sneed12

Your mention about why The Zigmeister doesn't post here is ironic. I believe you are doing this to my thread.

Doing what, exactly? You're the one who thinks that posting factual information is the same as trolling.

If you're just looking for a generic one, they can be had all day long for $20-30 on eBay. I personally like Clark's (nostalgia-2000) but I'm sure anyone's are reasonably good. Also available at Ofrei.

Also, for a 1680, I think you want a 127, not a 27.

Sneed, we're still not communicating well. Let's clarify the 'beveled edge' of the crystal is what you see when installed and can be seen in your first photo. What I call the 'stepped edge' is what is on the underside and has contact with the gasket.

OK. Then there's also the "groove" which a gen spec crystal has, and many reps don't. Sure, let's standardize on those terms.

You have posted photos of three pieces:

GMT IIC

Actually, that's a Sub-C. You can tell by the fact that the first line of text on the dial (even if you can't read it) isn't green, and the lack of the three holes in the bezel ring that capture the rep GMT Master IIc spring that gives it the 24 clicks.

Well, maybe you can't. I can.

SubC

GMT Master II

For starters, your GMT II crystal is not right. Not even close to correct shape.

I know that. That's why I went and found that pic. You said all reps can take a gen crystal. This is a pic of a rep that cannot.

(so why do I need to answer for your watch which is not made correctly?).

"Made correctly"? These are reps!

Besides, the whole point of my posting was to answer this statement that you made:

my theory is that most rep factories buy their crystals from a small number of factories and they are universal (for the most part).

Clearly, the pictured crystal is not "universal" with anything else. And, to answer these questions:

How old are they? ...and how much did they cost?

It's less than a year old, and cost north of $200.

You keep wanting to believe that "most" rep crystals will swap. I'm telling you, that's not true.

Do you see my point? All of your examples can except a genuine or 1:1 crystal.

Not all. 2 of 3.

Of the two, the one in the Sub-C required extensive custom hand-fitting to fit to my satisfaction, and the other one in the GMT Master II was the result of a build using parts from 5 different watches collected over the course of a year specifically in order to be able to accept a gen-spec crystal, it did not from the factory.

That is what I have been saying and THE POINT OF THIS THREAD!!!

Troll on!

Seriously? "Troll"? Now I know why the Zigmeister stopped posting so much.

Feel free to believe what you like, I guess. It's clear from the pictures and updates that you posted that you understand the product you're building, and it's great that you're offering it. But I am telling you, from my experience assembling hundreds of Rolex reps, that NOT ALL OF THEM will take a genuine or gen-spec crystal.

Heck, in fact, here:

This watch was built yesterday from a case purchased in the last six months. Look at the crystal edge. It comes straight down, there's no step to a smaller inner diameter under the edge the way a gen-spec Rolex crystal does, and there's definitely no lip.

This watch:

has a gen crystal in it, but you can see by looking at the edge of the rehaut that it's not a gen-style construction watch. You can see the white ring of the crystal gasket. The rep crystal that came with this watch had no groove around the edge, and it did not work very well with the stock rep crystal gasket. I made a new one by hand out of a gen style gasket.

This watch:

takes a gen-spec crystal and uses gen-style construction (retaining ring pushed down over a tall gasket).

All of these builds were done in the last two months using watches purchased in the last year.

Let's stick to the genuine watches

I'm sure the gens probably all take the same sized crystal.

and their 1:1 homage equivalents.

OK. Show me one.

But to further my point - you are saying, the Rolex Caliber 3135 in this watch requires a different calendar wheel assembly than a Submariner 16610, SubC, GMT IIC etc?

No, of course not. I'm talking about the reps, which DO have the cyclops in different positions depending on which rep model you get.

Now, you may be out of your element. Do you know what the 'stepped edge' is for?

I've only assembled a couple of hundred Rolex reps, but please, enlighten me.

It's for the gasket to fill and create a water proof seal. Any crystal without it is a cheap, common knock-off.

Right.

Like many reps.

Like almost every Sub-C rep and GMT IIc rep that I have ever handled.

