burnz

read up on the ongoing saga at RG..  hate to be judgemental but something doesn't quite smell right here..

oh yeah.. good eyes, i never did notice that the "0" was crooked on the rep dial..

quick comparison of the rep dial vs gen dial. while i would say the rep dial appears well made from a quality standpoint, it's obvious that the rep dial's blue color is much darker than the gen. also, on the rep dial, the centre of the subdials at 12 & 6 is raised, whie the gen's are recessed. the numerals on the rep dial look pretty well made, though the finish on the gen dial's numerals wins hands down. in all honesty, not too bad for a rep, though if one is really serious about building a good 3717-12 Laureus, i'd say gen dial franken is the way to go. side by side comparison: rep dial macros: gen dial macros: one last shot of the franken:

swamped with work, but i'll post some over the weekend

R, the gen hands fit a7750 without any mods. Except for the gen chrono needle which is a little too big to fit the a7750. So I've kept it aside and just continue using the rep chrono needle until I decide to go for an eta 7750 to transplant into the watch. The rep factory AR is actually pretty good, but the aftermarket taka AR crystal is slightly better which does help to bring out the dial's details more. In all honesty, the rep factory AR was good enough. Of course, bear in mind the laureus dial is a glossy dial, so the effect of aftermarket AR will not be as pronounced as compared to using it on the standard 3717 black Matt dial

so tempting, but i shall wait till DSN gets his cyclops right

just using the dark blue rep gator strap that came with the watch. not too bad, but find it just a tad stiffer than gen IWC crocs.

in case you ristis haven't heard, Panerai just announced the new PAM366 China Special Edition. frankly, i'm not thrilled about this. in fact, i'm bordering on the poor taste and lack of thought shown by Panerai in designing such a watch. and this coming from someone who's ethnically Chinese and i don't find this watch appealing at all. anyway, to each his own. i'm sure the china factories will be all over this, and maybe even come up with fantasy models showing other chinese characters. http://news.watchpro...0156&fi=112&s=0

finally after a month's wait, i received the T3's new shoes in the mail today. and boy does it look awesome! i really hated the rep hornback for some reason, and now the T3 has finally found a worthy strap. take a guess who made this beauty of a strap

Forgot to mention the generosity of coolfire who so kindly gave me a set of eta day & date wheels to go into this project. Damn I love this community!

many thanks to Concepta for being able to source gen parts for my 3717-12 Laureus project.. still work-in-progress, but am pretty damn happy with it so far.. this is prob one of the smallest watches i have in the collection, but wears surprisingly well and it's gonna get a fair bit of wrist time started off as a base a7750 3717-12 rep from the dealers, with the following mods: - gen dial - gen hands - ETA day & date wheels - taka double AR crystal definitely not thinking of getting a gen movement, but will likely drop in a proper valjoux 7750 in there at some point and get the gen strap as well. the rep crown seems a little too big compared to gen, so a gen crown would be nice too if i can find one. as far as i know, there are only 2 such 3717-12 franken builds. Concepta built one a few months back complete with gen movement, which now belongs to someone from the Singapore posse i had the pleasure of seeing that beauty in the flesh, which inspired me to do this. anyway, enjoy the pics!!

damn these new cartier ultimates are tempting!

sorry G, forgot that this fiddy went from you to someone else before the current owner.. sure looks like that guy screwed the watch up..

awesome stuff man... especially the NW project watch in the last pic.. i recently got my 6152 back from NW as well with one of his T24 rep plexis and i'm just head over heels in love with it!!

i know which fiddy this is.. since i owned it before it went to the RG member who sold it to you.. i honestly find it odd that the movement has died on you, considering when i bought it, it was advertised as having been serviced and regulated by Rex. and the entire time i had it (say 3-4 months), it kept good time and was buttery smooth. i'd kick up a fuss if i were you, but my guess is that it's prob not difficult nor costly for a competent rep friendly watchsmith to repair considering it's a standard 6497 movement. so if you really don't want to part with the watch, take it to a watchsmith you know and let them assess what the problem is.

