alligoat

The T-19 is held in place by a metal ring and then the bezel snaps down on top of that. The modern sub has a nylon (plastic ) ring that holds the sapphire crystal in place. If you want a 5513, you'd be better off buying one from one of the dealers, since the methods of construction are completely different between vintage and modern. Besides, your modern sub has no case holes in the lugs, and the vintage do.

You might be able to put a 14060 no date dial in there, but you can forget about putting a Tropic plastic crystal on there. Maybe you could find a sapphire crystal, or you could take the cyclops off, by heating it up, but you need to search around for how to do it. Use the search function. You paid too much for the watch, but your best bet would be to leave it as is for the time being.

I don't know what the problem is, other than people have tried to remove the bezel and it isn't easy. In fact, it's so difficult, that alot of people have bent the bezel. If you're trying to change the insert, you might do better to remove the crystal, and then pop off the insert and put the new insert on w/o removing the bezel itself. I'm not aware of anyone sucessfully removing and reinstalling the bezel on these CN 2006 cases (Noobmariner, Beginmariner, Paul's Perfect, EL's...). If someone figures it out, it would be nice to see a tutorial!

I've tore up a couple of inserts, one gen and one rep out of say 15 subs. The gen was mishandled and the rep got some rough treatment. The other 13 are fine. People knock pearls off regularly, I've lost one, and replaced that bezel. The rep bezel was scratched, it fell off, I filed the back down and by the time I was finished regluing it, it had two small scratches, lost the paint- but it's a "work" watch, so you have to expect those things. When I'm out doing dirty work, I try not to wear a good watch, but it happens from time to time. Besides, replacing a rep bezel insert is a $20 deal, cost me $65 on the gen. It's like a maintenance item, and watches do have to be maintained.

Welcome aboard! River might be quitting, but who can say. The TW Best sub is great for the rehaut. Josh's sub has good rehaut but the cyclops/date window are too far right. Solution: Buy one TW Best from River Buy Perfect Sub from Paul Put Paul dial and movt in TW Best case Install gen bezel insert Install gen crown and tube Put hollow link band on from Paul's watch Trim crown guards to look like gen Then you'll have a $600+ perfect rep! Or you could buy Josh's Beginmariner for $108 and have a good time w/ the $500 you save. Hell, you might even get laid!

My dearly beloved's first rep was a TT Datejust w/ the white dial from Paul. It has been an excellent watch with the small 2761 eta movt. She liked it so much, she went out and bought a gen on ebay for under $2K. Now the rep just sits in the drawer. Ironically, the rep works better than the gen (even after the gen has been serviced). I think it's the damn axle rotor in the Rolex- the Achilles heel- doesn't allow the full winding of the movement. My gen 1680 has the same problem, back to the watchmaker we go. None of my reps have this problem. You can't beat these Ladies ETA DJ reps as far as I'm concerned, they're just a great deal (or the men's for that matter).

Ken, I agree w/ Pug 1000%, you need to find another hobby.

http://cgi.ebay.com/100-ROLEX-Jubilee-stai...tem230107202780 Here's a gen jubilee band from roling, the guy that sells the Datejust cases for the Frankenjusts. He comes up with four DJ cases about evey other week. I'd sure like to know what he does with the movements- builds gold Rolex franken watches, I guess.

I've built two of almost the same watch, a 16014, ss w/ wg fluted bezel and a 16013, tt w/ gold fluted bezel. Gen dials, 2836 movt, luenfat datewheel overlay, tudor hands. My watchmaker put them both together w/ a ring spacer to hold the movt in place. He didn't have to change out the cannon pinion or anything, so did he slightly angle the minute hand and second hand up? Anyway, both watches are working flawlessly and have for over a month. I even dropped the 16014 on the floor of the Salt Lake City airport, I couldn't get thru their sensitive metal detectors, and had to take it off. Ironically, a crack in the plastic crystal showed up three weeks later. Got a replacement from Clark Watch Supply. They're not cheap, but these Frankenjusts are nice watches.

There's no doubt this stuff is always changing. Look at lug holes, they've all but disappeared in the last two years (except on the vintage models, of course). It would be great if CN or TW would make a 1:1 case where the dial and bezel insert would fit w/o mods.

C-omex dial 29.00mm TW Best sub dial 28.45mm CN sub dial 28.42mm inside ring of C-omex sub case (CN)- 27.51mm. Mine has lug holes and no case markings, around 2 yrs old. gen Datejust dial- 16000 series- 27.86mm gen 16800 sub dial 27.38mm gen 16610 sub dial 27.25mm gen 1680 sub dial 26.48mm The 16800 dial is small, but will just barely fit inside my TW Best sub case. I didn't measure the inside ring of the TW case, but my guess is that it's around 27.2mm. That means you have .18mm to hold the dial in place and keep it from hitting the crystal. It's gonna be a tough fit, because if the dial isn't perfectly centered in the case, there will be "daylight" showing on one side or the other. Hopefully the movement ring will be a tight fit and in gluing the dial to the movt, it's got to be exact.

