bklm1234

You know Rollie rep scene is very much alive. There are multiple efforts going on in rep'ping the SD. There's King's offering and now Josh's offering, not to mention Angus'. So far I like King's. Hers looks truly 1:1 except for the stupid maxi-dial, datewheel overlay, and crystals - all easy to fix by the factory. But there's a twist to King's version. The 2892 movement version uses a different case. The factory is upgrading it. Don't know the outcome. But if it looks the same as the gen movt version, I'm buying that one instead of Josh's. The reason is Josh's, though look tons better than any previous SD, it's not 1:1 (I wouldn't ask for 1:1 before but now good chance it will exist. My standards got raised), close but not quite. One very simple part but tremendously important, a SD signature, is not done right on Josh's, rehaut thickness. My favorite, pic comparision: Josh's King's Gen Josh's rehaut thickness isn't enough and you can't see the details of the thick of the rehaut - could be the crystal bevel messing it up. Besides the teeth, though look really good (proves the factory is paying attention instead of use a sub bezel), are incorrect. The bottom portion of the bezel is still not thick enough. Josh is very shrewd. The watch in the pic was tilted at an angle to make the bezel bottom looks thicker. Same thing for the crown position which looks higher in the picture while is definitely not high enough in real life. My take: wait for King's and Angus'. If theirs not 1:1. Wait some more till they get it right. Josh's? Nah. -bk

Yes, it's a noob dial actually a movement swap altogether from a ETA noobmariner. -bk

I found out I can't post to the Knowledge Base. Admin, pls move this tutorial there. Thanks. "They don't make it like they used to" definitely applies to the new MBW. Sure it has a deeper rehaut but the rest has fallen behind the noobmariner. The old case MBW sub is really the best sub. Besides the deeper rehaut, the bezel is the main reason. I was so lucky to acquire one a while ago (which I haven't finished modding) and it's one of my most priced possession, next to my 2 correct hand stacks (GMT2 and EXP2). Look at the old case MBW sub bezel. The bezel lip, teeth shape, angle, and definition are dead on accurate. But no more. They don't make them like that anymore. The current MBW has teeth that are a little too long. The factory cut the teeth so deep they cut into the bezel lip. The lip became thin and uneven. Out of the factory, the bezel insert is often floating, not fully residing in the bezel bay. This tutorial is about how to improve and correct the look of a current MBW. Before pictures. This MBW bezel insert was worked on but sloppily. Look the insert is floating. Besides you can observe the teeth cuts being deep into the bezel lip. Quite ugly. I wrap 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper on a nail file to bring out the lip and sand down the teeth a little to reduce the deep cut After sanding with the 600 grit wet/dry sand paper, I polish the teeth and lip using 30, 15, 9, 3, 2, 1 micron sandpaper and cap cod cloth. The result: Put a insert on to give some contrast to illustrate how the lip looks after the sanding. The CGs also need work. The current MBW has uneven CGs, the top one is larger and longer, the bottom one is smaller and shorter. Besides trimming the inside (which is only needed for noobmariner), I have to do the outside of the top CG. Doing the outside is rather hard. You have to have very good eyes, let alone the skills to re-polish the outside to a mirror finish. Practise that on some cheap subs first. Since I posted how to combine a JeweleryOutlet insert with a watchmaterial pearl, I'm not covering that here. One note to why JewelryOutlet insert? Because not only it has good numbers and shine, it's also thinner than for example the watchmaterial insert. So it's faster to thin it out. The finished watch. CGs are trimmed and look pretty correct now. watchmaterial pearl is always good and nearly as good as gen Insert is now recessed in the bezel. A must for a rollie. You can run your finger over the bezel lip and can feel it's higher than the insert. Under real lighting condition, the bezel lips stand out like they are on the gen. -bk

I sent 4 crystals to Jakub (k2222 at RWG) in Poland for his 1st double-AR run around September 1st. Got the crystals back Oct 10th. I immediately put one back in one of my Navitimers. The cost is $55 per crystal which includes stripping of existing AR, which is important to me because I don't know how to strip existing AR. Let's see the results. Side by side with another Navitimer(s) with stock AR. Much less glare: positions swapped, to be fair. Same result, much less glare. Let's see some blue tint. Right with double-AR: positions swapped. Same results again, more blue tint. Blue tint, blue tint, I love you. Put another one in my BCE. Again stock AR side-by-side Jakub's awesome double-AR. There you see it. Double-AR really rocks. When Jakub or Chieftang runs it, you better jump. I want to thank Jakub for doing this for many of us. He's a standup guy who really cares to do a good job. I have one crystal that's scratched. He took it to have it diamond polished without charging me extra. When the crystals took a while to get to me, I think he's more nervous than I was. Such attention to details is just admirable. We really are lucky to have him and cheiftang in our community. -bk

he can k**s my a**. $655.99 and you still have to change the dial, the crown, the insert, the bracelet and the bezel teeth are suspect. -bk

