freddy333

Exactly. No scratches, but I am very careful with the Daytonas & only wear them when the risk of damage is minimal. I have scratched other good watches though & while I cannot say that scratches do not raise the tension level a bit, I do not lose sleep over the normal bumps & grinds my watches pick up from natural wear.

Nice Carl. You might consider swapping your pearl for an Ofrei Illumines Dot (Ofrei speak for 'pearl') & if the Illumines Dot does not fit your insert, you might try this 1, which the pearl will press into without any type of modding or cement.

Thanks & that Black Lung is stunning.

Wearing this for most of the past 3 days & counting

Ditto that. I would think twice before sending anything to Everest though. He has had 1 of my dials since July (which I stupidly pre-paid in full) & after promising a 4 week turn around, followed by a guarantee of completion weeks ago, the wait continues with no end in sight. And he no longer even bothers to respond to my once bi-weekly email inquiries. Very unprofessional.

Thanks all. I have not seen Solace yet, but I sure hope it is less the Roger Moore-like cartoon that 'Casino Royale' was.

If your gen Rolex says 'Oyster' on the dial or has 3 dots below the coronet on the crown, it is probably an Oyster, otherwise it is not. If your watch is a rep, I would assume it is not waterproof until/unless it has been recently & properly tested for water-proofness by a watchmaker.

To begin with, that is a terrible rep. So many things wrong that it is easier to list the things it got right - the dial color is correct. Of course, if you are willing to trade believability for reliability (a watch that will always run, but never look real), then that is your next rep. But you should read this (you may need to Search out the referenced websites' current locations as they have changed) & try to include only the member's public name (Avitt) when posting in a public forum.

Ditto the above. If you decide to vintagize the case, I would leave the crystal pristine. There is nothing wrong with having a fresh crystal installed on an old watch. It happens every day.

Very cool, Pug. Thanks.

And it may not be any more genuine than the bezel that currently resides on your rep. If that bezel picture was supplied by a seller, I would run the other way. If it is your picture, you should use the Macro on your camera to take a clear pic.

Thank you. I hope the film lives up to all the hype. Can I assume that you likie Subbie? Sadly, no glossy COMEX. The dial was a custom job that Natalie at NDTrading did for me a couple of years ago (back when they were struggling & such things were possible). I am pretty sure I detailed the story of this dial in 1 of my early Comex or Hev tutorials. If I remember correctly, she charged me $120 & then replaced their then current (really crummy) 5514 dial with this 1 after I gave it a thumbs-up. The dial is still listed on their website (of course, the price has gone up a bit). My intention, at the time, was to use the dial in my original 10 year old Asian-powered 5514 rep when the movement died (which, back then, I thought would be any day). So, anyway, I put the dial on a shelf & waited for the POS movement to die (whoever said Asian POS movements are POS movements obviously never met this 1). But a strange thing happened..............the POS movement never died. In fact, the damned thing was still ticking away (within COSC specs) when I finally removed it from the case last month (which is where the 1520 now resides). Pretty amazing for a relatively cheap, 10+ year old rep that was my daily beater for many years. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on whether you are a half-full or half-empty glass of water type of guy), the only thing NDTrading did not get right (or bother to do, I am not sure which it was) was to print the COMEX lettering with black gloss paint. But, as you noted, the dial is so exquisitely well done that I decided to live with it & just try to deal with the COMEX lettering myself (this was actually their 3rd re-do attempt & was the only 1 of the 3 where they fixed what I told them to fix without messed up something else). After striking out with Ziggy & a couple of other dial refinishers, I started to look for ways to ( ) paint the lettering myself. Yes, me, the destroyer of every dial I have ever put paint to. But, after completely destroying a couple of test dials, I checked with my friendly, local artist supply store to see if there was some way to do this. They felt that it would be nearly impossible (even for an artist with a very steady hand) to apply black gloss paint into those tiny spaces without overlapping onto the surrounding white areas (I have trouble drawing my name with a crayon & they do not call me 'Shakes' for nothing). Instead, they suggested that I just paint a clear gloss over the COMEX lettering. The effect is like applying water to the surface of a dry flat marble material......the color darkens & appears glossy, which is exactly what is needed & any overlapping of clear onto the white areas would only be detectable with a loupe. I did some tests with a few different paints & glazes, but either they looked like they were starting to damage (melt) the white paint or were too thick or too runny. So, in the end, I just decided to use the dial as-is until/unless I can work out a paint & application method that I had more confidence in. Is the dial perfect? No. But it is good enough so that I almost posted a pic of my watch on TZ, because I thought it was a gen & I almost posted a pic of a gen here thinking it was my watch (and, sometimes, I am still not sure which is which). So that tells me my work here is done. What do you think - is it real or is it Memorex? Sorry, but no sale here........at least, not this time. I have a gen superdome that I had originally intended to use for this watch, but I have a couple pics of gens that were recently fitted with these modern gen beveled-edge crystals that give the watch a distinctly jewel-like appearance when the light catches it just the right way (similar to the crystals I used on my 62xx Daytonas). I kind of like that look, so, for now at least, I plan to keep the beveled crystal.

