swdivad

I bought my wife a TAG Kirium sport quartz for casual wear... she loves it

I don't think I paid over $450 for it on the bay. Here's the model:

YES!! Thank you all moderators and Admin... We've got a great community here

When I was getting my PVD 196 done, the owner showed me around his shop. They do lots of bathroom fixtures in gold PVD and they do look amazing.

It is very tough stuff! I have been in manufacturing for years and have used TiAlN coated carbide tooling on the toughest of metals and have designed wear parts using this coating as a buffer.

The only way to get this coating off is to actually remove the metal from underneath. It is appraoching closely the hardness of diamond, so no worries about scratching your watch with a TiAlN coat.

Tried one of these on yesterday... It was Ti on a rubber strap with yellow replacing the white in the above watch. Beautiful piece! I would prefer it on a bracelet though, the IWC bracelets are so nice

I also thought Lucky Number Slevin was an awesome movie, although not out quite yet here in Australia.

They have also changed the name here to 'The Wrong Man' Why would they change a perfectly mysterious and intriguing name to something so obvious and boring?

I've seen them do this a few times here in Australia and each time has baffled me

@David...as this watch is a complete fantasy.......have you thought about either orange or yellow for the second hand......if you use a phosphorecent orange or yellow...even green....it would stand out quite significantly...orange ala B&R.....!

Here's a very quick and very rough look at the colour contrast......sorry I couldn't be more precise.....not enough contrast between hand and dial to do a separation......maybe someone else can do it better.

I like it a lot Yellow or orange would be awesome... I was thinking white as well. Do you have a source?

The chrono seconds on the PAM 212 isn't too shabby either

Thanks for the compliments guys! This is definitely my favourite (right now). The quality of the watch received was just asking for me to do this to it as I've had a long term dream of a beautiful PVD chrono....

The center seconds will be reworked, but I am warming up to black with the lume in the end only, but may change it to something with a lume dot or 'leaf' on the end.

I am considering this to be a prototype, maybe doing this to the real deal, not sure what model yet and the gen budget is tight at the moment. It would have to be a pretty beat up model with a good price.

Very nice.....only thing I would changed would have been the colour of teh large seconds hand....too little contrast against the dial.....!

Thanks TTK, that was a big problem here, and this is what it ended up with for now.

I wanted to use the chrono seconds as original, chrome. The one I had was damaged and could not use it.

The hand that is on there now was blackened accidently, so we put a dab (lol) of lume on the tip for visibility.

I think I will go for a chrome center seconds next breakdown.

BTW David...did you get my Skype note about the 'paint' sticks...?

Thanks for the message, although I no longer have skype installed, I did use the enamel paint sticks purchased here:

http://www.micro-tools.com/Merchant2/merch...uct_Code=LS-KIT

If I could only change bezels like I change straps

Aaron HKTan will also make straps to your specs, and will even use any material you send to him if you wish.

I had a pink croc and a blue Vernis LV strap made for my wife and she loves them!

I too, have missed this thread, been trying to do some stuff of my own as well...

Anyway, take it easy, kick back, relax... Spend time doing the things you love, with those you love!

Life is short... Time is luck! (who said that?)

Cheers for everything Mark!

After a really long haul... she's finally back on my wrist, practically a thing of beauty. Problem is, me being so anal about perfection, it will need some more work, but it's just about there.

Work done:

Mirco-bead blast

TiAlN PVD coat

Date wheel reprint (Thanks Finepics!)

C3 Super Luminova & Hands matte black (Thanks The Zigmeister!)

AR coated crystal (Thanks Finepics)

Disassemble/re-assemble (Thanks to my anonymous watchsmith!)

Work to be done:

Fix up the blobby lume on the end of the chrono seconds

Fix up the datewheel issue where the pusher doesn't always work.

Decide what color I really want the tachymetre to be, it's grey now, but could be blue, yellow, white, or natural black

Try to get the chrono seconds smoother

Palpatine crown install when it arrives

In reality, it's pretty damn cool as is, but could be a 'bit' better

Please enjoy, comments/criticisms welcome Thanks for looking

Hey David,

You Sinned just like me!

Waiting for mine to arrive in a couple of days-

Is that from River?

-MM

Yes, I just missed that one... Congrats on a great watch at an excellent price! Mine is rubber strap only, may get a leather, don't know yet.

These are so ugly (to me), they're beautiful

@JTB... Yes, no rep of that (yet), but I would think it would be pretty easy to do

I'm holding out for a good Big Pilot...

PT's AR chrono looks likme a winner for sure, that's first on my list.

It would be nice for them to work harder at perfecting the Panerais, like the new chronos' cases and the 212 dial. Cg's need work and overall quality could be bumped up a notch.

It would also be nice if they would use real super luminova instead of the crap they are ruining these dials with now... I mean, really, what's the sense in using silly putty, when for a couple extra bucks, they could use the real thing.

For my 1000th post, I'd like to share what's on the way:

WOW... and I thought I was going to save some money for a while.

one day, a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.

Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shove of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

Free your heart from hatred - Forgive.

