sneed12
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Posts posted by sneed12
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It seems a beautiful replica as far as the case and bracelet are concerned. However, time keeping was soon an issue. Initially it was gaining about 15 second a day, and then losing about the same.
I returned it under ? warranty
15 seconds per day is pretty damn impressive for a non-COSC watch movement. The fact that you returned it for 15 sec/day boggles my mind. I'm shocked that the dealer accepted the return to be honest.
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built a 1675 a while ago (http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/147952-cartel-1675-converted-to-low-beat/) but sold it when I needed some cash last winter. Since then I've had an itch for another, so I started the build process again a few months ago.Begins with a stock cartel 1675:
This rep has some great parts, but also some pretty bad flaws from the factory. Most of them have been discussed before. The biggest ones, to me, are the caseback, bezel, and case shape. This rep is built on the same case that 1680/5513 reps come from.The case has too much meat on it, especially under the CGs
The first thing I want to do is have the case reshaped. RolexAddict at RWG is well-known for his work reshaping cases, so I strip the watch down and send the midcase off to France.
Next, I dig in the parts box until I find a caseback that is the correct shape. The only one I find that fits this case is from a 21j Daytona rep (incorrect 1680 "bubble" caseback on the right)
but some quick work with some sandpaper cleans off the engraving
Now time to change the bezel. The rep comes with this bezel from the factory
The shape is correct for a 1680 but all wrong for a 1675. I order a Clark's bezel with the correct profile
the only annoying thing about it is that the whole thing comes bead blasted. It should have polished sides. I'll polish it later.Time to swap out the clone ETA movement for a slow beat Swiss 2846
Need to take the GMT bits off the clone movement and put them on the Swiss
and then it's time to wait for the case to come back from RolexAddict. Three weeks later, it's back. Here's the CG shape before
and after
The overall shaping of the CGs and is fantastic, but honestly I wasn't too happy with the finishing. As you can see from the pic, the polished surfaces look a bit wavy and there are still scratches and tool marks evident in the surface. The other side of the case looks the same way
So, I get out the polishing stuff and set about re-finishing the polished case surfaces.
I go all the way back down to 320 grit:
on both sides and on the flat top part of the CGs
Up through 400, 600 grit800 grit
I just cut a little piece of each successive grit, so it doesn't take much sandpaper to do a whole case
and by the time I get through 1000, 1500, 2000 grit it's getting pretty shiny
Hit it with the Dremel and some green jeweler's rouge for that mirror finish and we're done. Polished the bezel ring at the same time. Forgot to take a pic at this stage, but this is what the completed finish on the case and bezel ring looks like
but I'm jumping ahead. Movement installed
Clark's T116 crystal fitted
and the first use of my new press that I won in the tutorial contest (thanks, Offshore!). Amazing how much nicer it is to work with a proper press.
I decided to throw it on a jubilee for now and keep the rivet bracelet in reserve in case I get bored. Here's the completed watch
Very happy with the way it came out. Considered aging the bezel insert, but honestly now that it's all shiny and new-looking maybe I'll leave it the way it is for a while.-
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Running dial up (or down) but not vice versa is not an uncommon failure mode for movements of all types. It's not just a sec@6 thing.
A sec@6 Daytona is NOT the recommended movement to start on, BTW. It's about as complicated as you can get. It's like starting with brain surgery.
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I already asked Andrew about the reliability and he said that the latest batches of the movement are quite OK.
I've had mine about 2 years now, it's running strong. I hack it when not wearing it though.
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So what you are saying is that I should just use this as a watch to toy around with? Get some tools, see if I can rebuild it. Worst case, I have a pile of junk. Best case, I fixed it. In any case, I kinda lose.
I've seen a fair number of WTB posts for either dead A7750s or dead sec @ 6 movements, you can probably sell it as is even if it doesn't run.
Aside from some better screwdrivers (the home depot set I have just doesnt cut it) and some tweezers, what do I really need to take this apart and try and put it back together? Can I do this in the case without touching the dial and hands?
At minimum you need some good screwdrivers, good tweezers, a good set of hand pullers and some hand setters. You cannot do anything without touching the hands and dial.