Besides which, that's not the "step" I was talking about. One of the Sub-C reps had a gen-style crystal without this step (which is pretty standard, and what most of us call the "Noob" crystal). The other one had a crystal with absolutely straight sides and a slight bevel on top.

Any watch with the one of the cheap crystals will still take a crystal with the stepped edge...it just needs a gasket that is the correct material.

That's... not true. Most will. Some rep crystals are simply larger than a gen-spec crystal, and so no amount of gasket will make it fit.

I just installed a gen crystal with AR under the cyclops into a Sub-C case. It physically fits fine, but it required me to make a new gasket by hand. The other option is to install the rep gasket upside down--the standard rep gasket has the lip on the bottom (to keep the crystal from bottoming out against the top of the rehaut, since it's a press-in construction) and I've turned it the other way so that the lip fit into the step of the crystal. It works that way too.

If you have further facts to present feel free to post, or if you want to further discuss PM me.

Uh... thanks for your permission? I'll go ahead and feel free to keep posting what I know.

(this is a healthy conversation and I am glad you bring this us) Here are my thoughts: How old are they?

I've only been in the rep game for about two years.

...and how much did they cost?

Take a gander through my build threads. I have several gens' worth of reps, in dollar terms.

I would bet money that the 42mm Explorer II does not take the same crystal as the 116610, GMT IIc, or Noobmariner. You can tell just by looking at the pics, the crystal must be bigger (in diameter) due to the position of the cyclops. The 42mm Explorer II rep does not use a DWO, yet the cyclops isn't near the edge of the crystal, implying a larger overall diameter.

In fact, I'd bet that it uses the same crystal as the DJ II and DD II reps.

I have personally handled, in the last two days, two different new Sub-C reps that take different crystals. One has the stepped edge, and one has a straight edge. The diameters are slightly different.

The standard Sub-C takes a gen-sized crystal but without the ridge on the underside, which is why a gen crystal can be made to fit, but to say that it "takes" gen crystal is stretching the truth, I'd say.

my theory is that most rep factories buy their crystals from a small number of factories and they are universal (for the most part).

I have a box full of crystals that came out of different reps that disagrees with you...

Great question. I have found that a lot of reps accept genuine crystals - including the GMTIIC and the SubC watches.

"Accept" is a bit generous, I think. "Can be made to fit" is a bit more accurate.

sorry for the noob question but will this crystal fit a 1680?

Since a 1680 has an acrylic crystal, no.

Still experimenting with the best cases for Sub-c builds. I like the rehaut engraving on this one:

Parts list includes a brand new superclone 2836, BK DWO, set of correct hands (thin hour hand, blue lume).

Dial installed, hands installed, movement cased

Check out the rehaut alignment. I know the case looks a tiny bit wokky, but I promise it does not with the crystal installed. It takes a non-gen-spec crystal with straight sides, and it eliminates the wokky look.

Look at the alignment, and see how the rehaut doesn't look wokky with the crystal in?

Lume shot

Stupid cracked bezel insert... I was really looking forward to finishing this one. Oh well. Once I get a replacement bezel insert into it, I'll post another couple of pics.

Not a sean case bro

Must be a TC then... TC v4? Looks like a gen crown too, judging by the sharpness of the teeth. Looks fantastic.

So you went ahead and did the Sean case build?

Dunno for sure. Probably.

What do you mean "hack is locked up"? Do you mean that the movement is hacked (stopped) all the time, or that it will not hack?

Sorry I know it's been a few weeks but just saw your post. You need to make sure that the hack lever end rides in the groove of the castle gear, or it will not work.

Direct sunlight definitely makes a difference:

I'm pretty much sold. I love the way the dial can go from light to dark.

I re-pressed the gen crystal with a different gasket, and flipped the gasket over so the ridge on the gasket would ride in the slot of the crystal. The case seems to be waterproof now. The replacement bezel insert arrived in the mail the other day, when I get some time I'll try to install it and this watch will be done for the moment.

ETA: Looks like I did post the original thread here as well, so some content and pics are duplicated.

I have been pretty good about posting all of my content to RepGeek and to this forum, until a few months ago (started a new job) and my last few threads have been on Repgeek only. Oops! Oh well.