The assembly has no problem. I'm talking about the teeth. They slope down more. It could be the pic. Compare that to the gen: also look at the prototype bezel which looked fine. BTW, the price is $375 instead of $499. That's much better, MBW price range. -bk

I'm actually quite disappointed with this so-called 1:1. By-Tor is right about the rehaut thickness and depth. It's the best looking rehaut among all subs. But there're a few things that jumped at me: - The production version bezel is not quite the same as the prototype (which probably used a gen bezel). It could be ngdenny's pic. I'm talking about the bezel teeth. They look much more angled down. I hope it's just the picture. The biggest motivation to buy this version for me is exact reproduction of the bezel: and this one The bezel teeth slope down too much like noobmariner's. A square frontal view posted by By-Tor shows the teeth nice and sharp and long. That's the look I yearn for. If the teeth slope down too much, you can't see that in the front. ngdenny, can you take more pics that are not so close-up? - dial is still inferior to the noob dial. With minute markers this long and touching the rehaut, it should have "Swiss-T<25". So this still needs a noob dial. - the crown has poor teeth. Gen crown needed. - bracelet sucks too. Sure hope a noob bracelet can fit. To me this is a better MBW which means it also needs mods to be 99.whatever% but by no means perfect out-of-the-box. One thing sure for me is I'm not paying $500 for it. Let's also see what King brings. She said she has a 1:1 with 2892 or gen movement. -bk

can't wait to receive mine, the wait is driving me crazy. -bk

really a rep? OJ, what's your screen name? -bk

Thanks for the compliments. It really motivates me to post more reviews and how-to's. -bk

posted my ym review as requested by by-tor here: http://www.rwg.cc/members/index.php?showtopic=52401 -bk

This YM comes from the same factory as the noobmariner. This factory makes some of the best out-of-the-box rollies, including both the correct hand stack and incorrect hand stack EXP2 and of course the noobmariners. The GMT2's are excellent too but with mods (pls read By-Tor's latest GMT2 review). The strongest part of this factory's rollies is the near perfect reproduction of the rehaut thickness (mind you it's thickness, not depth). From the front, they have the best looking and closest to gen view, beating even the MBW and TBW. Their rehaut thickness has a lot to do with that. This version has been carried by EddieLee, Angus (ETA version), and TTK & Naarika (Asian version). I don't know why all other dealers carry the other version which I think is inferior to this version. Frontal. Colors and texture is very important to YM. This version has the correct color and really good texture throughout. The dial is not overly yellow like the other version (carried by Paul, Josh, Andrew, Ruby, King, etc.) The red on "Yacht-Master" is bloody red like the gen. I'm very impressed with that. It's a little less bold than gen but I take it. The second hand has really good red too. The bezel insert has excellent polished numbers and correct texture between the numbers, unlike the other version which has too much sparkly, shiny stuff. Like the real thing, I'm sure oil from your fingers will stick to the insert and darken it so better not touch the insert. No problem with the font and short markers. Cyclop has correct mag, date window is correctly positioned unlike the other version which is too far right. Correct hand size and maxi dial indices. The rehaut isn't deep and neither is the gen's. The rehaut thickness is correct (thick) unlike the other version. The crown is a little too thick. But the teeth are sharp like gen. CGs are good enough. It's very hard to mod it to a U anyway. Quarter view. Bezel is thick like the gen. Bezel profile is correct where there shouldn't be a bottom portion like the sub's. The teeth could be longer and sharper but they are ok. Bezel insert is recessed => good. Crystal height is good and has correct bevel angle. Sides of case are rounded accurately. SELs fit very well and stick out like the gen's => very good replication there as well. Gen: Side view: Bracelet. Bracelet has the correct solid midlinks. It's a lot heavier than hollow midlink bracelet. The whole watch feels very substantial and great to those weight chasers. The finish is the best I've seen. No need to do any polishing on it and it wears very comfortable, no sharp edges like most sub bracelets. The link screws are very well machined, a rare find in rollie reps. The total length fits an 8" - 8 1/2" no problem. Lastly, the lume is better than any rollie reps I have seen. When walking from outside to indoors, the markers just glow. I didn't notice that but my coworker told me "hey the markers are glowing". Here's a gallery of the same watch from different members: -bk

