of course most folks that have a crystal press and some experience tinkering with watches will want to remove this top coat of A/R, even if it means diminishing some of its "completely transparent" prowess. And that's going to open a whole different can of worms, but let me explain. In order to remove the top coat you can use several methods depending on the strength of the coat. If it turns out that the new A/R is feeble, you may get away with cape-codding it off or using Polywatch paste + an eraser to strip. Really, this would be best case scenario but I've not attempted it yet so I don't know if it'll work. On the other hand, if the A/R is hard like the older versions of A/R from Noob factory, you will need to press out the crystal and go at it with rouge and a buffer or dremel with a buffing attachment. It's not a good idea to do this exercise directly on the watch because you'll be working on it for awhile even with fast aggressive compounds like chromium oxide. The crystal will heat up a great deal, really a rather healthy amount, enough to boil water on it. It may melt the crystal the gasket unless the small rim of crystal bed in the case that the crystal touches with its bottom can conduct/spread the heat quickly enough. This surface of contact is so small that I doubt that it will be capable of any decent heat transfer though. So the solution then is to press out the crystal, strip the top A/R coat, and now it's time to press the crystal back into the case - all straightforward but this is when you may find out just how flimsy and fragile the Noob crystal gaskets are. Yes, the crystal and bezel gaskets are indeed quite flimsy on the noobs going back all the way to the original 111J from late last year. The problem is that they're cut out of nylon, and are very thin. At 0.37-0.40mm thickness they're way too fragile to withstand multiple crystal swaps. For comparison, tther rep gaskets from DSN or cartel are .45 to .50mm thick, premium gaskets like OEM PAM, JimmyzFu and C3 are .55-.57mm thick. I worked on about 60-70 Noob watches beginning with 111J and now I have twenty of the new 111M cases sitting on my bench being reshaped for my PreV project. On some of them, the crystal sits lopsided from the factory (protruding more past one side of the bezel than on the opposite side) because the thin crystal gasket got pinched under the crystal when it was being pressed in at the factory. Nylon compresses and stretches relatively easily so it becomes hard to fit the gasket back in the crystal bed when the crystal's been pressed out and pressed back in once or twice. Same issue is present with bezel gaskets, they get pinched and there's then a gap then between bottom of the bezel and the mid-case. It's more correctable because the bezel does not provide water resistance to the watch the same way the crystal gasket does. So you can just use an exacto knife to amputate the pinched part of the gasket as long as it doesn't mean cutting it completely up. However, if the bezel has been removed a couple of times, its gasket is flattened and doesn't spring back much so you end up being able to pry the bezel off with your fingers. Meaning it will eventually fall off when worn. Noob factory basically made these gaskets a throw-away item. As much as H-factory case construction sucks in my opinion, at least they got their crystal gasket the right thickness @0.55mm and made from teflon/hytrel instead of the flimsy nylon. Next stop - the crystal itself. It really came a long way since PAM111J where you could see the inclusions with a naked eye, really not a good crystal at all and even worse A/R. This has been corrected by the Noob factory, the crystal that came out with 005M and 111M releases looks much much better. But where it still lacks is the top edge chamfer. It's ridiculously big, almost twice as big as it should be in fact and it feels like it's getting bigger all the time. It now looks like the Noob is trying to one up Rolex 25-116 plexi with their crystal chamfer. The issue with the double sided A/R, the crystal and the gaskets, which should have been corrected a long time ago are definitely a "two steps back" kind of thing. I like Noob factory, they really try to push the envelope and consistently put out interesting and difficult to replicate models. They improve on their existing popular models. They stick to OEM case construction. All are excelent points in my book. I used to rip on the HFactory for their corner cutting, non-OEM case construction and other bits, but I don't care about them anymore because I hope the future is behind Noob Factory, they will keep putting out excellent exciting stuff for all of us to enjoy. They just have to remember that when you're better than everyone else, you are held to a much higher standard.

The movement thickness difference is a hair less than 1mm depending on configuration of 2893, I don't think there will be a drastic difference in case height. The rehaut on the gen looks like it's 10 miles deep just as it does on the rep.

love it!

you see, Pete, the fact that you write "photoshopped" as two separate words makes it just a hair less likely if i believed in dualism and trans-species reincarnation, which i don't btw, i would want to reincarnate as a bear, and not a poof kind of bear, an actual 2200lbs 11ft tall fcuking polar bear so i can go to the board meeting of OP and maul everyone in the room.

you won't fool me with that ) the 02 logo is a diff. case

I'll tell you some more strange things - out of the original PreV models my favorite is the 203/a and not the LOGO or the 4liner, but overall I like A series models more than any other series that came before or after it. You must tell me where you manage to find all these OEM cases!

I remember watching an episode a few years ago when it looked like he was wearing a pam on coramid, I rewound it a couple times and paused thru it but it ended up being something else, fwiw not sure if we're talking about the same episode, just wishful thinking on my part.

Very nice, Pete! I'm normally not a huge fan of the logo dial but this one is sublime because of all the attention to detail!

One of kind R, it's a great pleasure to see it all come together so well

dsn27 - long gone honpo29 - current fave 28 is currently with Zig

I must've missed this one somehow, once again a terrific job spec'ing this out and having it put together, great job on the case