Have you measured your Tudor dial? And if you don't have a set of digital calipers, Harbor Freight sells them for a reasonable price. If you're fretting over buying a $100 watch, you're not gonna want to buy a $400 vintage MBW, which may be your only viable option. Gen dials are smaller than rep dials. Vintage MBW's and gen 1680 Rolexes run in the 26mm range. A 16800 dial, I just got is 27.2mm. The rep dial on a TW Best sub is 28mm+. It's going to be a challenge to fit the 16800 dial in the TW Best case, w/o seeing daylight. Everyone else who has built a Tudor sub has used an MBW case, as I recall. I have a C-omex sub and will measure it tonight, but I already know that it is a CN case because I put another 28mm CN dial in it already. I'd love to fit my 16800 dial in it with the shallow rehaut, cause 16800's had shallower rehaut because of the 3035 movt, but it's the same old deal- gen dials are too small.

Looking good, Congratulations! It's always nice to get these projects wrapped up. I like the way your sapphire sits above the bezel. I'm noticing that more on the late model DJ's these days. Good Job.

You could always buy one and let us know how you make out. But I'm almost 99.9% sure that it's a CN case just like all of our other CN cases. 28+mm dial (gens are around 27.2mm), probably a 30.5mm crystal not 29.5mm like in a gen 295C, shallow rehaut.

I live in Texas and I haven't had any troubles receiving reps. I've ordered from TWG, Paul, TTK, Josh, Angus, Silix and a bunch of the parts guys over in Hong Kong. The only suggestion I would make is to order your watches one at a time to minimize your exposure. I did notice this week that River doesn't ship to Texas. He didn't give me a reason, but he must have had more than a few watches seized by customs. But I can't see why Texas would any different than any other state in the USA. Once it comes thru San Francisco or NYC, it's in the states and home free so to speak.

@ who, Looking at your last pic, it looks to me like your hour hand is off slightly, not the six o'clock marker. In that case, all you'd have to do is reset the hands, no biggy.. If the marker is slightly off, well, that's Chinese QC and there's not much you can do except get a new dial.

I love boring! Especially a 6542 with the black bezel and the desk pilots white dial!

If you like that watch, go for it. I think these Datejust reps w/ the ETA are some of the best deals going. With a little maintenance and luck, this watch could last you 20-30 years. There are no glaring faults, but it is a rep, so original parts aren't necessarily going to fit, but you'd need a set of calipers to measure the minute differences in sizes. If someone were to call you out on it, it wouldn't be because they knew what they were talking about, it would be because they assume all Rolexes are fakes!

If your MBW has a 2836 in it, I would think that a 2824 would not fit due to the position of the stem, it would be too high and not align properly with the case tube. All the more reason to go to a 2846, or go back with another 2836, or have the old movt serviced and repaired.

My Noobmariner has the asian 21j movement. It is not an ETA copy, but a Miyota copy. It might be an easy swap to put a Miyota in the noob, if the hand sizes are the same, but you'd still have to change out the datewheel overlay. Don't know about the dial feet.

Two basic movements these days, the Swiss ETA, and the asian 21j Miyota copy movement (Chinese). ETA's are generally better quality, can be serviced and repair parts are available. Asian movements are inexpensive, parts are not available and it's cheap to just replace the movements, which cost $15-20 plus shipping here in the US. Like Pug says, show us some movement pics and we can terll you what you have.

If it's one of those Noobmariner type bezels that's tough to get off, you'd be better off gluing the insert in place w/ a little bit of glue. People have had lots of problems trying to remove the Noob bezels. Like Craytonic says, you just need to be careful not to glue the bezel to the watch!

On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the most difficult, let's say it rates a 3-3.5 maybe. It takes the correct tools, a basic level of watchmaking skill and patience. It's been discussed here in the past (search function, hint, hint) and poor mans watch forum has a tutorial on it- www.pmwf.com/. Also, check out Edge's guides around here in the top part of certain sections. It goes along w/ uncasing a movement, etc... And above all, keep reading and searching, you'll find the answers.

I noticed that the rehaut looks pretty good.

I think that would be a fun watch to have for occaisional wear. A couple of weeks ago, I was out on a jobsite and next door was a foreman from Kinder Morgan where they were tapping into a 24" gas line. He had on an all gold Submariner. I should have made a comment about that being an expensive watch to be wearing to work while knocking around out in the field, but I wasn't thinking that fast on my feet that day. Heck, I'd love to know if it was a gen or a rep! Of course, I try to refrain from wearing my gen ss 1680 when I'm getting down and dirty on weekends, etc. I much prefer to be wearing a rep and some of my reps are pretty beat up.