In any case--a few months ago I rebuilt my gen-style 16710 (Noob Explorer II case with TW bezel+retaining ring, old pics of this watch in http://www.rwg.cc/topic/140570-comparative-review-bk-transformer-and-noob-gmtexplorer-hybrid/) using one of the new CHS movements. Couple of build pics:

To recap the specs, the original midcase and bracelet belonged to a Noobfactory Explorer II (the long-out-of-production one). It's currently wearing a TW best Submariner bezel assembly, which fits perfectly. Dial is a Noob GMT dial lumed by Vac.

The CHS hands are a mishmash--I have a set of ICHS hands lumed by vac that match the dial, but from that set I am using the seconds hand only. The minute hand is from a set of Clarks ETA Mercedes hands. The GMT hand is the factory rep hand. The hour hand is from a set of Clarks gen-spec hands for a 3185, so the new CHS movement will take a gen or gen-spec hour hand (which is GOOD, because the rep hour hand was lost in shipment, and otherwise I'd be SOL).

Movement is wearing a BK DWO, which needs to be raised a hair or it will rub on the new CHS adjusting gears.

As with all CHS movements based on the ETA 28xx, the date flip is geared to the "GMT" hand. I chose to install the GMT hand so that the date flips at midnight, the hour hand tracks the GMT hand and I use the bezel to track the second time zone. It's annoying, but it's the only way to do it that doesn't require you to take the watch apart and reset the hands if you travel to another time zone, or during the 3 weeks that the US/Europe offset changes due to the offset Daylight Savings Time that started a few years ago.

Reliability update: for a month this watch has been the single most frustrating watch I have ever worked on. It would stop for no reason every 3-12 hours. I must have taken the damn thing apart two dozen times, and I thought I tried everything. Finally, the thing that seemed to work the best was not installing the movement clamps--it would usually run for a day without movement clamps.

It took a couple of days for the reason to sink in, but once I realized what it was it only took me about half and hour to fix. The dial spacer that ships with the CHS movement is TOO SHORT. It's a brass ring, much thicker and heavier than the standard one or the nylon one you sometimes see with GMT reps, but it's still not quite tall enough. I flipped it upside down (so that the lip that's supposed to be under the dial sits on the movement instead) which gains me an extra half a millimeter or so of room under the dial. Miraculously, I still had space to install the hands (although the hour hand now rides about the width of a sheet of paper above the dial AND the extra-tall movement fit in the case without any stem height problems at all.

I've worn it every other day for two weeks. It has run about +1 second in that time, hasn't stopped once. Runs like a champ (knock on wood).

You can always take the bezel apart and bend the spring to make it click a bit more firmly.

This mean case soi NOT 1:1................

Since when has there ever been a 1:1 Rolex rep case?

They crack SO !@%#@$ easily.

I'll have a build without a bezel insert to post up in a few hours, I guess. Ordered one off ebay, we'll see how it fits.

I like it better than the old model. Would have been nice if they'd kept the date window on the left, though--it was distinctive.

JB Weld I hope you never want to take the pieces apart... I just use hypo cement for bezel inserts. Also, I install the insert after the bezel is on the watch, to make sure the triangle is lined up to the 12. Looks like you got yours right though. Did you mark it or something?

gmt 16710:

http://www.1-pc8838....362-p-2516.html

Almost certainly not

explorer 16570:

http://www.1-pc8838....36-p-11662.html

Almost certainly yes.

Oh, I thought you were going gen service dial route.

Not unless I find one for $3-400 in which case it'll be an $800 build I guess.

I've got a couple of vintages that PbDad relumed to match what a gen service luminova dial lume would look like and they are stunning. The only issue will be finding a rep dial that just says "Swiss" instead of "Swiss T<25"

I'm thinking a sub-$500 build... as nice as the Phong case is, there's no way I'm spending that kind of money.

Thanks!

Now I want one. Not sure how I'm going to come up with one, but I want to build that watch. I have a slow-beat ETA and a non-adjustable 24 hour wheel just waiting for that build--I was going to build a 1655 but I've owned a couple of them and never held on to one. I think I'm just more into the 1675.