As far as countersinking tubes go, the movement is not the issue. Whether to countersink the tube hole or not & how wide/deep it should be -- depends on the look YOU are after &, more importantly, the dimensions of your particular case & tube. I generally do not countersink, because I prefer the crown to sit a mm or so proud of the case (this is the way crowns often fit on vintage gens when fitted with current crowns/tubes). Others prefer a flush fit. In the rare circumstance where you need to heat a case to remove a tube (I have only ever had to heat 1 case), use a hair dryer or run the case under hot water for a few minutes (of course with the movement removed). If that does not work, just remove the tube with a pair of pliers (& before you ask, use whatever type of pliers you want & use however much force is required - you are replacing the tube anyway).

Nice shot, Pug. Is that a wind turbine in the background? No wind in my hair today

I think the threading problem is due more to case-to-case variation (lack of QC) than to an inherent thread pitch mis-match between the pushers & basic case design. Out of the dozen or so DW cases I have worked on, I only had a Ofrei pusher-fitting problem with 1 of them, and the pushers that came with that case did not fit either (they kept falling out of the case because the holes were cut a fraction of a mm too large - I think I posted micrometer pics of the holes in 1 of my Daytona construction journals). All the other pushers fit perfectly after the case was tapped with the Rolex tap.

Ditto the previous comments about treading lightly. Few gen owners know anything about watches beyond what they can see strapped around their wrist. What they do tend to know (intimately) is how much of their hard-earned income they had to pay to purchase their gen watch & most, understandably, tend to view the average 'fake' luxury brand buyer as a deadbeat, liar or scammer (or all 3). This would be especially true if your new boss is a watch collector, who researches the history of each watch before purchasing it (as opposed to watch buyer/owner, who researches his bank account before emptying it). I do not know about Nevada, but many states have 'at-will' employment laws, which means an employer can fire an employee (assuming the employee is white & male) for any reason. And, speaking empirically, the last thing an employer wants to think about a new employee is that that employee does not need the job. So you could be even worse off by wearing an expensive-looking watch that your employer believes IS real. And with the economy in turmoil, I would think it best to stick with the boring Seiko, at least until you have proven yourself.

Pushers anyone? Off to dinner (Friday) with a non-Daytona Daytona

Regulating (& wearing) this today (Friday)

I am not a fan of gold tool watches, but it looks good.

Assuming you assembled everything correctly, the insert you have is probably too thick, so you will need to sand down the backside until there is enough clearance so that it does not come into contact with anything below it. A better option would simply be to get a better/more accurate insert to begin with. The PMWF insert (the Search will reveal a wealth of links & info) fits a gen/MBW/Vietnamese bezel perfectly without the need for resizing or any glue or cement. On the better rep cases, there is a thin, flat metal washer (which is slightly bent) that sits between the bezel & case. This provides a slight amount of upward pressure on the bezel to keep it in position (once set, a diver does not want his bezel scale to move). To move the bezel, press down & turn. However, if you would prefer a freely-spinning bezel, simply flatten (unbend) the washer. The bezels on Chinese cases are often held onto the case only by the hexagonal spring, which locks into place below the lip of the crystal retaining ring. Sometimes, part of the spring will get stuck on top of that lip, which leaves the spring partially riding along the outside of the retaining ring lip & that makes it difficult to rotate the bezel. Remove the bezel, take the insert out of the bezel, reinstall the bezel (without the insert, so you can be sure the bezel spring fits below the retaining ring's lip all the way around its circumference. Then, when you are sure the spring is correctly seated all the way around, reinstall the insert (if you use the PMWF insert, you can press it in with your thumbs).

The magnification looks pretty good, but the crystal lacks the clarity or sparkle you normally see from a gen crystal.

Generally, the entire chrono seconds hand is painted a contrasting color from the dial. So, if your dial is black, the hand should be painted white. If your dial is silver, the hand should be painted black. On some watches (mostly black dials), only the tip is painted (white), but that is the exception rather than the rule.

'1:1', 'perfect' & all similar marketing hyperbole is just that - marketing hyperbole. There are no reps that match their gen counterparts 100% & while there are a few very accurate cases (some MBWs & Vietnamese made cases come to mind), I would not assume that rep case parts are direct swaps for gens.