jmb

Thanks, Tribal. I was lucky in that the original holes, although a bit oversized, appeared to have good placement so I just located on them and drilled.

Nooooo LH, I wanted the stainless version! I've never been much on gold watches and the only "yellow gold" piece of jewelery I have is a simple wedding band... If I get a chance tomorrow I'll file a chamfer on all edges and decide if I should fill any more of the pits or let them go... If I knew the match would be perfect I'd just fill the remaining minor blemishes with silver-solder... I still have to make the conical "chapter ring" and figure out how to get markings on it. For this I will just machine the rehaut straight, machine the ring, and press into the case

I just scored a gen Rolex Ladies Datejust size silver no-date dial over the weekend for $45!

OK, the lug mods are "roughed" in unless I want it to look like an old abused watch then they are almost finished! I think this will have to go back into the box for a while as I have some retention rings, to make, other stuff to mod, real job, etc...

Once can never have too many projects, right?

The title of this thread, where did that come from? Seems I remember if being an ad slogan for the Fiat X1-9 or Triumph TR7, but I digress.... I was fascinated by the really strange looking Datejust with the integrated band JoJo posted so my evil little gears started churning, I ordered a basic plain-Jane silver dialed Datejust, and then the gears went to sleep for a while. Well, last week the gears struggled back to life and I ordered a small spool of 316L welding wire and some heat dam putty. The stuff got here yesterday so today I went out to the shop to play. I'll just toss up a couple pics as a teaser and if the project actually sees completion (and I'm not too ashamed of it) I'll post a how-to as I am taking a few snaps along the way. I have one end about 95% roughed in, just some final shaping and a polish. All of the lathe, mill, and rough filing are done. Although there are still a couple of pits left I'm half tempted to leave 'em (and not risk screwing something up) and call it "aging"! The slot for the band attachment, and lug hole still needs to be done but that is a subject for another day...

F, thanks! I think it's going to be pretty slick and something not seen very often...

Cool! That will simplify things.

I had an a21j version of one of the Mercedes SLR models (or maybe a fantasy) before I switched over to all Rolex and Tudor. It wore nicely and looked nice.

Dang, red beat me to it!

Very cool idea for a thread. If this is a "generic" thread I would like to commission this second third post thanking Lani, redwatch, and Ubi for the consideration shown me since I moved in! This place has a veritable "herd" of selfless individuals roaming around! When did the Bat-Dude get a Sith lightsaber?

Anybody know offhand if an ETA2651 will take the same hands as an ETA2671? Need to come up with some Ladies Datejust size hands to fit the 2651...

Looking great, Andy!! Now that I now Mr. Goat thinks luming vintage dials is fun... ;-)

I have bought a few crown/tube sets from the seller parts4rolex and they look and feel pretty good. I have just ordered some more so will add pics of them when they come in - I bought 6 from him direct and it worked out to $18 and change/ea with the shipping. I think a thread with a bunch of crown options is a good idea!

Did the flea-bay one not come with a tube?

I just ordered a couple dozen more drill bits... :-p

I'm droolin'...

K, not a problem, it was fun working on this and every project I do I learn a little more...

OK, now that "the watch" is no longer a secret I'll outline how I did the solid lug bar conversion. I'm no expert but this procedure is what I came up with and it seemed to make sense to me. When Ubi started "the project" he asked if I would like to take a stab at converting a case he was using to solid lug/strap bars ala 5513. I said, "Sure, worse that could happen is that I totally screw it up!" The case was then in the mail... I contacted Toomuchgear, as he has a really nice example of one of this style, and he took some measurements and supplied the diameter of the bars which turned out to be 1.75mm. After running through all of the usual (and not so usual) places I order material from the closest I could get was 2mm. No prob, I thought, I'd just turn 'em down a bit. Being so small it would be necessary to use a "follow rest" on the lathe to keep the skinny little $hit from bending. Not a problem, I remember getting one with my lathe - yeah, right, good luck finding it! Since I've had the lathe for 4-5 years, and never had the need to use the rest, it took me about half a day of looking but I finally found it and attached it to the lathe. The follow rest needs to be adjusted to provide backup behind the piece where the cutting tool contacts the work to eliminate any flex. If you don't do this the diameter would not be constant and most likely the stock would be bent. Here's a pic of the rest installed and adjusted. I won't bore you with pictures showing me reducing this down to 1.75mm... I then turned my attention to the case. I clamped my "fixture" into the vise on my mill and clamped the case to it. In these shots the clamp has been omitted so as to not obscure any details, just "visualize" a clamp securing the case. I then used a conical edge finder to locate the center of the hole, switched to the proper sized bit and enlarged the hole. After drilling the case I then cut a couple pieces of the now 1.75mm rod long enough to fit and have plenty of extra to blend in. I then made sure the pins would fit tightly into the holes, some light polishing was required to achieve a nice tight fit. The fit was such that they needed to be tapped in with a hammer so I was satisfied. I then removed the pins, applied clear epoxy into the holes, and drove the pins home. After the epoxy had time to cure I then took the assembly to the bench grinder and roughed them to length and shipped everything back to Ubi for final grinding and polishing. That's all there is to it. Hopefully some of you will enjoy the blow-by-blow accounting of this phase of the project.

You sly dawg, you...

Andy, my wife's just the opposite. I tried to get her to wear the Prince Date I got recently. She really liked the silver linen(?) dial in it, and it's smaller than a DJ, but she said it was still too big... The Prince Date looks out of place on my wrist (I think) but I also like the dial so I'm torn...

I think the original dial referenced by this thread would be killer as a no-date!

The bars are solid stainless. Lugs are drilled to about 1.75 mm, stainless rod is turned and polished to a light press fit and secured in place, ends ground flush and lugs re-polished.

Absolutely scrumptious!

After the stem is removed mine goes in and come out with just a bit of "jiggling" as the pushers retract up into a Daytona type case so there is no interference...