babola

Thanks T, that's probably for the best. I sort of suspected the thinner crown neck and narrower tube hole on rep cases would have something to do with it If you need any assistance with measures etc for those crowns with thicker neck and custom crown tube you're planning to make in the future, just drop us a note mate, many of us here would be more than willing and happy to assist cheers! b

T, having the crown made with 0.5mm dish depth will leave many peeps unhappy, I'm afraid. The 0.8 is a standard dish depth, as per gen specs. Cartel crowns and CGs (the good old ones anyway) are made in standard measures, i.e. rep crown and the CG could interchange with genuine bits. The CGs that come on newer Pam reps are oversized and will most likely fit 0.5mm, just like most of them fit older Palpatine crowns with thick dish. As I mentioned before in this thread, having a dish at 0.5 depth will most likely necessitate modification of the CG lever, and I for one am unwilling to modify my Genuine and Jimmy Fu's CG levers to fit the new crown, sorry Please don't take this the wrong way, these are just some of my thoughts...just thinking out loud that's all. I'm sure your maker could do something to shorten the spring for 0.3mm to accommodate the standard 0.8 dish depth, could he not? Gen crowns are made like that, so I'm hoping he could find a way to replicate the similar design. Fingers crossed...

Mate, the 'swiss made' inscription on the underside of the caseback should be the least of your worries when it comes to Fiddy reps. You have a bigger "issue" with a known and common rep serial E0117/1950 staring at you from the front . If you could find one of those casebacks with E0851/1950 serial that came from another Fiddy fatory known for their exploding xtals, go for it although even that is a very well known 'fake' Fiddy serial. Fiddy dials...hm, where do I start - unfortunately the quality, finish and attention to detail on those progressively deteriorated from the times of Honpo/EL/River Fiddys of '05/'06. Dial txt has gone from a correct off-white ivory color to beige, light brown to even brown on some recent dials. 1950 text has moved around the bottom of the dial as well, with early dials from Honpo and EL being spot on in that respect. The thickness of the top sandwich layer has also changed a lot, where some dials are so thin at the top that almost appear as sausage dials, while others are thick and deep you need to look at them at straight angle to be able to see the numerals. Davidsen doesn't make Fiddy dials. He sources them from the rep factories, and uses what's available at the time of the install. If you get the Fiddy with a dial that isn't up to scratch or up to your standards don't blame DSN...it really isn't his fault. One of my biggest gripes with recent Fiddy's is quality of case/CG manufacture and attention to detail. The lugs have lost the elongated curvature, the case corners aren't as sharp as they used to be, getting the well finished CG with lever that actually does the job is close to winning a lottery these days, and the whole fit and finish isn't up to standards of early Fiddy reps. I owned many Fiddy's over the last 5 years, from EL's "perfect" one with wrong mov't (OPII with squared bridges) to his second edition that wasn't as good as firts, as well as three generations of DSN Fiddy's. I basically ended up using EL's case/CG/dial/hands/caseback and ETA-6497-1 E-series mov't from DSN's latest offerings, as this was IMO the closest and nicest E-series mov't ever produced in rep-dom. Thare you have it mate...it's almost an essay but hope you got some good bits out of all this. As 'z3k0' said above, see if you can source EL's Fiddy on secondary market, but be ready to pay the little premium for it, as people in the know wouldn't hesitate to do so. Stay well and enjoy the hobby!

Hey doc, Tanya and I are talking about pre-V vs A-D series mov'ts with squared bridges and differences between them. That's why I said "don't worry about them" as the Panerai engraved square bridges aren't correct for pre-V mov'ts anyway, pre-Vs came with CDG bridges. Otto Frei offers a very similar 6497-1 movt with squared VDG bridges (http://www.ofrei.com/page_183.html#19882) that would be closer fit for pre-V IMO, but Tanya said on another forum that he'd still like to source the plates alone, regardless. cheers bud

Yup, that's a well known gen auto A-series. It's also known as "Turkish" crown by many of us that either sourced it via eBay directly or thru Watchmeister in the past. These differ from the "standard" Vendome crowns in many ways, one of them being a sunburst finish on mine to almost completely polished finish of the dish on yours. IMO, wouldn't use this one as a reference.

Mate, the reason I mentioned non-polished finish on the teeth was that his maker would introduce an unnecessary and unnatural slope on the teeth towards the outside of the crown by over zealously polishing the tips of the teeth. So best to leave the S/S crowns in the same finish as T-48 Ti and PVD crowns that come with 'perfect' teeth finish. At least that's what I believe and judging by off line conversations I had with members here in the past - many others would agree. On the dish polish/brushed topic. Well this is a slightly tricky one. I own 2 genuine crowns which both come with slight concentric brushed finish on the inside of the dish, resulting in more of a 'sunburst' finish than brushed, but the lightly brushed finish is certainly there. If T made his dishes polished (which isn't correct if you compare them to gen crown finish) it would be much harder for us to restore that lightly brushed sunburst finish. Dremel tool comes to mind, but not many here have it and aren't skilled in doing so. On the other hand if the crowns were finished in brushed finish like his T-48, we could easily get to that brushed/polished finish the gen crowns come with just by few concentric swipes with Cape cod or even dremel polishing tip. Open for further comments and suggestions...

The engraved bridges you mention belong to the manual Pams from A to D-series. Don't worry about them if you're building pre-V. I've posted a response with a little more detail in your thread on that "other" forum. cheers, b

Hi T, as others have mentioned...great effort but requires a little improvement. The teeth are too beveled and the over-polishing the teeth only makes them look even more beveled and the top ot the teeth surface sloping under an angle, instead being straight. Remember the issue with your original T-48 crowns and over-polishing of the teeth? Not sure why is your maker persisting on this, but hey he must have his reasons. For me the other big 'issue' would be the fact the dish is now 0.3mm thicker meaning this won't be just a straight drop-in job for our existing Pams. As it stands now, we will have to either modify the CG lever tip, or try making the crown sitting closer to the case, or combination of both. Since these are still pre-prod prototypes, I'm sure you could raise these concerns with your maker Oh, and lastly...the dish should be left with machined circular finish not polished, just like your T-48/60 crowns came as. Keep up the good work mate, and big thumbs up! b

The thicker movement is accommodated by deeper/thicker case, this is easy to measure by calipers. Extra bezel thickness is probably adding to the mix but is mainly thicker to allow 3-4 piece hand stacks on GMTs and autos with central seconds to move freely under the DW cyclop without getting stuck. You can trust me on this as I tried to "cheat" in the past with different auto/manual case/bezel combos which simply wouldn't work. Volker doesn't mention it in his post, judging by the CG type it should be pre-G series.

No not really, at least I didn't find it to be. You can take the gen PAM196 chrono for example and compare it to a 111. The xtal on 196 sits considerably higher over the bezel line compared to a manual 111. It's actually bezels that are higher on Autos to accommodate higher and thicker hands stacks, as well as xtals ;-)

Just to keep the discussion going...here are some good bezel and crystal comparo pics Volker posted over at 'Risti of his pre-V 201/A and contemporary PAM088 auto-GMT. As you can see the crystal on 201/A sits a little higher and you can almost see the matte finish of its side. The 088 doesn't show it, only the polished crystal bevel edge. My guess is the crystal 'bed' The Zigmeister is talking about was machined a little shallower on pre-Vs and deeper on bezels that come with Vendome/Richemont era watches. Pics borrowed from Volker's post. 088 on the top, pre-V on the bottom: After The Zigmeister manages to post some side photos of W's pre-V case we'd beable to see a little better, for sure. cheers, b

We're also known as slow, overly analytical, procrastinating and sometimes pessimistic. Oh, and yes...OCD, which goes without saying

