praetor

what green? It's mostly grey... OMFG

I downloaded that pdf too a long time ago. Thanks a lot gorilladame. I noticed it's missing the mark zero red sea dweller though. It was the reference book that made me confirm that PT 's 1665 lugholes were acceptable lol. I got two catalogue books myself, a vintage patek philippe one and a lange & sohne. They look so snazzy on the bookshelf.

quick question: how do you polish back to a mirror finish? because I find it hard to polish out the scratches from the needle files I used. sorry if this hijacks your thread.

innards of a 702: no wonder my tube tool didn't work

I guess the cat is out of the bag. Hard to tell without a profile shot. Watch A has identical rehaut and crown guards to my wm9. So there you go. while the rehaut height is perfect, wm9 is slightly less wokky than gen. side note: need to work on my trolling. of course they're not both gen, who in the right mind would buy 2 identical modern subs.

both gen XD !!! hahahah

ooo... the width is fixed =D love the new look now.

the new look is awesome. I wonder if you can get a widescreen version of it though. It looks really compact.

well, there's grade A reps and grade AAA reps and so on. Our forum has grade A x 10 ^ infinity reps =D. I've seen some frankens being sold on antiquorum before. Some with 16800 inserts in 5513 rolex cases. But the best franken ever being sold has to be this one: (sold for $30k sans crystal) http://catalog.antiquorum.com/catalog.html?action=load&lotid=194&auctionid=148

not bad. But for modern timepieces I think the coolest title goes to Urwerk =P

of course not... you'd have to get a new dial and hands as well. The insert looks ok though, but you'd need to get rid of the pearl. The HEV valve is fake and too pointy, so you need to vintagize that as well XD... the lug holes are in the correct position (IMO)compared only to a small fraction of 1665 cases . The majoritiy are more like the MBW cases. source: Submariner Story

I'm modding a PT 1665 case at the moment and here are some of my notes: - the supplied tube does fit a genuine 703 crown, but poorly, It doesn't fit anywhere close as it would a genuine tube. - In order to take out the tube,you'd have to heat up the case first to get rid of the superglue they use and use a rat tail file with a ton of force to mangle it out. - As for the rehaut, there are two problems. First of all , it is too tall. You'd need to reduce it with some kind of disc sander to about 80% roughly. Secondly, it is too wide and have to reduce the outer diameter. This is only a problem if you want to fit genuine dome or any other crystals for that matter. - Also mine came without a bezel tension spring >.<.... moreover,you would need to manufacture a crystal retaining ring if you want to get rid of the plastic one. - Of course, you'd have to mod the crown guards, filing both the inner, outer and profile portions. - sometimes the lugs look too fat, have to thin that one out. Also, you'd need to rebrush the lugs because the finish is awful. Good luck... =P

niice :thumbsupsmileyanim: ... makes me want to finish my 1665 project (probably 6 more months and costs much less than yours). Although it would be nice to have put a superdome in that bad boy, which makes it all roundy, making it look like one of those old submarines.

this is probably one of the most frequently asked questions: where to find vintage rolex parts. I found my fat font insert by using google =P...I got my 702s from ebay by searching for rolex crown and find the mislabelled ones. If you know what you're looking for (crimped edges in blurry pictures and angles of the crown),then you should be ok.

drool... how do I build myself one of those

^that's a 700 crown

it's really the limitation of the printer itself. You'd got to give credit to the alps printer dye sublimation that's 10 years old. Even my new epson nx420 inkjet printer that has a resolution of 5700x1440 pixels with a droplet size of 3 pico liter cannot reproduce my artwork with 100% acuity under the loupe. With the naked eye, it looks passable with minor differences (can only tell if you're a wis like me). Which is why I'm debating myself whether or not to get the epson 1400 which costs around $200 with the only difference that it can drop 1.5 pico liter of ink but have the same resolution. well, maybe in a few years from now I'll get an image setter XD.

looks fake to me too. I can instantly tell from the coronet.

looks nice...how did you get the matte black paint? was it printed or..

silk screening is hard to do on dials, it lays down too much ink and very hard to do it accurately, which is why most dial makers choose pad printing. Your best option is either decals or find a pad printer willing to touch a gen dial. Also, remember that the comex print is white on black ink, so it's a 2 color process.

they're all overpriced and inaccurate IMO, except for maybe ingod44. This is why I started taking up pad printing. Off topic: I just bought a [censored] up genuine DJ dial for $22 ...hehehhe=D

Finally, after 3 months of trial and error, varying the ink viscosity with thinner got me my first clean print (exact reproduction from the plate). Although I'm working on better film positives right now, either getting a better inkjet printer than my $50 one or maxing out dpi. Still be a while until a dial can be made. Here is the pic. awww yeaa.

looks like a genuine 5508 to me. However, the dial is more of a suspect than the insert to be honest, I've never seen a coronet like this (Im not that familiar with this model). It has a really nice folded jubilee bracelet. Not sure how much this goes for... 8k? I wouldn't polish the case other than rebrushing the lugs. If I were you, I also would ask for a shot of the profile in order to see possible dents on the side of the case.

very interesting. The link you gave us. It's a non chronograph A21J movement with seconds @ 6. They finally did it! It was always center seconds fake subdials before. This is a fairly new rep to the scene. Also, you should notice that watcheden mixed up the pictures (i.e. the profile and the back is a different watch - the solid gold daytona rep). As for the interchangability with genuine parts, the crown and tube should be a doable mod, as the parts and drill bits are fairly easy to come by. The tap on the other hand, difficult to find. If you plan to change the crystal or dial, it's fair enough to say that nobody knows what's going to happen because there's a fair chance that nobody knows the measurements of the watch case and dial, which means that you're likely to machine those crystal retaining parts... also make sure the movement is beating @ 28.8k. If that's not the case then you'd have further headache. Good luck.

*scratches head*.. seems like the plate is deteriorating due to my first couple of doctor blading. Traced the problem back to the film positives... sigh.. Can someone confirm what I'm seeing in the gen dials. It looks as if the numerals are engraved. If so, I can just etch plates as a base for printing dial. GEN below: