dieselpower

Very interesting report. Brings back my childhood memories of holidays in a VW camper van in Devon UK. Enjoy your spacious shower and home comforts! Welcome back.

Hi and welcome. Went to Toronto once. Very clean.

Come on in - the water's fine.

Welcome on board. Read, read and read some more. Then lose lots of $$$$$

Welcome to a fellow London member. Hang on to your wallet - it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Rubbish

Flex, I say leave the dial as is. Think of it this way, what gets done can't be undone so if you have it refinished there's no going back. If you leave it as is then a potential purchaser can make the decision himself which is a good thing. If you make the decision to refinish it now then a potential purchaser in the future will not have that option and having taken that away I believe you will have devalued the piece. Hope this makes sense. All the best, Dieselpower.

Lovely watch, great photos. 1665's just get better and better with time

Cheers chaps. Have just printed off the level 1 course ETA 2801. I haven't read any of it yet but I presume it is a 'teach yourself at home' type thing where you just follow the book and - hopefully learn as you go?

Hello all, I am thinking of going through the TZ Watch School Level 1 training course. I presume that the Level 1 toolkit is a good investment. I would just like to ask the esteemed members who have experience of these things if they recommend that I invest in it or is there another shortlist of essential tools that I should buy? Thanks.

I have suffered from a bad modder and I have also had the pleasure of receiving a watch that has been modded very well by a good and trusted person. In my opinion my bad experience was my own fault. I was too eager, inexperienced and unknowledgeable and did not do my homework well enough. Lesson learned. I think that if a person puts the hours in on this forum and possibly others he will find a person with whom he is comfortable to do the work. If that work turns out to be not what he wanted then he just has to take it on the chin and move on. I know getting a good modder is not easy and I'm sure they are inundated with work but there must be some coming up through the ranks who are learning more and more as time goes by. Of course the best solution is to do it yourself but I have not yet found the courage to start. Having said that I have a broken piece which I might try to take apart and put back together again - the problem is I don't know where to start. Is there a book that would teach me the basics of assembly/disassembly?

Like you, I don't know about parts availability for 5512's but there's no harm in trying to search. If you start the hunt I think you would find out pretty quickly weather it is feasible or not. Good luck and happy hunting.

I second what freddy333 has just said. If you go the vintage route (either SD or Sub) or the modern, it says something about you and it is your decision to go whatever route you choose. It's a bit like a person who drives past in an XK8 or the person who drives past in an XKE. I know who I would rather have a pint with but that's just me.

Oh and here's a pic.

Well, I would say you have to make an important decision. Do I want to go for a SD or a Sub. If you chose SD then the 1665 MBW is the obvious route (the one I chose) although it does have plexi glass. If you choose Sub then the options are more open. Make this decision now and save yourself alot of time. Good luck.

I'm no expert on moderns but I think you could do alot worse than the euromariner.

Its 100% Franken. The best Franken you can get. But still Franken.

I agree. Don't ruin the patina with polishing and all that mallarky - just get the thing going again and leave well alone. Nice piece.

But that's ok. As long as the rules are adhered to it doesn't matter. So a 50% Panerai would be better or worse than a 50% Rolex it doesn't matter, the point would be to compare like with like, Panny with Panny, Rlx with Rlx the 50% Pan would be better than the 40% Panny regardless of what a Rolex would score on the same scale.

My post above was being typed whilst torresp was adding his. Hope crossed wires don't confuse the intent.

@ torresp Absolutely. You could calculate the percentage of gen parts according to their values and that's that. Why be bothered by that - it makes no difference to you, the watch or anything else, it is merely a system of quantifying the "frankenness" of a watch. What are you trying to say? That your pieces are better because you 'feel' they should be? As to the last one - that would clearly have a high percentage score because of its gen movement. It clearly has much room for improvement and that would be reflected in the resulting score. I really do not see why an accurate scoring system should be a problem.

A very good point from my friend from across the water (stilty). Of course the essence of Shelley's creation is the fact that the 'monster' was created out of parts that were in themselves useless. Maybe we should think about a franken in those terms. Not something that started life as a fully functional watch and was adapted but more a collection of parts that a skilled person has put together to breathe life into and create a new whole entity. I'm sure that that moment of satisfaction, when a builder sees the second hand sweep across the dial of his/her creation, is a very significant one and maybe this is the true definition of a franken watch. A watch that was created by the builder out of various parts to create something totally new and individual.

I always tell people if what I am wearing is a rep. I think it tells you something about that person by the way they react to the information. Foe example I like a person who shows surprise then interest and a good conversation can be had explaining the detail and care that goes into a decent rep. I love the fact that a lawyer friend of mine used to hate the idea of anything rep and I knew he quietly scoffed at my reps, then he saw my wifes rep Panerai and fell in love with it. He now proudly wears a rep Panny and has just received a JLC Reserve de Marche rep which gets alot of wrist time. Another happy convert

All very valid and true and in my original conceptions of the word franken I could not have agreed with Ubi more. However, I am trying to quantify, accurately, with rules and facts what makes a watch a franken and what does not. I know I keep banging on about this and if everybody wants me to shut up and move on then I am more than happy to do so but can posters at least stick their necks out a bit and try to define what - specifically - makes a watch a franken and what constitutes modded or otherwise? Come on chaps - I know you can do it

To the two previous posters. I can see why you feel the way you do. I myself said at the beginning of this thread that I did not classify a watch as franken unless it had a gen movement. However, the purpose of this thread is not to confirm or back up any pre-conceived ideas but to try to find a water tight system of accurately describing a 'frankenwatch' The reason I propose that any watch with a genuine part is a franken (as freddy333 pointed out some time ago) is because it is an easy and clear way to define such a piece. The word franken would indicate that the watch has at least one of the agreed significant parts that are genuine. Now it takes a little adjustment in your mind to come to terms with that as a concept I know but the moment we start trying to debate how many parts make a watch franken we will never come to a conclusion, that is why I proposed the percentage system. I think that very quickly people who describe their watch as a 5% franken (because it merely has a gen crown) will soon see that this is nothing special and though - yes - technically it makes it a franken by definition it really is no great shakes in fact the laughter may be audible across the ocean. Contrast that however, with a piece that has taken many months to put together and is rightfully described as a 75 or 80% franken then this will indeed carry the weight of respect that it deserves and the distinction will be clear. It is for these very reasons that I again propose a percentage system of parts classification. Please try and evaluate your own watches in this way and propose percentage figures for the parts. Ok, ok..... I suppose as this is my idea I should put ny neck on the chopping board and put forward a system for debate/shooting down/ridicule so here it is just for fun/starters: Movement - 40% Case (incl crown pushers bezel and insert) 30% Dial 20% Hands 10% The above figures could be broken down within the category to further refine the system ie the case parts could be given a value within that category as some cases are of different construction eg not all cases have pushers so a gen case with rep pushers would lose say 10% of its 30% value. Hope this makes sense.