gioarmani

Thanks again

Lol--now I feel like a complete schmuck! The instruction booklet didn't mention the pressure release until after it said to look for the bubbles. I'll have to retry tonight & reshoot. Thanks for that minor bit of information.

Excited? Yes. So I decided to throw a couple through the numbers, fingers crossed... The first up was my new fav, the newest Davidsen PAM 005 logo. My first thoughts were, "f*ck the swiss standard" printed of 3 bars/atms in the instruction book. Let's push it up just a hair: I squeezed it up to 4 bars thinking that would be more than suficient, let the watch pressurize for 4 or 5 minutes, and slowly lowered the her in:. It held solid, no bubbles for 5 minutes in the tank. So I decided to bury the needle @ 6 atms... Pressurized it for another 4 minutes, then let it sit for 5, submersed. Flawless. Absolutely flawless. Next up, Andrew's swiss GMT Master II. Another 4 bar charge & submersion: 5 minutes under the pond, and no bubbles: Then came my modified EL sub. The charge & dip: Buried solid at 6 bars for 5 minutes under: Yet another phenomenal result. Flawless. And last but not least, at this point even my girl was pumped up to toss hers in the mix. One swiss ladys datejust: (there's some water drips on the outside of the glass, not bubbles--optical illusion I think) Solid @ 4 bars again--didn't want to push the little thing to 6, seeing as the only water it will see is a shower, if that. A worthwhile investment indeed! So what the hell, if anyone needs theirs run through, make me an offer.

Or does anyone know where to aqcuire a decent one, without a crappy deployment buckle or cheap, short-life rubber? Thanks 24mm

Lol--$795 on his website! http://mynewwatches.com/ Check out the poor bastard's pics of his sub--look how oddly shaped & overly thick the case is & check out the CG's too while you're at it. What a piece of [censored].

Hmm...I suppose I could do the same.

Nice! I just ordered one of these--can't wait for it to get in, hopefully today. If my Davidsen 005 tests solid, I'm taking down in Sarasota this weekend.

Definitely a gen. For the most part I agree about the SEL's, but some are pretty darn sharp. Josh's & EL's band were:

Screw the gen--Omega's quality isn't relative to their over-pricing. Go out and get yourself a bunch of PAMs from Davidsen.

I got the movement from elsewhere.

You know, that's exactly what stood out the most to me when I got mine from swissexpert, but EL's seems to be the exact some one (possibly from the same manufacturer/factory). Best print I've seen on any quality, any price, any dealer, ever.

I've wanted to [censored] Louise Brooks since I was 15. I always think of her during Maria de Medeiros' sex scenes in "Henry & June". Mmm...

First that leap to mind: Federico Fellini's, "8 & 1/2" David Lean's, "Lawrence of Arabia" Shohei Imamura's, "The Pornographers" Ridley Scott's (Director's cut version), "Blade Runner" Francois Truffaut's, "The 400 blows" Akira Kurosawa's, "Rashomon" Jean-Luc Godard's "Band of Outsiders" Sophia Copola's, "Lost in Translation" Bernardo Bertolucci's, "The Last Emperor" and running up: Ang Lee's, "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" Wong Kar Wai's, "In the Mood for Love" Peter Weir's, "Master & Commander" Stanley Tucci's, "Big Night" Richard Attenborough's, "Ghandi" Sean Penn's, "The Crossing Guard" Michael Winterbottom's, "Code 46" Bruce Robinson's, "Withnail & I" Admin McCarthy's, "The Station Agent" Too damn many to mention...

Thanks again. A little time consuming & a bit expensive for a hobby, but it certaintly is rewarding. I think I'll get a few down-pat and maybe start mod'ing for others if I can repeat it with enough success to feel confident enought to charge for it.

Very nice indeed. How much for the gen crown & tube, and where did you purchase them?

Bezel remover: http://www.jewelerssupplies.com/Bezel-Remover.html

Not a bad idea--might not be able to get that many nickle plated Eta's though, unless everyone was satisfied with regular gold-plated Eta 2836's...hmmm... (that would pay for the waterproof tester I just bought ) Speaking of which, I completley forgot:

Yes, El's is definitley the best s far. Only major flaw is the crown depth.

