nicewatchdude

I've thought a lot about this. The typical Brevet crown would be historically inaccurate because one

is Swiss and the other American. It would have been nice having the screw down option, but for making this

sleeve system work, I luckily had an unmarked crown that has the right stem tube length for all the parts needed

to combine.

I was wondering about the crown.

Tough totally unsigned exepct from the movemnet, i think a signed crown of some sort would add character and history to the watch.

Eitherhow enjoy!

He had something like this posted a looooong time ago in a Fiddy case set, different movement. He was a bit of inspiration for me to

go through the trouble of figuring all this stuff out. It's taken a long time, but I was new to the hobby then.

I named this post deliberately in Homage to that post

I don't know if he has any more of these, but The Zigmeister used to advertise these exact vintage PAM case w/vintage USA watch movements installed, in addition to his normal watch servicing business.

Thanks for you compliments everyone !

Here's a couple side angle shots I forgot to include

This Illinois movement does not use a detent to lock in the stem to the case. It's a 12 size and needed some size

adjustments I had figured out a while ago how to get these movements to work for Pilot cases, but thought it

would look amazing in a Radiomir if made to fit, wind, and set successfully. I wanted to give it a try and

shed some possibilities and plus have an amazing build

For this type of conversion I had to make a custom case tube because the stem and sleeve I found (after a lot

of searching for one) to use had a very small sleeve and .9mm threads which would fit a crown that came with

one of my JTSE auto movements, but not the typical 1.2mm 6497 size crown.

Being I don't have a lathe, I managed with a dremel and some Jewelers EZ silver solder to make it.

Old case tube on left, new one on right. Okay new one looks kind of funny It took me

part of a day to do this and solder/shape the case as well I used brass tubes from a jewelry supply house

to start with the basic shape, then refined it on the dremel. Staybright lead free SS solder was used to

lock it into the case, same stuff as used on the lugs.

Movement in the case along with new reshaped crown.

Luckily I got Southy to make me a custom painted 2533 before he stopped making dials. I think it works, what do you think

I designed and made the strap and custom for this watch. Special thanks to Blueraddish on HF for threading it!

another movement shot with beautiful and extremely well made Athaya (HF) case back.

Vintage ring of fire on the bezel under the plexi serves two purposes. It was made with 30 minute epoxy as a medium,

so it holds in the plexi to the bezel as well.

More movement shots

Wristy

Hope you enjoyed this, cheers :!:

Hehe I'm feeling flattered . Seriously tho, nice projects, you dont see many doing such conversions (which was always a mystery to me, but w/e). Its really nice wearing a watch like that isnt it. Both this Howard and the Illinois you have in your other thread were some of the more expensive and advanced ones from their period. Defo much better than another unitas

It is nice wearing it! Even if not many other people I come into contact with don't see appreciation for it (although I don't work with many watch buffs). Any time

I need a bit of inspiration I just take it off and look at the movement.

OK, so I'm carving my name on them 10sized Keystone howards . Always liked them, but kinda broke the first one I got, messed up the hairspring and couldnt straighten it.. Been afraid of them ever since .

Carving your name? Show some pics! I broke a few things on this one too, got an extra non-working one off the bay and scavenged some parts.

I kinda like the fiddy cases, one gets used to them. 7" tho, so it doesnt look that bad (I hope). Am planing on putting a Burlington into one more

yeah, got some more in the works too, but don't worry, not a burlington

Care to show your dial idea? is it going into a pilot case as well?

You're an inspiration man! And no I'm not doing the Howard 10s

I've got something to show you in case you couldn't see the above link.

I would have put these in Fiddies if it weren't for my six and a half inch wrists.

Oh this is way too creepy, I just logged on after like half an year ago and now I see this. I'm doing almost the same thing currently, actually just sprayed the dial! Same movement as well (well, mine has the white gold wheels, but doesnt change much ).

Nice watch, have fun with it! I'm not much of a fan of the dial tho its defo closer to the real thing than mine.

Got more projects planned? Hopefully NOT using one of the Keystone Howards in size 10 (hint hint )?

Hello RWG,

This build is an E. Howard wrist watch conversion I just completed. This conversion

however was done with a size 12 pocket watch movement. I decided to post here because

these types of forums have taught and inspired me to do projects like this. My last project

like this...

http://www.homageforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1851

was a bit easier, because the key work components do not extend to the edges of the base

plate needed to trim in order to fit into the case. However, sizing down the base plate on the

Howard was a bit more tricky as the key work components on this movement do almost go to

the edge. There was only a hair line of edge left to keep an inner wall of the base plate

surrounding them, and in order to preserve the fit the amount taken off is uneven around the

circumference by fractions of a millimeter.

