w0lf

That's soooooo awesome and moving, I'm lucky to be a member of this board

those are gen model #s. afaik 188,196,250,251,233 and 270 are available as reps.

let's keep this a friendly zone. 72,121,162,168,188,196,224,236,250,251,233,270,320,326,351

He doesn't have Ti thumbnails, I asked him for one yesterday.

Not really, it's more suited for an E series.

Showing the profile will help us determine what generation watch it's suited for. But showing the stub of the lever will help us determine a far more important thing - whether it's really good for anything other than this watch it's attached to. As far as I can tell from this pic (looking at the pin cap finish and the crown) it appears to be an older cartel CG, which is really great if you can take care of the pin and wobble in the lever. It's the 2nd runner up for the best PreA-F CG out of the box, first being of course the JimmyzFu CG. But I will need in-focus macro pictures of the CG to make the final judgement.

Another couple of weeks gone by, can we get an update, please?

Doc, looking good, where did you source that CG? Is it the stock old cartel one that came with the case?

Dirk Mario Paci I'd personally go with Dirk.

I'm thinking I'd rather buy destro casesets at $880 a pop Rare model - sure but it's still an L-dial.

I'm now almost certain that Valerian has the 2nd gen dial. This is the 3rd gen dial I'm referring to in my previous post (photos courtesy of MilesD):

Excellent writeup, Babola. I'm familiar with both dials you show in your post, in fact I've been looking for the "old yellow" DSN marina dial for a long time and was recently given one as a gift by a good friend of mine I'm now wondering if it'll fit into JimmyzFu case without milling after looking at your measurements... Also, it appears that Qwest actually has the new new DSN dial or the 3rd generation dial without grooves around indices. I bought a couple of those dials from DSN as soon as they came out around end of October last year. DSN hasn't uploaded them into his photobucket and hasn't started building them into watches until early November '09 though. Though the print could be more anemic, as you put it, on gens, I've not yet seen a picture of one that wasn't white. So in the end it looks like the only good TST and passable dial print color is is the old yellow DSN with dashes in TST...

Valerian, Try to take a close up of the watch so we can see the whole dial including the area under 6 o'clock. Perhaps if you could give us a little bit of history on this piece maybe we can trace it back and establish if the dial has been refinished or we're dealing with a totally different animal. To my eyes it looks like an old DSN dial similar to these: Destro 26 from HackR: and I believe this one is FGD's old PreA 01: I hope HackR and FGD will forgive my linking to their pics w/o asking for permission...

Babola, great to see you back and posting once again I'd like to make a small correction. The original poster, Valerian is the one who has the infamous DSN dial meant originally for PreA watches. The one with extra yellow indices and T-S-T. Qwest on the other hand has DSN's most recent 01/04/40 dial, it's available for purchase right now and it comes with no "-" in TST. The crossbars in A's are indeed high and the overall appearance is quite nice, however the dial is not without major flaws. The dial print is off white and too thin, T SWISS T font is regular Arial family, the dial indeces are laid over topplate unlike the gen. Please see this gen picture, it should illustrate my points well: Valerian's dial with a little bit of love from The Zigmeister can be made to look closer to gen. P.S. The strap in question on PAM00164 looks like Paolo18 or possibly JR, they have very similar stitching.

For sure it's 316L steel. Also the lever is finished differently on A & B transitional CG. It's bead-blasted / natural finish and later on C and newer series the the outside surface of the lever is horizontally brushed about 320-400 grit.

Hahah, you're welcome, Valerian I forgot to mention the fundamental truth of all modding- if you can achieve the same end result with less effort, go for it.

Can you elaborate on "Andy's 2893-2" sorry I'm not familiar with that source.

Very nice, I know how this watch started out and saw it in person through all its stages - it's a keeper for sure!

I'll need 2 sets to begin with.

That looks like a DSN dial.

.:: Before .:: After As you can see my little block of wood is pretty grimy from all the CG jobs I've done over the years

Val, The procedure is rather easy, you will need the following tools: - Dremel w/ a buffing attachment - Metal polishing paste or jeweler's rouge - at least 2 grits of wet/dry sandpaper 1000 & 2000 (I use 3M WetOrDry in grits 1000,1500 and finally 2000) - Blue Loctite for lever tightening - Bracelet pin pusher to knock the pin out - Push pin with a snipped off/filed off pin to use as a "chisel/buffer" to drive the lever pin back in without scratching the CG - Jeweler's hammer or regular hammer - Double sided tape and a small block of wood for grip Make sure you have your working area set up and well-lit. 1. Use the bracelet pin pusher to push out the pin from the back of CG 2. Put a drop of blue loctite in lever pin hole 3. Put the lever back into CG housing and drive the pin back in using a hammer and modified push pin 4. Close the lever and let the assembled CG sit for a day so that Loctite sets up 5. Work the lever when Loctite had enough time to set up and remove remnants of glue with a toothpick and papertowel from lever and CG housing 6. Put a piece of heavy duty doublesided tape on a wood block and press in the CG with pin surface facing up 7. Using the wooden block as a grip, move the CG back and forth across sand paper starting with low grit, checking frequently and going up in grit as you remove the initial "bulge" 8. When sanding down flip the block around a few time so you dont end up making the pin too biased on one side, also you will want to tilt the block slightly to match the sloping shape of CG. If you dont tilt you may end up flattening the feet (alternatively you may want to tape off the feet with some painters tape if you're worried you're going to get them) 9. When final grit finish is done use the dremel with paste / rouge to re-polish and restore shine. The more you do it the better you get at it. Hope this helps

Really really really really ridiculously good looking P.S. how are those Молния movements holding up? Between all boards you probably have the most experience with them.

Crocs are nice with T style dials but please do something about that lever pin! p.s. there were no deployants back then either if you want to be period-correct.

Just what the doctor ordered, Mickey! And that gator is the right period for this watch so I think you got this one done Psssst - Leo DW