He's going to have the transfer plate stuff on top of the movement to deal with, and no calendar plate.
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This seems to be pretty well done when it's only the CGs and the crystal that needs some love...
What's wrong with the crystal? It looks fine. The CGs need work and you need a new dial. I've dropped gen dials into these cases a few times (have another one in the parts box waiting for the right donor case, in fact).
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I have abosolutely no money for this and am so worried
Think it through: if you have no money, why would they bother suing you? They're fishing, that's all.
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Ok. I admit it I was being lazy and I had a lame come back.
No worries, we all have lazy days
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I would prefer the most updated information. As we all know the rep world has changed a lot over the years
The ETA 2836 (and clones) and Miyota 8215 (and clones) haven't changed at all in going on 5 decades now. The basics of hand size, dial feet position, etc are still the same.
Do a search, understand the information, and you'll get why thinking the answer might have changed doesn't make sense.
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I want that rubber strap for my old orange PO.
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Too big in which dimension? Too thick? I've trimmed crowns and He valves successfully before using the poor man's lathe...
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I am ready to pull the trigger on the new BP sub with 21J movement but thinking long-term I wonder if the dial and hands will be able to switch over to an ETA movement at a later date.
I don't want to go for the high price now maybe do it in stages.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated
This question has been asked dozens, maybe hundreds of times. Do a search.
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Nope...black but shiny...just like the should
Well if the indicies are black then you need a gen crystal or AR'd to make them stand out cause I couldn't tell from these pics.
They're not black, they're gunmetal grey. This was always wrong on this generation of noob Explorer II.
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The more it bounces around inside the watch, the more it will scratch up your dial. I'd be reluctant to ship it if I were you, at least not before you open it up and get that marker out of there.
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Guy has gone on every rep forum and posted this.....
And he seems really offended that I pointed out it seems a bit shady...
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You've searched everywhere, eh? This place is dead, eh?
Sorry to inform you, but this forum doesn't exist just to answer your questions when you demand an answer. No one here is your personal watch encyclopedia. Whining about how no one has given you what you demand isn't going to get you answers any faster.
Sometimes I ask a question and no one answers and I can't find he information. You know what I do then? I give it a try and report back what I find. That's called giving back to the community. Without someone being willing to do that, how would this community know the answer to your question? Why don't you try the swap yourself?
Rant over. in any case, the information you are looking for is out there--you must not have looked very hard. The Noob/parnis ceramic bezel can be made to work on a BP sub, but the BP bezel insert will not fit a noob case.
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No, the outside shape is fine and the length is fine. They need to be trimmed on the inside to show the crown.
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http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/157609-116619-blue-ceramic-sub-built-on-bp-case/
I built a blue Sub-C on a BP case a while ago, but to be honest I wasn't super happy with it. It had a gen crystal in it originally, but I pulled the gen crystal to put in my GMT IIc and I wasn't super happy with the BP crystal. Also, the lume on the dial and hands was green, not blue. So I decided to pull the whole thing apart and start over.I started with a Noob Sub-C dial this time:
and decided to pull the markers off and transplant markers from a BP dial. They fit exactly, so anyone who wants to use the black Noob Sub-C dial with the BP markers to fix the OFFICIALLYCERTIFIED problem can do so. You have to take the glue off the back of the dial with acetone
and then pop the markers off
They're quite decent actually, so I'll save them for another project
I wanted to compare the BP lume to the Noob lume (BP marker is the one on the dial already)
As you can see, the lume on both is pretty good--way better than "rep lume" used to be. The Noob lume has too much purple in it, the color of the gen lume is more like the bluish green of the BP markers. So I put some more markers on
and take another lume shot for fun
Finally finished with the dial
and glue the markers from the back.
While I'm waiting for the glue to dry, I decide to try and fit a WM9 crown. The coronet on the BP crown is the old-style 702/early 703, and wrong for this watch.
It turns out that the BP crown has the same threads as the gen/WM9 crown, but hole in the rep tube isn't wide enough to accept the gen crown.