The case back was also tricky as the wall that inserts over the movement and into the case

was too thick to go over the movement edges, and the movement thickness places it there, so

I had to trim the inner wall of the case back quite a bit (with my dremel press) while still

preserving the mineral crystal lip. Minimal thickness was left to still allow moisture and dust

resistance. Also I had to trim the outer edges of some of the bridges and refinish them to get

them to look unaltered so that they would fit into the walls of the case-back. The result is no

need for movement screws to lock the movement in. It is as snug as a snail in it's shell.

Why do all this work for this 44mm case set? The answer is I couldn't find another anywhere

that would fit a 12 size movement and still not be too big for my 6 1/2 inch wrists. Plus these

cases are around 30 bucks and it's good to practice with.

Then there was a problem with the original pocket watch stem being hardened metal and not

being able to be re-threaded even after annealing. A 6497 style stem would not work as it had

to be at least 1.74 mm thick in order for the detent to catch and lock it, so I had to make a new

one as no watch smiths near me, even the one's with lathes would make me one from scratch

because they all said it wasn't possible. The typical work around for that in the watch repair world

is to order a NOS stem and cut it to size, not re-thread. That wouldn't work either because the

threads on that stem do not go far enough in to get the crown into the right place. So I got a nail,

a couple diamond and iron files, my mini tap and die set, my dremel press and made one myself.

I also had to re-thread the crown as my first attempts at connection stripped the threads.

The new size is too big for a 6497 style stem but correct for the Howard NOS stem for trivia sake.

Needless to say, I don't have a lathe They are too expensive and I don't plan as of yet to

do this to a lot of watches to make the purchase cost effective.

Then there was another measurement I didn't do correctly with the dial. The distance from the

hole from the seconds to the minute-hour hole was too small when I had the dial made, so ultimately,

I had to widen the second hole.

Oh well, might make a new dial, might not, your thoughts?

Grail Shot

Movement Shot

Wrist Shot

what do you mean by "trimming" the base plate?...turning it on a lathe?...or, filing the edge down by hand? any photos of it and the caseback open? thanks

thanks all

filed them down using a dremel by hand.

Hi, they are a size 10 movement but they will not fit into a 45 mm case without trimming the

sides down a little. They will however fit right into a 47mm case set and the open face case

back shows the movement in it's entirety.

Hello again RWG. Just wanted to show some work.

This is the 45mm radiomir case. Movements were sized down to fit,

meaning the base plate was reduced in width. After that, everything

fits perfectly inside really snug.

The 917 has dark lume in the indices and hands

The 921 has a water based gold metallic acrylic mixed with lume

Although they do retain luminance at night, my canon doesn't catch it

The dial is a type of faux finish I've been experimenting with.

I MEAN RWG, I keep on mistyping

Interesting watch (Big one!). Not to be a jerk, this is RWG.

woooops, sorry about that ............RWI.............

I love the contrast between the beautifully weathered dial and the pristine movement.

Bigger than I could ever manage, though. Maybe you should wear it over your jacket?

lol, the pic just makes it look big. It's a 44mm case.

thanks everyone for your comments

Hi RWI,

Didn't know exactly where to post this piece because it's more of an homage

to early American pocket watches. So here it is in the general discussion.

I'm posting it on the rep forums because it is through sites like these where

I learned the in and outs of building watches, as well as being inspired

to search for and try new builds. It's been a neat experience to far.

I really like the beauty of the Illinois A. Lincoln movements and wanted to

put it in a place it could be more appreciated with a display case back. I

originally had plans to put it into a 47mm fiddy style case but have learned

they are just to big for my wrist IMO. So through research I learned that the

early pocket watch movements were originally converted to wrist watches for

pilots during WW1 or WW2 (hence the birth of the wrist watch?). They caught

on in the public sector and the rest is history.

So I originally thought a pilot dial like an IWC would work well for a pilot watch

but after learning all that I realized, they used the pocket watch dials first,

so I went after that style. I'll admit, the finish I used was a bit stretched

design wise, but I wanted to be creative, so here are the pics. Please enjoy

and tell me what you think.

One thing to take into consideration in determining the value.

The shock assembly is not Swiss.

