alligoat

Enjoy your new watch, A! It looks good. And if the fantasy clasp was good enough for the Italian water polo team, it's good enough for me!

I wouldn't expect too much from eWatchparts. This is the same as wholesaleoutlet990/watchbandman50/jewelryoutlet550. AKA Mr. Slimeball. Try not to spend too much money with him, because you may just be throwing it away. Certainly it's best if you can source a gen assembly, but they are hard to come by and typically expensive. What I did on my ETZ 16610- A serial with lugholes, is get a gen crystal retention ring. Then I got a couple of aftermarket bezels- one from A and E watches and another from a place I'd have to go dig up the name of. Both were tight fits- I'd press them on with the crystal press, but they wouldn't turn. So I went to sanding by hand with a piece of 340 wet dry sand paper. Sand the inside bottom edge of the bezel so that it will snap over the crystal retention ring. The flat washer and the click spring are also in there, but they weren't a problem. Eventually one of the bezels snapped on and would turn. The only problem at that point was that I couldn't get the gen insert to seat in there and ended up using an aftermarket insert which snapped right in there. I have an older gen insert with tritium pearl and I may sand the edge of it some day and try to fit it in there, but for now I'm just going to put some mileage on the aftermarket insert and enjoy the watch- it is WR at this point. It's the one on the bottom in this dirty pic One night I was fooling around and removed the bezel from my gen 16800. It snapped right on the ETZ 16610. Of course, bezel assemblies for the 16800 and the 16610 are exactly the same. I've found with aftermarket parts that the fit and finish isn't quite as good as with gen parts. You also might see if BK would sell you another bezel- maybe it would work better. BTW, finish on the sides of a gen 16610 bracelet are brushed. 16613 sides are polished.

Looks like you're missing the small springbar that will attach the wetsuit extension to the clasp part of the bracelet- maybe a 13mm springbar- or is it 16mm? Easy quesy if you have extra springbars.

After building a 6238/9 transitional and with parts left over, I decided it would be a no-brainer to build another one with the a 7750 movement. I have the original work in progress- the 'transitional', it's a V72 powered DW 6239 case with the 6238 dial and the 6239 bezel In the process of building this watch, which has been a labor of love for the last two years, I bought a second cartel 6238 and thought I might be able to use some of the parts from it to make the 6238 w/ correct assymetrical pushers. Alas, I was delusional, chinese parts rarely are the same size as gen and the best I've been able to do to date is build a transitional 6238/9. But with an extra cartel 6238, I decided to get a DW 6239/a7750 case and see if I couldn't build another 'redundant bezeled pre-daytona'. It's called 'redundant bezel' because the tachymeter scale is printed on the dial of the 6238 and also on the bezel of the 6239. I must give credit to my friend, LHOOQ, because he's the one who coined the term and I do like it! At any rate, I was able to fit the 6238 dial with a7750 movt in the DW 6239/7750 case and I must say it looks good IMO! It's on the right in this pic, next to the transitional 6238/9 on the left. One note, I did file off the 'tumah' on the crown side of the 6239/a7750 case. It's not completely gone, but almost so- what's left is fairly well hidden by the bezel. But this case really doesn't lend itself to installation of a 6238 bezel- the 'tumah' still shows too much. Luckily the 6239 V72 case doesn't have the same bulge- I may still be able to get a decent plain bezel for it, but I must say, I kinda like the 'redundant bezeled pre-daytona'! One last thing, the a7750 redundant bezeled pre-daytona' isn't too expensive to build- a couple of hundred dollars for the cartel 6238 and another couple for the 6239/7750 case and you're there. Of course, you could buy a 6239/7750 Daytona from DW for about the same price. So pick your poison.

It's kinda like ancient history at this point. I tried logging in- I have't changed my user name and password in 5-6 years but it's not buying it!

I do like the early 16610's, the one with the tritium dials and the 93150 bracelets w/ 501b end pieces. But I'm sorta out there w/ Teejay- I like the vintage and these 16800's are getting to be vintage

I'm big on dark brown cros straps like on this 6542 Or even on this O&W chrono And since the TOG won't be getting wet, a strap will work just fine. For wet work, I do prefer a bracelet.

Unless someone has a scale and wants to actually weight the watches, this discussion is pretty much pointless. I have a gen 16800, actually I have two of them, and I can't tell the difference between them and my ETZ 16610. And if you hold one watch in one hand and the other in the other hand, and think you can tell the difference, that's total BS. So someone needs to get a scale- maybe a good one like the drug dealers use- a triple beam. Or better yet, get on drugs, get a life and straighten up! These subs reps are so good- WM9, ETZ/MBW 16610, TWB, why would anyone worry about the weight?

Why would you even obsess about something so trivial? The BK WM9 V2 is an excellent rep, try to enjoy it. And good luck with getting a handle on your OCD- I wish you the best.

Great write-up. Thanks for sharing. Interesting little blurb on the helium escape valve at the end- it should be replaced with every service. Wonder if the rep valves screw out like the gen.

I'm with panerai on this, get a good set of hands and enjoy your watch. You can keep your eyes peeled for a gen dial, but if you take your time, maybe you can get a good deal- patience is the key. Since your watchmaker got you the T-125, can he get you a set of hands? But I guess vintage tritium hands aren't exactly an off the shelf item. A WTB on Vintage Rolex Market- VRM- is another idea. I guess a set of Yuki hands might do for a while.

