sssurfer

Excellent!

The correct G-series style pattern on the movement plates and the dagger swan neck are getting rare these days.

Also, it has a dagger swan neck that qualifies it as Asian.

All Swiss 6497 come with a needle swan neck -- with only exception, those modified by OP themselves.

Finally, you won't ever find a true Swiss movement in a PAM rep.

As for the actual value of the watch, the dagger swan neck puts the price higher, definitely well over $100.

$300 might even be not unfair, depending on the other watch features (sapphire, lume, etc).

Hi Promotersf,

I am currently working exactly on your two cyclopses, they should be ready soon.

The 027 and 028 have the 2892-A2 movement, that has a small additional lens embedded on the 027/028 date window.

The 063 has the 2893 movement, that does NOT have that lens.

My cylops is specifically designed to allow the user to use it on the 2892-A2 movement (PAM 027/028) without removing that additional lens.

It would result underpowered on a 2893 movement (PAM 029/063).

On the other hand, chieftang and watchmen cyclops are a good fit to the 2893, but they would result overpowered (so giving cushion distortion) on a 2892-A2 -- unless you remove the additional lens.

In a few words:

use my cyclops on the 027 and 028, use a chieftang cyclops on the 063.

That watch is a train wreck, LOS. You should send it to me so that you never have to embarrass yourself again by wearing it.

:lol:

Unfortunately, it currently is my daily beater... on my wrist right now.

http://www.rwg.cc/members/index.php?showtopic=8318

This movement issue is killing me. Gotta figure out what to do so that I can give it some wrist time.

If you messed up the keyless work, best advice is getting a watchsmith to fix it for you.

...But are you absolutely sure it's not just the stem a bit too long after sanding down the crown? So that just sanding down the stem for the same length amount wouldn't get it fixed?

Tom, there have been a lot of threads about it, I too posted my thoughts, if you do a search you should find them.

I'll try and make a summary as well:

The cheap tests (waterdrop, fingernail, color, subjective temperature, distortion, etc), they all are not conclusive if taken individually.

But if they all point to a same result, then they tell something.

The electronic tool(s) mentioned by hooky and described in one of my threads are very reliable also in my experience.

AR coating a glass crystal is excellent, as in one single step you get the crystal AR coated and more scratch-resistant than before.

The problem is that the AR makers calibrate their AR coating treatment on the median refractive index of the batch that is undergoing the treatment. So, if it is a batch especially made of sapphire crystals, your glass crystal is not going to get the best possible AR coating related with its refractive index.

But if you can start a batch of glass crystals you should get an excellent AR, at par with sapphire.

Btw, stem should be 0.9 on autos and 1.2 on handwind.

Humanity is like a cancer (or, at best, a virus). Once it affects one area, it affects others... thus you need to start understanding this universal truth because,

Many months later -- finally a pic of chieftang's single side AR on a watchmen cyclops on a cheap Asian 21J 104.

I took it now as I gave up with my hope to get a better Asian 21J datewheel.

Thanks everyone for your comments!

And a special thanks to Pix for helping me again on a subject I am not prepared to give meaningful replies.

About the AR, pics were taken under a white tent to diffuse the light and minimize reflections. In live, the crystal reflects quite a lot.

I doubt there is any AR. If there is, it is single-side and not very effective.

Double AR on course.

I'll wait for the assembled pieces...Will give me a better idea of what I can expect...Thanks in advance!

Here it is (with apologies for the fingerprints on the crystal):

Even on that crappy, thin datefont of a cheap Asian 21J 104, readability gains a lot.

Here is a single AR coated watchmen cyclops on a cheap Asian 21J 104.

Even with that crappy, thin DW font, readability gains a lot from single AR.

(With apologies for the fingerprints).

BTW, what do you guys think of switching out the hands for gold ones instead of silver????

DON'T DO IT!

That would ruin that absolutely unique balance between the cold tone of brushed SS and the warm tone of lume and strap.

With brushed SS goes silver, no doubt.

You created something unique, don't change it now!

P.S.: thanks for your reply on how you got it brushed. I was never able to go that same precision work.

Why am I having troubles on telling the truth from the joke in this thread?

Well, after many months of thinking about it, I finally got my HBB. Mark's V2 version, rose gold + black ceramic bezel & bits.

What got me decided was a thread in the general section a while back, where Mark gave more info about this watch, but especially invaluable help from the great member Pix, who actually bought the watch then sent it to me. I have troubles in connecting with Mark's website, that keeps rejecting connections from my web provider, but especially I would have not taken the risk to have a watch this cost seized by my customs, that are quite nasty.

And Pix even performed QC on the watch before sending it to me.

Thanks Pix, without your help this would have never been possible!

This is not a review, I am no expert on HBB, it's just a small pics gallery.

So, here they go with no additional comments:

Thanks for looking,

:sss:

Frankly, I think you made an excellent watch out of it!

I love that brushed case. It looks machine brushed! How did you manage to get so precise?!?

And the strap matching the lume color is a master's touch, IMHO. Also, that beige color matches the brushed SS in an extremely nice and unexpected way, taking the watch to an even higher level.

I used not to like vintage Pams, but I like this watch A LOT!

Excellent!

Please consider that on a 063 a watchmen cyclops (6mm diameter) is even more accurate to the gen than a chieftang cyclops, and that it would benefit 100% from a single-side AR, as the AR will make all the annoying reflections in/from the cyclops disappear.

About acrylic crystal:

unfortunately, glueing a cyclops on acrylate is a nightmare, I already tried it.

I'll have to sort it out some other way.

I also have a replacement crystal (from a 212) right here -- but naturally I am now also scared to death it will explode as well.

Oh man. Sorry to hear your troubles as well.

So it seems there are two slightly different mini-fiddy models around.

One with the movement removable from the back once you take the caseback out.

The other one where you need to remove the movement from the front side, after removing the bezel + crystal.

Exactly like the fiddies, IMO.

EDIT: I just read your other thread where you made it clear that the movement can be removed from the back.

So far so better.

Note also that Chief has a new batch of AR's cyclops in process.

I seem to remember I heard that Chief had to give up on getting these new cyclopses AR coated

Thanks, Rya!

Just, I am really becoming a bit concerned.

What I see wrong is the printing on the dial is gold, it should be white.

...With exception for the small square marker @ 3Hr (near the small "15" number), that is correctly gold on models with black-on-white datewheel.

Oh my, all these variants and details are giving me an headache.

My next question is do you have clearance on your's to change the date (obviously). Reason I ask is when I pull the crown to adjust the time on the mini, the crown almost touches the top of the crown guard.

Yes, on my minifiddy the clerance is barely enough, but it is enough. Also my crown almost touches the CG, but I can set the time.

Just, beware: yesterday my minifiddy crystal exploded.

Chieftang made the single AR on my crystals.

Single AR is not a stunner like double AR, but it is accurate to the gen and it also has a very pleasant side effect: it almost deletes any reflections from the date & cyclops, so making the date even more readable.

I had it on a crystal with a watchmen cyclops, and a second crystal with a chieftang cyclops (both non-AR coated cyclopses), and the improvement was absolutely noticeable.