I wonder if I can just drill it out a bit to accept the gen crown, and it turns out the answer is no:
Tube snapped right at the joint with the case. No big deal, grab an easy-out and get what's left of the tube
and grab a Clark's 7030 tube.
Which, of course, doesn't fit.
So, I start drilling out the case and countersinking the hole
and finally get the WM9 crown installed.
Getting the Clark tube installed was a gigantic pain in the ass. Honestly, I don't think I'd do it again. It took a LOT of drilling to get the case to accept a gen-style tube, and you always run the risk of something like a broken tap. Next time I'll just deal or find a better rep crown.Anyway, glue on the dial is dry so I grab a fresh ETA 2836-2 with BK DWO
snap a pic with the painted ceramic bezel insert, just for grins (glad I did, because that bezel insert breaks in about 20 minutes)
Now I'm ready to assemble, or so I think
except it turns out the Noob dial doesn't fit the BP case--there's a step just under the rehaut. You can see that the dial doesn't quite touch the bottom of the rehaut here. Like a moron, I didn't check the fit back at the beginning, which would have been the right time to do it. So the movement gets uncased, hands come off, and I trim the dial down. I've found that the best way is to install it on a Dremel like so
and apply sandpaper to the edge while it's spinning. This keeps it round and it goes quite quickly. Lots of painter's tape to make sure it doesn't get scratched. Reinstall dial and hands
as you can see, there was plenty of room outside the tick marks to trim.BigCrown crystal and insane bezel spring stuff installed:
Bezel on and cleaned of old glue. The BP bezel is a giant pain in the ass to install, as far as I'm concerned. The BigCrown crystal is pretty decent, but the AR on the crystal is far too blue. The reason I decided to use a BigCrown with this watch is that I figured the blue might not be too noticeable against the blue dial and blue insert. I think I can live with it.
Here's how it looks with the insert on
but I noticed that the bezel wasn't on quite right, and did something monumentally stupid and just pressed on it with my thumb. The bezel retaining ring pushed on the back of the insert and snapped it in two places. It's being glued back together now and I'll take a look at it in the morning, but I'm probably going to need a new insert. Oh well. On the bright side, maybe the bezel paint will come out better on top of flat factory paint.Fast forward three weeks:Got the new bezel insert in the mail the other day. Here's a pic of the unmodded factory insert (bottom) compared to the broken, painted one (top)
Another pic, different angle
Look at how different the color of the "30" is compared to the color of the "50" due to the angle of the light. The unmodded bezel doesn't have this effect. Brianmds recently shared his opinion that my painted bezels look like crap, and it's true that my paint isn't as flat as a professional factory paint job could be, but I think this color changing effect is far more noticeable than a tiny bit of roughness in the paint that isn't visible except in macro pictures.So, I paint my new bezel
and except for some cleanup, my watch is finally complete.
The black hole effect on the BigCrown crystal is quite good, actually, just as good as a gen. The only problem with the BigCrown crystal is that the AR is far too blue, but (as I hoped) the blue of the AR isn't really noticeable against the blue dial. I have my gen crystal in my GMT IIc and the BigCrown in this one.
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The glidelock failure is unacceptable.
The fact that the bezel insert is misaligned a bit is pretty run-of-the-mill for reps, to be honest. What do you expect for $138?
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If everything is working except the manual wind, all you did was you forgot to pull the spring over so it puts pressure on the yoke.
In the picture shown, pull that little finger to the right until it clicks.
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The hand stack didn't change until Rolex introduced the GMTII with the settable hour hand.
Not quite true, the last GMT Master (the 16700) had the hour hand on the bottom even though the hour hand was not independently settable.
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That movement does not have a quickset date. The date is not supposed to advance with the crown in position 2. The only way to advance the date is to roll the time over midnight. You can usually get it to advance by rolling back to 8PM and then forward to 2AM a bunch of times.
1675 El Cornino build
in The Rolex Area
Posted
Thanks! Means a lot coming from you. The case shaping looks really, really good.
No way. Look how even and consistent RA got the CGs. The points on each side are the same size, same angle... no way I could get it looking that good by hand. Finishing and shaping are two very different things.