freddy333

Wow, that has to be the Zigmeister's work. I would have thought it gen if I saw it anywhere but here. I guess you will be having a great weekend from here on....... Back to the beater for me today on this cold & rainy Saturday

Thanks. That 1 Silix case is a helluva base for vintage Rolex watches. Depending on how much grinding you want to do, it can be modded into a number of different models.

A beautiful creation, Tribal. A couple of things to consider are replacing the rep bracelet with a gen (or, at least, a proper vintage gen clasp without the 2 grooves on the flip-lock) & swapping the modern 703 Triplock for the older 702 (which has the 3 dots closer to the coronet). And, if you are feeling daring, resizing (widening) the index markers at 6 & 9. That makes a big difference.

If the hands & dial markers do not match, then I am always suspicious because it usually means that the hands are either a different vintage than the dial or that the hands spent alot of time in a different environment than the dial. Either usually means that they did not come from the factory (in Switzerland) on the same watch. Now, of course, if a vintage watch is serviced by Rolex, they usually replace original tritium parts with new Luminova parts (Rolex is notorious for being either ignorant of or dismissive towards the value/rarity of their own vintage watches) to be sure the watch meets specs. So having mismatched parts does not necessarily mean franken or rep. But, like I said, it always causes closer scrutiny when encountered.

'Starting'? Well done (as always), Tribal.

What does a guy do on a cold, rainy night, after realizing that he has an extra 1 of these? & an extra 1 of these (well, it was extra when I took the picture)? & an extra 1 of these? & an extra 1 of these? What else.................. You make 1 of these & call it a day No, you can pick your jaws up from the rug........this is not my new franken (it is a gen 6536), but it IS the target (more or less) of my next project (I actually wanted to make a 4-line 6538, but the 8mm Brevet crown that defines the '38 is prohibitively priced ($1,200-$1,800+) & it seems that the more lines of text there are on 653x aftermarket dials, the more silly mistakes they have, while a single-line dial I found is hard to tell apart from the gen, so that is my plan). Here are the ingreed-a-mints (comments/recommendations welcome) - Rolex 1030, which is correct for this model MQ single-line 6536 gilt dial MY gilt handset & insert (probably) Clarks T19 crystal 6mm Twinlock (or, possibly, Brevet) crown Rolex 7205/57 riveted bracelet Silix ROLS176 case (same 1 used for my 6542 project, but since the 6536 insert is metal, it will be a straight swap for the oem Silix insert & no heavy equipment will be required )

Exactly correct. The center point of the date font on an ETA is a mm or so off from the center point for the date font on a Rolex. MBWs & other rep dials cut their date window so that the ETA date is centered. But if you swap the rep dial for a gen dial, the date will be off-center since the gen dial's date window was cut to center a Rolex calibre's date font. At least, that is the problem I ran into with my 1665 & 6542 projects.

Wearing this since dinner But working on this old thing

Ending the workday with my beater Switching to something clean & simple for dinner tonight

Registered may be slow, but it is also the most secure method to ship a watch through the mail. If you send a watch to Rolex US, they require registered mail for that reason & return it the same way. Good things come to those who wait.

And paint. So do not put any painted metals like casebacks into an ultrasonic, unless you want to remove the paint.

Interesting.

There are 2 types of screw-down pushers used - 1 uses a small circlip to fix the components onto the case & the other screws together. With either, you will need to open the case & remove the movement to reassemble the parts correctly. If you do not have the appropriate tools & experience, I would recommend taking the watch to a watchmaker as this is a very simple fix for a pro, but a potential pitfall for a newbie.

Looks like you had an eye-opening journey. Your targets are not my cup of tea, but welcome to the fold & congratulations on making your 1st 'kill' (rep buy). I hope the new incoming watch lives up to your expectations (I suspect it will).

NEVER place an assembled movement/watch into an ultrasonic tank as it will cause damage. Many ultrasonics come with a stand that is designed for cleaning metal watch bracelets by keeping the watch body above the tank while allowing the metal bracelet to sit in the solution. However, ultrasonics are the best way to clean individual metal watch movement parts.

Interviewing all day (Thursday), so I decided to add a sophisticated splash of red to perk up my sartorial mix

Very cool (blue), Ziggy.

Ditto.

Rolex did not apply lume by hand. Instead, they had some type of template that fit over the dial (covering everything but the index markers) & the lume material was then rolled on with a type of paint roller. Or, at least, that is how I remember seeing it done many years ago. A couple years ago, I posted a thread looking for ideas on how to replicate the template so we could more accurately mimic the appearance of the gen dials. Unfortunately, none of the masking procedures I came up with worked very well. And I forgot to mention above that I slightly modded Kent's work by manually adding some pits & lines into the lume with the (clean/dry) tip of an oiler & then top-coated the entire dial with a matte finish.

Yes, you can see the crater-like effect fairly clearly on the 4, 5, 8 & 9 o'clock markers in this pic of 1 of the gens I used as a guide (this watch was likely an RSC relume as evidenced by the slight overage of the white (tritium) onto the surrounding black areas of the dial & the graduated appearance of some of the markers' edges) Kent had quite a struggle getting the dial to match my (seemingly simple ) specs, so I am not sure how willing he will be to do another.

At least until the mid-90s, the NYC RSC (possibly others) provided in-house reluming services (I spent a summer working for a relative who was a Rolex-trained watchmaker & he learned how to do this at the RSC).

Reshape the 6 & 9 index markers to match a set of gen pics I provided & relume all of the markers with white, non-glowing tritium-like (uneven, containing peaks & valleys) paint. Thanks, d. The Ofrei dot looks exactly like a gen Rolex service pearl (who knows, Rolex & Ofrei might be using the same supplier). Fortunately, the Ofrei dot is a perfect press-fit into the PMWF insert (by hand & without the need for adhesives).

Yes, I remember that. But I was just UVing dials by themselves. Although my preference is always for the clearest crystal possible, I think heat would be the best way to vintagize a crystal.

Standing in the rain, beating the mid-week blues with a double dose of red

Very cool watch, Lani. And the lume looks perfect. Kudos all around.