Free your mind from worries - Most never happen.

Live simply and appreciate what you have.

Give more... Expect less

NOW ............

Enough of that crap . . . The donkey later came back, and bit the farmer who had tried to bury him.

The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

When you do something wrong, and try to cover it up, it always comes back to bite you in the ass

Like some have said above; IE7 is perfectly safe to install and you won't loose any of your settings and should not have any problems.

When it comes to recommending browsers, I personally recommend Opera. It's fast, has more functions built in than FF (like the "can't-live-without-it-mouse-gestures"). Opera also have a nifty function that you can install; Internet Explorer Rendering. With the click of a button, a new tab is opened in opera, using the Internet Explorers rendring machine, so you do in fact have a internet explorer page inside opera. Perfect to use if you have problems with certain pages

T

I get those mouse gestures and IE rendering with Firefox with some of the gazillions of add-ons available

Golf caddy was my first job (that was great... my first broken nose was from a golf ball )

Busboy at IHOP (International House of Pancakes (really sticky)

Night cleaner at Hilltop Steakhouse

Then I decided that the restaurant business was not for me

Worked in a leather splitting shop, didn't like the smell

Sheet metal worker running press brakes

Then got promoted to painting...

My first son was born

Broke up with his mom, got custody

Then couldn't get promoted to the tool and die shop...

Moved onto a machine shop doing grunt work (manual surface grinding is good exercise)

Worked a few CNC shops as a pushbutton production worker... way to smart for this... learned everything I could about programming CNCs and robotics

Got a break in a machine shop, working up to lead programmer

Remarried, had two more sons

Went to university for Mechanical Engineering

Learned some, but really learned much more in previous positions

Back to several other manufacturers as lead programmer

Got divorced... Went to lots of parties

Opened a Photo Studio, made lots of money, hosted lots of parties

Countless strippers and concubines followed

Studio burnt down, all my stuff with it

Stayed in Thailand for a year

Moved to Honolulu, partied too much and skydiving was fun!

Concubines and ex-wife drained me of every last penny... Oh well, it was fun while it lasted... Back to life

And back to Boston...

Moved to New York

Moved to Chicago

Worked for a CAD/CNC software provider as tech support/training

Moved overseas in the same position

Got married

Worked for a CAD/CNC software provider as Sales... saturated the country with the software

Got divorced

Moved overseas again in the same position

Got married (For the last time damnit!)

Settling down somewhat

Moved on to an Engineering Manager position

Now on my own sub-contracting... Still not sure what I want to be if/when I grow up

Life has had it's ups and downs, but has been grand!

i find it faster too...yesterday i installed the firefox 2.0...and all my bookmarks got lost...couldn't upload them in the new firefox...so i went back on the old version...

i wanted to replace outlook...so you say thunderbird is ok...i'll give it a try...just have to find it...

Just goto Bookmarks menu/Organize bookmarks and then export them... Re-import in FF2

I run Firefox and I don't have any prob's with it but I couple it with Incredimail.

However the other day I was offered to update to version 7 in Firefox but when I read down the requirements one line said 'a credit card' and I said no thanks.

Ken

That sounds strange Ken

Firefox 2 and IE7 are both free

If it's too slow, there's something wrong, I find it faster than IE.

Try Firefox... 10 times better and more secure... while you're at it, chuck Outlook and try thunderbird. Great combo, blocks pop-ups and spam... Tried and proven, you can relax.

There is a safer method of using tritium lately. The H3 Tritium Gas tubes that RXW and Ball use are US military specifications and will glow for 20 years or so.

I had an RXW Plasmir with these gas tubes, and I must say, that I was far from impressed with the glow. Not even remotely close to Super Luminova.

I'm embarrassed, to admit this to some of you who recall some of my posts trouncing these watches..

But,.. after three years, of fighting it,.. I can now see the beauty in AP,...

Just purchased a Royal Oak,..S/S White dial with the gold bolts...

{though I must admit that I feel a bit sorry for those locked in bolts with the screw slots

which will never be turned...}

Also now crave a Patek Nautilus,.. Stick Markers, and no power reserve..pure simplicity

{Still however find the Aquanaut an Eye Sore}

I guess I should have looked away whenever a photo of those models popped up,

because if you look at anything long enough.. it starts to grow on you...

I feel now a little lost.. with less and less watches to hate or laugh at....but one I'm sure I will

never get weak for....The Chrono Fighter,.. only watch with a built-in-Trigger...

What's up with that ???

I know I'm not alone... come on.. admit how that most ugly girl snagged your heart...

It's called age DT .. I am also feeling a bit of wanting for these 80s style watches The WM Patek jumbo I saw last week was somehow beautiful to me, and I don't understand my slight moving away from tool watches.

I might get to try the APRO soon too, we'll see how it goes

Nice watch, wear it well!

Where'd ya get it? How does the movement look?

I don't like the crystal on the new ones... Even though it is sapphire AND AR coated, there is a lot of distortion in it that just screams fake to me.

I am waiting for the finepics super crystal.