alligoat

Here's a gilt dial with what appear to be silver hands at Robert Maron: http://cgi.ebay.com/ROLEX-VINTAGE-EXPLORER...1QQcmdZViewItem And an earlier watch from Raymond Lee- but w/ a chapter ring- appears to be gold hour and minute and silver second hand http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Rolex-Explorer...1QQcmdZViewItem My theory in vintage is whatever works- it's more important to balance the lume on the dial and the hands whatever you do!

Here's some spring bars only for the Explorer 1016: http://cgi.ebay.com/GENUINE-SPRINGBAR-for-...1QQcmdZViewItem Maybe he could answer your question.

Case dimensions may be OK, but the bezel is slightly undersized- that's why you have to file the edge of the replacement insert all the way around to make it fit. The good news is, you can fit a gen dial in there and the rehaut (depth) is perfect for a 16800- just have to get the lugholes drilled to make it correct. Oh, and don't forget, the crystal sits too low as does the crown- of course the crown is too low on all of the 16610 reps at this point.

What color are the surrounds on your markers, Arty? Black or silver (wg)?

Before you go buying a gen dial, better make sure that you have the right case- not all Explorer II cases accept a gen dial. The case that accepts a gen dial, as I recall, isn't even available anymore. Best to read and study By-Tor's review first.

LOL, pfran, a case from NDT is in a whole different league- won't take an ETA or asian movement, prices start at $950 for the 5512, they have no modern cases- like the 16800 or 16610 w/ sapphire crystal. And then you'll spend $1K for a Rolex movement..., oh, the dial, another $400, crown, etc. Clearly you're talking 5 times a $475 Euromariner, and it's a vintage franken to boot.

Maybe rather than starting with a Euromariner/ ETA at $475, you might consider the $100 noobmariner. Think of it as a beginner watch. Read around here for a month or two, buy some watch tools and try your hand at a few mods. Trimming the crown guards is a good place to start, installing a watchmaterial pearl in the insert is another. The watch is basically water resistant- should be good for snorkling. If you get ambitious, a gen tube and crown is a good mod, or maybe you send it off to bklm1234 for a better rep crown and tube- fairly cheap. If you screw up the watch, no big deal, you're not out a lot of money. If you decide you like this hobby, then you can move on to bigger and better things in due time. Buying the Euromariner- you still need to trim the cg's- more so than on a noob, still need a better pearl. Crown and tube is pretty good on the Euro from what I've seen- a good copy of the gen. No one sells just the case to my knowledge.

NO! Dial feet are in the wrong place, back is all wrong, dial print sucks, it's not even the quality of a noob dial!

It looks to me like both of these Explorers have the same problem- silver hour marker surrounds instead of the correct black surrounds. Now I've seen some early gen dials (c. 80's) which had the silver surrounds, but the ones now are black. This is the critical flaw with Explorer II's.

I must say that in Iceberg's comparison photo, the noob looks good. However, the key thing about the Euromariner (and the new MBK and WM9) is the correct bezel construction. The noob's bezel is slightly smaller than a gen and anyone who has wrestled with an insert- filing down the edges to make it fit the noob bezel knows what a bitch it can be. And trying to remove the noob bezel can drive you crazy. It's definitely the weak link in the noob. Sure the cg's on the Euromariner need to be trimmed, noob's could use a slight trim also, albeit less. Crown and tube on a noob are still wrong- Euro has the copy crown and tube- like the SSD. When you compare a noob side by side w/ a gen, you can can see the slight difference- the gen is bigger, not much, maybe .2mm, but it is bigger. The Euro/MBK/WM9 should all solve that problem. Like w.genzo, I look forward to the Euro w/o the rehaut engraving- I think it will be a great watch, just get me the sandpaper so I can file down those cg's.

A GMT 2836 movt. is a hybrid, of sorts. An extra gear is added- a reducer for the GMT hand which makes one revolution for every two of the hour hand. This is a modification made in China, so sometimes the quality of the mod is good, sometimes not so good. The ihs mod is fairly simple and pretty reliable. As for parts, I doubt you'd find them as a do-it-yourselfer.

Love those Chuck Norris jokes, TT. @ qualitime, I pulled up your link, but couldn't get past the first page. Oops, some of the links work, but a bunch don't. Hopefully Chuck will be able to get Paul back on line!

Looks to me like the SN engraved on the rehaut is different from that between the lugs. Of course, I don't like the rehaut engraving anyway. Like the fat case tube, and all in all I'd agree w/ Tribal- a MBK- WM9 of some sorts.