W, what I know is that the old-school cartel sapphire xtal as well as DSN sapphire are the same height and thickness as the gens. I also know that the new-wave sapphires that Jackson and GETAT's currently offer are almost 0.5mm thinner. I measured them with my digi calipers before I on-sold them, sorry didn't make a note on exact measurements. I believe "standard" good quality cartel and DSN sapphire xtals should fit just fine. You said the case you used as a prototype here is for auto Pam. If it was one of those old-school cartel cases (which I believe it was judging by the photos posted) standard rep xtals should just drop-in, as the thickness of xtals used for both manual and auto reps should be the same. As we agreed previously, the xtal on gen pre-V cases seems to sit a little higher than on more contemporary PAMs from Vendome/Richemont period, although yours appears to be sticking a tad too far above the bezel line. Not sure, really. If you could post the dead-on case side photo it would be much easier to reach a consensus on this. What say others...?

Go and play with your reps W, leave the gens alone...LOL! :-) Seriously, I'd leave it be...but that's me. There's something particularly attractive about polished S/S case/bracelet in combination with the brushed anthracite dial with polished circles around hour markers.

Yes, but in the past...not recently. The two makers/modders making them were Mark (finepics) and Leonello (Lello), both out of the game for some time now. THe closest one to making the DW for 7753 is Takashi from RWI (2geek.com). There are rumors another member called Leo is also about to start production but so far, only rumors. Fingers crossed Taka's ones come up OK. cheers, b

Excellent, thanks. After you mentioned it was an auto case, I pulled out my old 27A from '06 from the box and it sure looks very similar

The xtal height and position isn't that bad looking actually, the ones that came on pre-V watches seem to be 'sitting' a little higher, having a bigger lip on top of the bezel.

Great news W! Thanks a million for getting this done It really looks great, so is this an old-school EL/Honpo case used as a prototype? I keep comparing it to mine and sure it looks almost identical - great eye for detail, that was definitely the closest pre-V rep case ever made, IMO. On the crystal note, at least from the pics it appears that it sits just a tad higher over the top bezel edge, but I guess something had to give once the bezel was 'thinned' to sit closer to the top of the case. I'm assuming the one on your pics is a standard 3.5mm thick sapphire like gen and DSN? cheers and keep us posted! b

Probably best to purchase one of those add-on kits with bits and pieces most used. It should come with few felt and cloth attachments, as well as at least one little container with polishing paste. Otherwise buy them separately, shouldn't be too hard to find those. I use Brasso S/S polish, it comes in liquid form that I apply to the felt attachment and let dry almost completely before start polishing. Good luck! b

Even better - what are you waiting for then? :-) The bits are dime a dozen...drop us an updated photos once all done, cheers!

Great collection - for sure! With all these at one's disposal, who needs a gen anyway :-) cheers, b

Not bad for a first mod, actually probably better that what most of us managed to do on a first go. I'd also suggest investing in a half-decent rotary tool like Fuller or even better a Dremel, and giving a nice once over polish to that CG. Trust me it makes a world of difference. You could also go down the more affordable path by purchasing a $5 Cape Cod or similar cloth/agent for hand polishing, but those just fall short of nice non-streaking polished finish. Good on ya mate! b

Yup, sure 100%...sorry. Sometime ago I actually measured them both, the 7753 DW is about 2mm wider in diameter than 7750 Asian or ETA. This is also one of the reasons you can't just drop an ETA7753 mov't into your PAM188/196 for example, as for one the DW window cutout on the dial will not fit the wider 7753 DW. Simple as that, no buts if or maybes. Sorry but just as the rest of us you will have to wait until Taka manages to make a custom 7753 DW run cheers, b

Basically if you have the old-school EL/Honpo/River 201/A caseback, stick to it mate. IMO, there's no need to upgrade to Jacob's really as they're both a little off. No one that I know of has made a close to 1:1 201/A caseback yet. And I'm not sure what's with these silly low numbers on J's casebacks, in less than a week I've seen 002, 003 and now 005.