Yesterday this site was giving me fits. Slow/not posting, timed out by the server, couldn't get PM's sent. Ruled out my ISP, since other sites were fine. Today I'm having better luck so far.

That's $129 for a Beyeler blank! Then you could sent it to Michael Young and start over!

Great write up, M. Like I've told you, that 6239 is really growing on me! I did file the tumah off my DW 6239/7750 case, file, file, sand w/ 340/400/600/1000, polish, polish. But I don't know if I filed enough, but I pretty much plan on staying with the 6239 bezel on that watch anyway. I got down pretty close to the crown recess and stopped. Now I need a T-21 aftermarket- did you get the Sternkruz from CousinsUK?

Did Clark's use to sell the retaining rings? I try to stay away form WSO990 if at all possible, although I have had good luck w/ his Rolex case tubes- 24-7030-0.

Or the springbars have flat ends instead of the correct rounded ends. Might be a T-127 crystal instead of the proper T-125 for Tudor ETA. A tritium acrylic pearl would help the bezel insert. New hands and you would have a very nice watch. Not that difficult to bring up to par!

Yup, the click spring is easy to loose! But like JoJo says, it's not going to do anything to stop the bezel from turning. I also position the crystal retention ring with the hole for the click spring at around 1 o'clock like Highoey says. Then install the flat washer and put the click spring in- point it towards 12 o'clock and press the bezel on from the top-12 o'clock position- and finish with the crystal press to snap it into place. If it's loose, you can snap it on with your thumbs. I've also sanded the inside edge of some aftermarket bezels so they would fit- otherwise they were too tight. But if yours popped off, it's not too tight. I've hit my gen 16800 on a desk and had the bezel pop off- lost the click spring. But look at the bright side, Rolex would replace the parts and charge you an outrageous amount. All you have to do is get a new click spring and you should be good to go.

Hopefully he's out trying to find your watch.

Seems pretty reasonable to me, esp. with the 7032 coming out. I also see those military chrono cases and dials on ebay that would take a 7734- that would make a nice military type XX watch.

10-4, J! With a little help from LHOOQ, it ought to be a snap! I was looking at this earlier 6036 today- look how small the bezel is, inside of the case, so to speak. By the time they came out with the 6234, it was larger And this 6238 is the look I'm after I've got a spare cartel 6238 case and bezel also- I'm moving the guts into the DW 6239/7750 case (eventually). the cartel bezel is OK, it's just a tad too big!

Thanks guys for the kind words. I've got a Dw 6239/7750 case and I'm going to put a cartel 6238 movt and dial into it- just haven't got there yet. The cartel bezel and the DW bezel aren't the same size- typical chinese engineering- they build a nice 6238 but the dimensions vary from gen slightly. DW's stuff is closer to gen dimensions- I fit a T-21 on the case. This is an earlier DW 6239 case- all it has is a little bulge below the crown. Like you say LH, sourcing a better bezel is the key now. I put the 6239 bezel back on this morning- I do like it! Freddy, like you say, I do have a DW 7750 case and I am going to swap in a cartel 6238 with a7750 movt. Chi, I don't think your 623x bezel will fit my DW case/crystal, but you never know. OD of the T-21 is 30.5mm.

I recently built DW 6239 with a 6238 dial- I referred to it as a transitional 6238/9. Powered by a Wittnauer V72 and with a J&W 6238 dial, it turned out OK. I got a set of black subdial hands and then I got a 6238 bezel from DW- I was on my way to building the 6238. Cases for the 6238 and the 6239 are almost identical- according to 'Rolex Daytona, a legend is born', they have the same measurement across (36mm) and top to bottom (35mm). At that point, the only difference would be the bezel. Both take a T-21 crystal. So I installed the 6238 bezel- here it is on the left Watch on the right is the cartel 6238 with the a7750, symmetrical pushers and a terrible 6mm crown which I really need to change out! As you can see, the DW 6238 has a decidely flat look to the bezel- wide and flat. The cartel watch has a better bezel with a steeper pitch to it. In a side shot, you can see the difference- DW in front, cartel in back I guess for a while I'll go back to the 6238/9 transitional look while I try to come up with a better bezel. It's sure too bad that the cartel watch doesn't have assymetrical pushers! It's really not a bad rep.

Whenever you start looking at dials and cases from NDT, you also need to visit www.jewelryandwatch.com and www.yukiwatch.com. They have a line of products similar to what NDT has and then like Freddy says, you have to start studying the stuff to figure out what will work best for your application. Generally, building a watch with parts from one of these three sellers involves buying a donor watch with gen movement and installing it in the new case with a new dial. These franken rep builds are certainly more expensive than buying a typical rep in the $200-500 range, but you are dealing with a gen movement and maybe a few other gen parts that you've found along the way (crown and tube, crystal, bezel insert) so the quality level is hopefully better. Also, when you build the watch yourself- with the help of a watchmaker typically- it's generally $1-2K cheaper than buying a ready made watch from one of these three sellers. A fourth seller should also be mentioned- DW- David Wang, as he's called. He carries a line of parts for vintage Daytona watches and can be found on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330472101426&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT You can contact him thru ebay also. These are expensive builds, but when the gen watch costs $10K-20K, and you're spending maybe $2K-3K, you start to see some sense in the whole thing. But remember, this is a labor of love. People who do this rarely get their money out of the deal and your franken will never be as valuable as a gen. We don't know where NDT's and J&W's dials and cases come from, but we suspect Viet Nam. Yuki and DW are in China.

Wow!

help me Batman!