I went over to RWI and read his post on beautifying the SSD- like you say, he only installed a WM pearl in the SSD insert and shaved down the back side of the insert as much as he could. But if you've already trashed your SSD insert, you might as well order a jewelryoutlet insert. It's easier than trying to get a SSD insert from China, IMO.

No doubt, and it's not even that good a franken. Movement should be a 727, don't know where the dial came from. Heck, even Phong builds a better franken at less than 1/2 the price!

Here you go J! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A:IT&ih=001 Maybe Bill Weigel would take a little less on this used one. New will run $16-17K.

Yes, Faisal Ali has two stores- here in beautiful Sugar Land, TX! I'm not that keen on him myself, but I did order a 24-7030 Rolex Sub case tube from him last week and it arrived promptly- haven't installed it yet. I don't specifically know if a standard Rolex or aftermarket insert will fit in an SSD without mods- once again, bklm1234 would. He helped me w/ my noob insert last week and yes, the jewelryoulet insert or any other standard size insert has to be trimmed around the edges to fit in a noob bezel and it's a PITA to do. But I want to say the SSD insert is closer to the standard size. Might still need to file the underside so it will seat in the bezel better, but that isn't hard to do- just take a small file and go slowly. Keep the top side of the insert on something soft like a cotton rag so you don't scratch it. It helps to have a press for setting the insert in the bezel and maybe clamp it while the glue dies. Oh, and yes the WM pearl is larger. I used a sharp exacto knife to enlarge the hole- just twirl it around a few times till you can press the WM pearl in there and glue it from the backside.

What you need is a set of vintage ETA hands. Standard sizes for the ETA hands are 90/150/25. You could buy a set of ETA hands from a place like Clarks and then color them yourself to match your vintage lume on the dial. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...=tab%3DWatching In the description they are refered to as for Tudor, but this is the modern Tudor calibers which use the current ETA movements like 2824-2 and 2836-2- an MBK will have either a 2836-2 or a 2846-2- same hand sizes for both. I'm not aware of anyone selling ETA hands with vintage lume- so your only other option would be to take them off another watch w/ an ETA movt., then that watch would have no hands. Ziggy could color hands for you, or maybe one of the guys over in EU could do it for you, if you don't want to do it yourself.

Glad I got mine last year! Thanks Freddy!

Careful with gold! I gues the best thing is to find the watch that you like and then check out the various dealers who have it in gold. And yes, the gold may come off or wear off- that's the problem with gold plating. If you stick to stainless steel, this won't happen.

A few years ago I picked up a yellow gold DD, silver dial with stick markers and fluted bezel from Paul- I just can't get any blingier than that and even that is really too much for my tastes. The bracelet didn't match the case very well as far as the two tones of gold, so I removed the bracelet and put a nice dark brown alligator strap on with a gold Rolex buckle. I wear it from time to time in dressy situations, and the case has held up fine. It looks similar to this model from Josh: http://www.pc-80108.com/rlddf10013-full-go...8362-p-997.html A Day-Date really isn't the watch for me- probably a gold cased Datejust, white dial, gold stick markers, dark brown alligator/crocodile strap would be the ticket, but lately I've been wearing the 5508 on a dark brown alligator strap in dress situations. Oops, here it is with an oyster bracelet. But it does have a gold print dial and hands! The problem with gold is I just don't want to be called out- "Is it real?" Some people say they can tell the difference between gold plate and solid gold, but I don't buy that necessarily- and don't forget, gold does tarnish some- but you can't buff out gold plate too much! Lately I've been thinking an all gold YM would be cool- white dial, of course, but gold plate is just such a risky deal: Here's Josh's http://www.pc-80108.com/rlymf10004-full-go...362-p-4495.html But, damn, it's just like Dirty Harry- "Sometimes you just gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky?"

Do they even make a real YM with rehaut engraving? I was looking at an all gold M serial (the latest) YM yesterday and it had no engraving on the rehaut.

I used a cotton t-shirt rag, dust blower and small little brush last time. I do have a microfiber cloth, also. I never touch the dial except from the sides. You don't want to use chemicals on the dial, but I guess you could use a dab of Windex on a rag if the fingerprints were bad on the sapphire crystal, but not on plastic. Windex is bad for plastic. I don't wear gloves, but try to keep my hands clean. The key is to put the movement back in there and flip the watch over and double check before you button it all up.

I love the white dial also. A custom run- maybe 50 or 100 would hopefully be enough. The chinese make dials for probably less than a dollar- in quantity. But something like this- probably $50-100 each. Might check with freddy- he's been trying to figure out how to build a cheap 6542- less than an NDT one.

Have you looked on ebay? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A:IT&ih=008 This will fit a TWbest, MbK/MBW case, and even a noob case, probably not a CN case. Or look around for a dial here.