some old pics of the 6152 before the upgrades.. definitely prefer the new look now!

sent my 6152 back to Gordon a while back for some work on the dial, and while he was working on it, he also replicated some T24 plexis... needless to say, i'd be a fool not to ask him to swap in his T24 plexi since my watch was already with him!! as always, Gordon does fantastic work and pays a lot of attention to detail.. finally got it back in the mail this morning, and wasted no time to strap on some new shoes from Donerix the moment i collected the package from the post office absolutely loving it right now!! it's like a whole new watch, G's new T24 plexi really makes a lot of difference to the whole look of the watch, compared to my old DSN plexi!!

let me shed some light the DW came from Leo. pretty good batch with thick font print, and more importantly every single date is nicely centered in the date window. can't say the same for my other Leo DW in my PAM27. the cyclops diameter (6mm) is correct for this model, except for the fact that this stock cyclops mag is too weak. was hunting around for a chief 6mm cyclops and missed out on a couple. but if you can get one, this 63 would definitely be a keeper. throw in a Jakob 63C caseback and you're pretty much set. oh one more thing, i found the GMT hand to be just a tad too long. it's an easy fix though, just get a new 63 hands set from DSN.

yeap, that's a miata.. '08 NC with a custom front-end..

minor update.. new FGD hands have just gone into the 009, so i suppose it's more or less complete now (unless a EL or gen PVD CG comes up for sale

what's with you and gold these days??

nice ride mate.. good to see a fellow jap car enthusiast.. here's my little roadster.. handles like a dream!

wearing my 312K for rest of the day:

Glad to hear mate! I was sweating a little too, but I guess delays sometimes are inevitable. Registered mail, though slower than EMS, is still my preferred choice. I once lost a PAM sent to CONUS via EMS, where the postal guy (on US side) actually opened up the package and kept the watch for himself. Only an empty envelope made it to the buyer eventually. And that was with full tracking!! Conclusion, registered mail is more discreet and does not attract as much attention as EMS. Never ever lost a package on registered mail. Then again, could just be luck of the draw sometimes. Anyway A, enjoy the watch and wear it well!

those of you who know me, will know that i'm not exactly a rollie fanboy.. have always felt that rollies were too small for my wrist, not to mention i've never had a thing for bracelets. but call it age or whatever you want, i find myself looking more and more at rollies in recent times. the DSSD, being the largest rollie ever made, definitely held a lot of appeal for me and i've contemplated for a while to get a gen, though i keep getting sidetracked by other gens along the way like IWCs and PAMs. timing was perfect when i saw that the cartel released yet another so-called ultimate version of the DSSD with the correct bezel and improved bezel, 316F steel etc etc. the works.. the steve mcqueen 1655 was never quite on my radar until after a fair amount of brainwashing (no thanks in part to Spin, coolfire and siesta181). so when the cartel boys released their 1655 rendition, i thought i'd just give it a try. and then there is the BK/WM9 YM. growing up, i've always been fascinated by the YM ever since i saw a business associate of my dad's wear one during my youth. the way the watch bling'ed on his wrist, i always told myself i had to have one. went to the AD a few times to try on the gen, but left empty-handed each time as i always felt it looked too small on my wrist. but when a BK/WM9 YM came up recently, i decided to just pull the trigger and give it one last chance before i decide whether or not to buy the gen once and for all. and boy am i surprised! i've been wearing the YM for 3 days in a row now. which is a feat, considering i'm the sort who thinks it's wrong to wear the same watch on 2 consecutive days anyway, before i blabber on, some eye candy to share. i'm not sure if all 3 are keepers, but i know at least the YM is. that is until i decide to drag my ass down to the AD and finally pull that trigger on my first gen rollie in a long long time..