Swiss looks like this

Even if the shock assembly looks like that, it is not 'really'

swiss if it comes on a rep. Might be referred to as swinese

which is another way of saying, Asian build, made to look swiss.

thanks

Just finished this weekend. Thought I would share.

Soldered lugs.

Soldered crown case tube, made flush to crown.

Modified (reshaped) the soldered Silix case, dremeled, filed, hand

sanded, polished.

Placed on a sanded plexi from a Hamilton pocket watch which

fit pretty perfect and flush.

Refinished the 3601 plates I had Cortebert do the Russian text removal

and engraving to, so that the treated soldered areas had a new

finish similar to the original Cotes De Geneve.

Sanded down the DSN cali dial so it was flat enough to fit the hour

and minute wheels from the 3601. Had to take off so much I burned

my fingers from the heat

Refinished (aged) the crown.

Stripped, cleaned, oiled, and fixed some broken parts of the

movement so now it sets, winds, and runs nice.

Applied lume to the numerals and vintaged the dial. Applied

matte finish.

NW case back and case ring. Sanded and re-polished the case

back to look older.

Put thicker (brass) tubes over the lug pins to hold the strap tighter.

Gunny strap

Ah, good news. Thanks for the expertise!

Nice work mate, thanks for sharing

Wear it well

The shots of the bezel on the case suggest a V5 as the cases were oversized. But dome shape of crystal suggests thats DSN

So I got this fiddy off RG earlier last year that was a bit scratched up and pretty basic but had engraved plates. Not top of the line, but good enough to improve, make better, and be learnin some modin skills yo

I don't know where it originally was bought, the owners before me were Novesh and Bigrazzle.

Maybe if Novesh sees this post he can confirm where it came from.

It is front loading like the early El cases.

Either way I got inspired and started modding it. Thought I would share

some photos. Sorry for the grainy-ness, they were taken at night.

Mods..

-removed the crystal and had the blue AR removed for free from an eye glass store

-applied matte finish over dial

-applied a new DSN hand set

-Flattened crown guard, refinished, polished cg pin, beveled CG around pin.

-sanded and polished bezel

-applied gold paint to "Officine Panerai Firenze" on bridges and did away with the yellow

-bought new barrel and ratchet wheels and re-beveled the edges to be more like the gen ones

-had the balance assembly taken apart and then I modified the top to look like the gen (incablok mod), then had it put back together

-re-applied leather backing to a used Bob shark strap from another watch and re-stitched in black, put it on and it matched pretty well

-re-lumed the sandwich dial, but it doesn't match the DSN hands, so wont be showing the lume shots . It's not perfect but I'm okay with it.

looks like a beautiful work of art

I would suggest finding a friendly watch smith to remove them for you and replace them when

you are done. The tools for staking can be expensive unless you find them used, and then learning

to remove and reinstall would take some practice.

I'm wanting to remove and reinstall the jewels on the top plates of a movement... do I have to have a staking kit or is there any other way to do it? Can I modify my crystal press to do this or is it too risky that I might crack a jewel? I'm wanting to refinish the plates which is why I'm hoping to remove the jewels...

Thank you!

The AR on your PAM is too visible, I had a gen 111 with single blue AR, it was very hard to see, almost if there's no AR. So it's better to have no AR on your crystal, because this is very easy to spot as a rep

okay, thanks this is the REX AR treatment. Flav said it was like the older 111 Gen Pams as far

as amount of blue goes, but I've seen it without blue tint and wanted to double check.

yes that looks real close, but when i remember the gen has a slighter hue, not so visible like this on your pics. but a little bit to blue me thinks

i think the gen 111 has a very slight almost unvisible blue purple hue, but cant tell you 100%

go to ad to get realy sure...

but yes on the 111 it must be single sided underneth

deniz

like this?

Do you guys know any threads here that show the proper gen AR for the 111H and the 127? I have searched but to no avail.

Or...

Please tell me, is the AR on the 127 colorless and double sided? Does the AR on the 111H have a blue hue single sided underneath? If you can point me to reference that would be great!

thanks!

scratched up fiddy

very cool i just bought hamilton 900 movt. and i hope to get a cool custom watch like that

Yes! I'm working on one too. Bought it on the bay....movement by itself. Have dis-assembled, ground

in the base plate to fit a 47mm fiddy case, reassembled and serviced. Now I'm trying to figure out if

I want to get the key to work, or try to get a stem to replace the key.