Thanks for the advise and caution. I was told Wholesaleoutlet990 and JewelryOutlet are run by the same person, Faisal Ali. I bought many inserts, including modern GMT and sub inserts, from JewelryOutlet. The GMT insert is excellent for the money, $10+5 shipping. I use those for my GMT and By-Tor also uses them. The sub insert is also great and is what I use for the MBW, which I put a watchmaterial pearl in to make it even better. Faisal messed up a couple orders for me but I always got my stuff. He hasn't misrepresented his products since I never asked that kind of questions. I'm gonna try the end pieces after all they are not too much. -bk

k2222, I got 2 this time. Thanks. -bk

My MBW 1665 Great White has 2 bend bracelet end pieces at the lugs. I wonder these at eBay from WholesaleOutlet990 will fit http://cgi.ebay.com/OYSTER-WATCH-BAND-ENDP...3QQcmdZViewItem I appreciate your advise. Thanks. -bk

Trim the inside of CGs: If the insert isn't recessed, make it so. Not all noobs come like that. Sometimes the factory didn't apply pressure on the insert enough while the glue cured, the insert can be "floating". This mod can be easy or hard depending if the insert comes off easily or not. If it comes very tight from the factory, you have to pop it by first popping the crystal. If you don't have a crystal press, this job will be next to impossible without damaging the insert. When the insert is well inside the bezel bay, recessed, the whole watch looks much better, really get that gen sub feel. It applies to any other sub reps. Get the insert recessed, show the bezel lip, my friends. Oh, by the way, I put a watchmaterial pearl in this one. -bk

what's the price of this? It's pretty decent looking. Though not a fan of open-heart watch or whatever it's called (I understand tourbillon has to be admired in the open), I think tourbillon is such a mechanical marvel, I want to own one before I die. Hopefully it's affordable. -bk

Exp2 was extremely popular when I worked in Hong Kong. I bought and sold 2 gens. I was a little obssessed with scratches at the time. I scratched the bezel on the 1st one, got [censored] off, sold it. Got another one, scratched it again, sold it. I plan on buying the gen (used) again because when I look at the entire line of rollies, the Exp2 (and GMT 2) has the most unique movement, at the same price as a sub. Of course the Daytona movement is special but I'm not paying $15K+ for a watch. Besides, no other movement in a rep replicates that movement's function while ETA or Asian movement is sufficient for a sub or ym rep. -bk

I told Ms. King the flaws and she said she told the factory to fix them. Yeh. And if they don't take care of the crystal, you can buy it from Kryswork http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...DME:X:AAQ:US:11 The item listed is for sub, and gmt. BUT "We do carry the seadweller sapphire. Just use the buy it now for the Submariner auction and make a note during payment that you need the 16600. John Krysworks Sales Dept." I got it all lined up. -bk

You got a really nice noob, Stephane. Thanks for the review. -bk

The most important thing to me is the crystal bevel. I hope Josh gets that done right too. -bk

Angus said his is not the same as King's. His doesn't have lug holes and it's still in prototype stage. -bk

Correct long, pointy bezel teeth (different from sub bezel teeth) Correct He valve, correct crown position, correct thick rehaut, correct thick-bottomed bezel. They even do a version with lug hole, love that. But WTF with the maxi-dial and fat minute hand? and the crystal <= the bevel doesn't go all the way to the insert <= that ruins it Not so perfect are the date font and insert pearl as usual Comes in 2 movts like the new YM, 2892 and 3035. I gotta talk to Angus to fix those issues. If they got fixed, I'm paying $500 for the 2892. -bk

@docblackrock: of course no problem using the GMT for local time. It's not so natural for a supposedly GMT watch. @$tingray: that's the same watch as the one modded in this post. At least do the CGs. Have fun. @yt74: is your sub a noobmariner? The insert mod works for MBW and cn subs. The noob has a slightly smaller diameter, ~.996" vs. ~1.001" on the cn sub. You probably need to sand the perimeter a little. -bk

the correct hand stack, besides reliability issue, has an annoying feature: the date change follows the GMT hand. Normally when you travel, you set the hour hand to the local time. On the gen and probably other GMT movements, the hour hand effects the date change. So the date is not necessarily your local's date, a problem for long travel. The Zigmeister pointed that out in his review of this bastardized movement. It's something you have to get used to. -bk