MBW? How 'bout Todd's best watch? Quite proud of my little equal-opportunity sub I must say, so here's the story. I took the dial, case, crystal, & bezel insert from EL's sub, a crown & stem from Josh, a band from Andrew, and the clasp & deployment buckle from Josh. The biggest pain in the ass other than the bezel insert was finding the right screw pins to fit links & clasps from different bands. I wound up having to use the actual bezel from my swissexpert sub (seeing as I scratched the [censored] out of EL's bezel trying to pop it off, which explains the money I wasted on a French bezel remover this week...I also got my hands on the new nickle-plated Eta 2836-2 (from who I can't say) with the annodized colored gears and lubed it myself. Also got some gaskets & silicon grease from Findking watch supply (off eBay) and sealed 'er up myself--I think the GS hypo cement I used on the insert I also bought from them. After assembled & sealed, I lightly sanded the outer edges of the band's links with 1000 & 1200 grit sandpaper, then dry sanded the outside of the CG's with 1200 & buffed the case, bezel, & crown out with some SS jewelers rouge (from bostonwatchexchange.com) and my Dremel, then hit the band with some 00 steel wool (for the brushed look), then lightly polished it (the band only) with a Cape Cod polishing cloth to reinforce a little sheen. Aesthetically speaking, the datewheel seems to center itself perfectly, the cyclops eye is the right mag & seems to be aligned properly, the crystal etching @ 6 o'clock is made of dots and NOT solid lines when under the loupe--exactly like the gen-- minus my shaky hands in the pics the dial print is flawless under magnification as well; slightly raised, thin letters & not overly bold. My pics might fib a little but the crown seems to be the correct width and length. EL's sticker DOES have the proper 16610 marking (unlike my swissexpert that said 116610). And his pearl bezel looks fantastic & is the correct size compared to the real thing in person. Andrew's band has phenominal SEL's and great edges--the gens I poured over in detail (at my local AD, much to their dismay) for the past week have surprisingly sharp edges along the centers, not the edges. And yes, it is true, the brand new D, & Z style Sub bezels @ the AD all have slightly differing pearls; severely disappointing. Thank God I made up my mind weeks ago to never buy another gen. Where the clasp is marked "ROLEX, STEELINOX, REGISTERED SWISS MADE,"etc., Andrews was stamped "AD10"--which by my research is indicative of the Sept 2003 thru Sept 2004 bands, which technically was the last year they put springbar-holes in the cases, but Josh's clasp had slightly better markings and was stamped "CL1", which is the proper code for the newer 2004-2005 bands. This was the most recent marking I could find on anyone's band so I added his clasp to Andrew's band--I've yet to see any reps use the "MA" for the '05's or the "OP" for the '06's yet, so dealers if you're reading this you might want to send a memo to the factory. After all was said and done upon completion last night, I packaged her up in my gen box with all the tags, anchor, books, etc., took it to the AD to see their reaction. I told both salespeople and the shift manager that the watch was a gift from my brother who told me it was "a swiss-made replica in a genuine box". All 3 checked it out for a couple minutes until they actually told me that he was lying; apparently he gifted me a gen and told me it was a rep so I wouldn't know how much $$$ he had spent on me. I told them, no, it was just a really good swiss replica and was about to expalin the modifications when the manager interupted and uscrewed the crown to show me the gaskets, showed me the little circle on the inside of the link for the diver's extension, held it up to his ear and wound it while listening to it, declaring that "sounds real to me" (I've never heard of this), and looked for the crown @ 6 under a loupe and found it. He said he'd have his repair guy in the back pop the caseback real quick to show me the movement, and I said I didn't want to for fear of ruining my waterproofness--whcih was true--so he removed half the band from the case looking for the serial #...which is unbelievable how long it took them too realize it was a fake; and mind you, not even by the case's serial # engraving, which they said looked real, but by the engraving of the band # on the insde of the SEL's. F*cking amazing--I was so proud that they were this convinced! He said he had never seen anything that good in "all his years" and said if the engravings hadn't given it away, he was going to tell me to add the watch to my home-owner's policy. Anyway, enough of my babble--here's the eyecandy: And the lume I was amazed at! This pic is right after a 3-5 minute charge up with a halogen flashlight (I wanted to get it close to true-sunlight). The intensity of the lume's glow dulled quickly, but in complete darkness it was still lit enought to easily read the time after 30-45 minutes. (Oh yeah--my girl's back today, so the PAM005's modeling pics will come tonight or tomorrow morning...) And here's my new French bezel remover. I was going to buy the handheld Swiss one, but $325+ USD?! Get a grip, Switzerland.

I have one, if anyone's interested in buying it. All aftermarkets are a hair bigger than the fakes; only takes a jeweler 5 minutes to lathe it down & glue it on. This one is unused, & 2 weeks old--$20 USD includes shipping--that's 40% off most sellers including Ofrei. Perfect bezel pearl w/ excellent lume--you can even see it glowing in daylight.

You selling?

bestswiss.com states all their newer models are 904L--it's complete horseshit. Very, very few companies can get their hands on 904L (the primaries being Rolex & NASA), much less have the machinery & foundries to support it's manufacture and manipulation (not to mention it's expense). http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=470 http://www.machinist-materials.com/stainless_table.htm Generally speaking, most of our reps are in the 316 or 316L range of stainless steels--a very good broad range steel to be in for its scratch-resistance & anti-corrosive properties. There's not enough cost-effective or practical reason to jump from 316 to 440 or even 904 for a watch. Rolex uses it primarily as a marketing ploy.

Write Andrew or Josh--I've bought tons of bracelets from them for GMT's, Subs, & Datejusts.

Smooth.

Japan's generally so forward thinking & advanced in so many ways, but when it comes to animal rights they're so politically & morally backwards it's pathetic. [censored]ing sick pieces of [censored].