w0lf

if it's an asian movement make sure you didn't flip the pallet bridge, they're not keyed and can go on both ways, this will freeze your pallet. your hint will be the lack of reaming around the bridge screws

Hiya, After some much needed downtime, the thought of building another logo seemed like would be a nice start for 2013. I also had a couple of new ideas that I couldn't wait to try on my next iteration of this build. It's still in progress and the log pics won't be very good because I work at night and photography is definitely not a priority for me. But hopefully they will give you an idea of things to try or ask your favorite modder to implement on your next PreV build. I won't bore you with the details of the case shaping that you have seen many times before; if not you can pull them up here. One of the things I wanted to try was making a correct PreV-look handstack. Only the top of the genuine PreV hand is painted while the edge and a the inside of the hand tube are exposed brass. This is also essential for the "grimy pinion" as the oxidized minute hand tube reflects off the mirror polished cannon at the edge where the cannon pinion is slightly convex and sits a hair beneath the hand hub. This watch is also going to sport a genuine bezel, you can see how much thicker the OEM gasket is by comparison. Caseback had also been a gripe of mine since none of the aftermarket makers bothered with proper facet and lip finish. For this build I will be using a DW caseback, its engraving needs to be color-filled by enamel, but it's a small price to pay for having a nice and thick profile. Polishing of the lip and facets. Since there have been no backplates for FGD dials for the last two years, rather than destroying a sandwich dial (which are almost never the right diameter BTW and still need to get turned) I made my own from sheet brass. I'm now working on the crown guard, full fit and finish so stay tuned!

Noob 111N

This is great news, Z3K0, thanks very much for posting. I will try to make a clamping jig for the old A7753 datewheel to reduce the OD on a lathe. This should be good for white background 7750 datewheels since nobody makes one

The cost and the time frame to do this project would then skyrocket. At the very basic level, this means that you have to prototype for two production cycles and order two separate tooling sets, one here and one for China. Your fixed costs just went up. Secondly, the level of precision required to constitute a meaningful incentive to run either the whole mid-case production or just the fine detail finishing in the US dictates that you use a big shop. Smaller shops will have older, less precise equipment and you will just waste your time and money if you go to them. If they're ambitious idiots, they'll make you a proto run fit for the scrap bucket. If the are savvy, they wont do a run or outright turn you down, the foreman/owner will just take your project to the bigger shop as the middleman. Once you get to the big shop level, they will all be booked for about a year to eighteen months on big batches, usually semi-conductor parts runs for the likes of Intel. You won't be able to incentivize them to give you big boys priority because the whole market is maybe 200-250 cases of all flavors combined. Lastly, you can be sure that big shops have a huge library of blacklisted designs. Even if the mid-case designs don't infringe on anything outright, the case will raise some warning flags and they might simply forgo the possible future aggravation of finding their product in the midst of some counterfit luxury goods scandal.

Has anyone attempted or knows if the older (Pre-326) A7753 datewheels can be used on ET(A)7750 movements by either turning the OD of the datewheel or transferring the top plate components from A7753? Z3k0?

How about a roll call fellas; did I miss someone, any new builds? Watchmeister's LOGO: http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/144556-prev-and-loving-it-201a Ubi's LOGO: http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/140043-project-201a-with-a-little-help-from-some-friends Projectologist's LOGOs: http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/143167-5218-201a-2-is-almost-done-pics-added-of-both-done-post-9 SGT@ARMS SLYTECH: http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/139366-franken-pre-vendome-%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%93-5218-207a-1996-slytech-daylight Redwatch's SLYTECH: http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/145858-panerai-205a-slytech Fitch's Pair: http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/146626-some-quick-and-dirty-pics-pre-a-and-pre-v-goodness

It's an A7750 "old case" China rep, ca. 2007. Worth maybe $150-200 tops on resale.

The rep crystal is a tell for anyone who's seen the genuine crystal. None of the genuine 127 crystals, whether it be the troublesome z-wave batch that many owners chose to replace (and the one the noob rep probably most closely resembles) or the subsequent crystals really look like the noob crystal. This is just confirmation bias from folks comparing reps to slightly better versions of those reps. P.S. In the stacked photos this guy is showing a gen 217 on the bottom and a noob 127 or 217 case on top (the one without the crystal).

Happy Christmas, thank you Akira! P.S. You inbox is full

You should send an email to your compatriot - Nightwatch http://vintagewatchparts.co.uk/

i came here for panarai

startime has it for $150 but i think that getting another watch with the same movement configuration as yours is sometimes the only recourse.

All your packages are belong to us!

RA, If you want, I have a couple PAM29M handstacks you can practice on, I can just send them your way. I'm looking forward to seeing how the gloss experiment turns out. I know that most modders active right now do not do the correct semigloss look, they leave it matte. The matte look works for lumi handwind models but it's completely incorrect for automatics. I also know that it's possible to do the right way because I have an old-school PAM29B that was relumed by Mark (Finepics) back in 2007 and he nailed the look, so you can help bring back the lost skill:

Very nice job for your first try. I have two criticisms though, the handstack needs more work as it's bleeding into the "skeletons" and also genuine OP automatic model dial lume is not matte, it's semi-glossy. The latter is also true for the v2 reissue of Noob PAM29M that came out in April so my recommendation would be to leave that model dial as-is if one is after accuracy. Genuine 29M:

The only 229H rep available is by DSN. Some inaccuracies: +/- Crown is decent but not period correct. - CG lever tip shape & length off, lever pin too large. - Case is way overpolished, loss of edge detail, lug profile is too beefy. - Crystal optics aren't up to par (murky). - Datewheel font is wrong. - Cannon pinion not flush with minute hand & not polished (capped Asian chrono movement). - Dial is all wrong (markers too far away from rehaut, they're scrunched toward the center, the shapes of 2 & 6 are off, LF-P font is a different font family with wrong kerning) - Caseback fonts are off, ex. "OROLOGERIA" is in a serif font on the gen. This is more or less par for the course on most of David's watches. If it was fewer, less obvious things, e.g. if the dial & crystal were OK but the rest sucked - it would still be fine as a project watch - you'd just need to work out the kinks, but as it stands, you're getting 2008 quality in 2012.

If you find the link, I'd be interested as well.

The latest batch was released and sold about a year and a half ago, there hasn't been anything since. You have to get them like everyone else -FS/FT section.

They're OK but not great. Some parts used in the watch are good as standalones. Ex. the crown and the caseset that are copied from a genuine crown and a Noob 111J watch respectively, but as a whole the watch has too many flaws in key areas to consider it a super rep.

They are the best thing currently available because they're the only thing currently available.

Not currently, but there will be a decent H-Factory PAM89 after NY.

229 is what's called a Firenze dial, which is a blue/indigo and the 89 is what's called an anthracite dial which is gray-slate. The traditional blue dial Panerai lineup are the likes of 70, 82, 87, 93, 119, 252, 282, 290, 307, 326, 371, probably some more I forgot including a ton of SEs.

Awesome job!