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So, the lug tips just might take on a bit more carbon content during forging? I never thought of it that way

Very sharp looking watch, Lani, I may have to investigate one of the "budget" versions of this! I never really cared for any of the watches w/o CGs but the Turn-O-Graph is starting to grow on me and I think this one could as well. My youngest borrowed my Turn-O-Graph this week as the battery in his Seiko give out and I'm actually starting to miss it! Is the green an AR coating or is the tint "grown" into the sapphire crystal?

No, Nanuq, inferiority not infertility!

The one in the picture is from that parts4rolex guy... The one that was on my Noob when I got it was huge!

goat, I've bought several 6mm and 7mm crowns from the "hong-kong" guy and they seem to work out OK. Comparing one of his right next to a gen you can see differences but they are still better than what I'm replacing. I have bought from him off the 'bay and he'll usually give a shipping discount. Here's my Noob with one of his crowns:

Heffy, I bought a butt-load of $35 - $50 Subs and stuff, read everything I could find about whatever operation I wanted to perform, and then jumped in and did it! Since the watch only cost $40 it didn't cause me palpitations if I screwed something up. I can provide you a link to a seller who is somewhat reliable as far as cheap "practice" watches goes... I've also enrolled in the timezone course but haven't had time to get very far into it yet. But, I've just started on this journey and still have much to learn...

By-Tor, I can vouch for the wide variation, in at least hardness, even in the super cheap reps. Some will, as you say, drill like butter wile others are real "bit busters"! It's a lot easier on the tooling budget to drill lug holes in the "soft" ones...

I'm putting together a "tooling" order as I need some stuff for my shop and figured I'd order some taps and what have you for the tube and crown on Rolex (Subs and what have you). I seem to remember the tube as a 3mm but can't remember the pitch or what the crown is. Thanks...

Let me take my pathetic imitation and find some place where I can bury it before I slink off and hide for a while... Seriously, it looks great! Maybe that's what mine will look similar to when it grows up!

I'll make sure to check it out. I'll have to rip it apart if I want to do all the mods to it and I'll check it and probably epoxy it, but to tell you the absolute truth, my motivation's about petered out.

I have a new rep black dial but it has a21j feet, but what else would anybody expect from me!

Thanks, guyz. I'm sure if I were to wear it around the shop a few days I could probably make it look pretty old! I've read about tossing the insert in some bleach to "age" it a bit, I may do some of this stuff in the future... Oh, I missed a picture of the case back so I added it to the end of the original post.

goat, all I can say right now is that the valve does not push in from the outside! That's an improvement over the current crop of DSSD valves, IMO. If I take out the crystal I can hold the bezel up to the buffer and smooth it a bit and grind on the CGs a bit while I was at it. I'll also enlarge the holes a bit and put in 2mm spring bars. This may take me a few years since next week my play-time is gone as I have to go back to work! Yecccch... Toad, I'll measure the crystal when I get a chance. I was thinking this one might not look too bad if I could remove it, somehow chuck it in the lathe, and round where the face meets the sides a bit... If this crystal stays on it won't take much for it to look "used", if you look at it too hard it scratches! I hadn't noticed that about the pearl, I'll look around

So much for 1:1 copies, eh? I'll wait and see what Lani comes up for and if they are also for a gen movement I'll have to do that since the flea-bay set also specifies for Valjoux as well.

My $85 DRSD arrived this morning so I figured I'd jot down an "objective" evaluation and post a few pics for y'all to analyze. This looks to be a fairly decent looking copy and I won't be afraid to wear it "fresh out of the box", but I am in no way a Sea Dweller expert (or any other kind of expert for that matter) so I'm sure some of the level of detail will be missing when compared to examples costing much more. I feel that at about half of what some of the other examples of this model sell for it would serve a budget minded collector well. Upon unwrapping the watch I remember thinking, "Man, this thing's light!" After close inspection I realized the band center links were hollow and since this is my first watch with a hollow center-link band so I suppose that would account for it only weighing in at 115 gm. It has a "tallish" plastic crystal that looks to be a bit different in profile than the version Lani reviewd, a non-SEL band, the usual tiny lug holes, and a bi-directional smooth operating bezel with a decent pearl. The hour markers are a brownish-orange (heavier on the brownish) and look to be tinted a bit darker than the hands. The date wheel has round-top threes, open sixes and nines, clicks over smartly, and the numbers fall squarely within the date window. The bezel rotates smoothly in both CW and CCW directions and the insert will probably be pretty decent once removed and reinstalled. I feel the glue is a bit uneven in thickness as one portion sits below the bezel lip while another portion sits proud. The pearl is not the common "zit" variety nor is it bulbous - I think it looks quite nice. The band, as already mentioned, has hollow center links and non-solid end links. The clasp functions smoothly and properly and although the stamping is well formed and deep unfortunately the scrolling around "Rolex" is improper at the upper ends. This clasp, however, differs from that on my last budget watch in that all of the text appears to be spelled correctly! The back has the proper engraving and although it appears to be laser engraved it is quite deep, but doesn't appear to be as deep as the gen article. The font also looks to be a bit smaller than it should be and the coronet shape doesn't look quite right. Enough of my rambling, time for some pix!

I would think they should work as I believe the gen uses the Valjoux 7750 movement which should have the same size canons as the A7750, correct?

steve52, no, chris and eurotimez are not part of the "cartel"...

watchwoot is daytona4me on RWI. If you feel comfortable with a "12 hour" warranty then he has some pretty good prices on a few things. I bought my noobmariner from him, super price at $69 plus shipping, but after one day it began randomly stopping and I was on my own for repair...

Thanks, you and ubi are the greatest... I was going to buy the set I had linked to on flea-bay as I measured the a21j hands I've got and their "holes" were all too small...

Cool!

I heard from helina over the weekkend and NEO last week, maybe e-mail 'em again as they were out of the country for a while and had spotty internet access...

Lani, Cool! I got the A7750 that ubi sent running today (the keyless works was out of whack), well at least it's ticking!

Yes, just the same as in like a Sub band except they are a lot smaller - on a rep anyway and I would imagine the gen would be similar. I had to add a link to the wifes watch and I ordered an aftermarket stainless link that was meant for a gen band and it fit the rep band perfectly.

The rep Ladies Datejust I bought for my wife has the same type of link screws as the "bigger" bands - except they are a lot smaller... Here is the screw (about to be removed) on one side of the clasp, there are a couple of others on the other side if flipped over:

I guess this is sorta related, or wil be once I start building one of these. I found these hands on e-Bay and from some pictures I've looked at the hour and minutes hand should be silver, the seconds hand red arrowhead, and the chrono hands black - at least on a white faced model, correct? I suppose I could take the e-Bay hands, paint the red arrowhead and the little 'uns black and be pretty close. I could not find anything even close on ofrei or cousins... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=400038110647&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en