freddy333

Nice pens. I actually ordered a beautiful S.T. Dupont fountain pen from Sash a few months ago, but never received it.

Most of the parts houses stock generic Rolex spares, but Cousin's catalog makes them easy to find.

To avoid embarrassment and minimize the potential loss of your contraband (replica) watch, I would be honest and up-front. The only question you need to ask is if the watchmaker will service a replica watch. You will nearly always get a simple yes or no. In my experience, most smaller shops need the work and will happily accept your watch. On the other hand, I would steer clear of any shop that sells the gen version of your rep watch. You are asking for trouble if you take it there. No matter how good you may think (or have been told) your rep is, the watchmaker will identify your watch as a rep the second he opens the case (if not before). Beyond that, any competent watchmaker will be familiar with and able to repair whatever movement is in your watch, so there is really no reason to ask if he services a particular movement.

You have a PM.

Hey RG -- Good to hear from you and thanks for your input. At the risk of beating a possibly dead horse, what do you think about using teflon as I suggested and trimming the gears that ride on it? At least in lieu of a more formal solution by the factories that make the movements.

Yes, I agree. So I wonder why Ziggy simply concluded that these movements were destined for failure without offering much in the way of a permanent fix for owners.

Ubi -- That was where my thinking began (plastic/nylon gears as used to be used in many older automobile clocks). But I think Ziggy said that the extra friction & drag was inherent in the additional gearing, so I did not think changing torque or gear materials would do the trick. Or at least that was my impression based on Ziggy's comments. How about a thin sheet of teflon under each of the additional gears (think about that narrow teflon strip on Mach 3 razors)? Anyone who uses a Mach 3 razor knows how much more easily it slides on your face compared to a standard razor without the teflon strip. And you could grind down the side of each gear that rides on the teflon to maintain the original gear train height & alignment. This would have a secondary benefit of reducing each gear's mass, thus lowering the overall drag on the motor even more. The more I think about it (and how simple it would be to implement), the more I think it would be worth getting Ziggy's input.

This post is mostly directed at Ziggy, but anyone with a vested interest in the subject can chime in. I have been brainstorming over possible remedies for the frequent problems plaguing many seconds at 6 7750 movements, such as those used in 1652xx Daytonas. In one of Ziggy's original reviews of this movement, he surmised that the likely reason the movements were installed with little or no oil was to counteract the additional load/drag on the motor caused by the additional gearing and thus allow the movement to run as freely and as long as possible (even light grades of oil add some degree of friction between adjoining surfaces). So, if removing the oil in key locations of the gear train lowers the drag on the motor just enough to allow the movement to run (for an unknown duration) and adding the correct oil increases it causing the watch to stop running, I am wondering if there is something one could add to the oil to lower the friction coefficient below the threshold of no oil. My belt drive stereo turntable's platter has a bearing that rides on a ceramic disc that is supposed to be coated with a 'vapor thin film of sewing machine or very light gauge oil'. And this works fine, except that a small amount of the vibrations generated by the stylus (needle) riding in a record groove migrates down the platter's bearing and into the bearing cylinder, where it can diffuse the sound (we are talking very minute, but audible effects here). So, many years ago, in an effort to tame these spurious vibrations, I started experimenting and found that the sound could be subtly improved by filling the entire bearing cylinder with heavier grades of oil (the best turned out to be 10W-40 motor oil), which effectively damped most of these errant vibrations. Unfortunately, using so much thick oil came with a serious side-effect -- instead of taking about 3/4 of a revolution for the platter to come up to 33 1/3 rpm, it took many revolutions, or about 1 full minute, which all but foiled my otherwise brilliant plan. So I had to figure out a way to reduce the increased friction and still be able to fill the bearing cylinder with 10W-40. I do not want to bore you with the details, but I found that mixing the oil with an off-the-shelf 'engine friction reducer' (not PTFE/Teflon) reduced the friction and the platter came up to speed in a little less than 3/4 of a revolution and still helped to quiet the vibrations. So the question is whether you tried/considered or think something similar might be able to produce similar results in these seconds @ 6 7750s? Is there some type of lubricant that produces less friction than using no oil at all? Ziggy?

What do the hands look like and do you have the size requirements? And by the way, do you know what 'lejour' means? I have seen it used as an adjective in describing watches, as in 'Is that the lejour version?', but the meaning escapes me (as do alot of things).

Ubi -- I do not own this watch, but from my layman's point of view, the edges of both the screws and screw holes in the bezel look a bit sharper on the gen. And this more than the color of the screws is what sticks out the most to me. If you remove the screws again (or want to mod another RO watch), I would second the recommendation that you file the screw & hole edges to make the corners sharper. This, of course, will slightly reduce the overall size of the screw and slightly enlarge the hole. But that is actually good thing if you then replate the screws with one of the home plating systems on this page. Knowing your modding talents and attention to detail, you should be able to reproduce the appearance of the gen bezel almost exactly. The only problem with home replating (and replating in general) is that the plating eventually wears away requiring another replating. So you may want to use a semi-permanent fixing agent when reinstalling the screws. But since that area of the bezel is so small, if you keep it clean (especially skin oil, which can break down the plating), the plating would likely outlast the watch.

The big question is how many of the citizen pursuers were able to make off with a watch or two without the police nabbing them?

Makes sense to me.

Thanks Hambone. All I need to tip me over is another V72 to use in the Fly's place. Anybody got a spare V72 they can part with for a literal pittance?

Euno -- Thanks for your input and I know what you mean. I have had those feelings after turning other, lesser working watches into cases of component parts for another love that later faded. But the Newman, for me, is, has always been, and will continue to be THE grail watch. I know that some people are more immune to its wiley ways, but not me. I am totally smitten. So the project watch will definitely need to get a good Valjoux heartbeat. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to collect and stockpile Valjouxs (especially at the risk of falling in love with another donor), but this has definitely turned into a difficult conundrum.

The Flytimer The what??? The -=FLYTIMER=- The watch James Bond should be wearing (imagine pulling back the sleeve of your white tux to reveal this). This watch was acquired for its Valjoux calibre, which I intended to use as a donor movement to power my Newman 6241 project watch. But a funny thing happened when I opened the package today -- something clicked & I fell in love with this watch. Like hearing the Beatles playing on your home stereo for the first time after listening and liking them on the radio. From the distance of the airwaves, they were a great little band. But, 'live', in my home, they were........well, the bloody f'ing Beatles, man! And it was like that with the Flytimer. A great little parts watch when viewed on the Web, but a bloody f'ing cool chronometer (that looks alot like a pre-Daytona, only cooler) when it's ticking (at a leisurely 18k or so) on your wrist. Here is a shot of the Fly's nearly pristine tri-compax ticker (the photo does not do it justice -- this thing literally gleams) So now I am not sure what the Flytimer's fate will ultimately be. But, in the meantime, it is steadily ticking away the seconds, minutes & hours on my wrist whilst I put it through its paces to check its accuracy (which, so far, is close enough for government work). (The small red mark on my wrist adjacent to the crown is not from the Flytimer.)

3 years old (from a UK auction site) this July & still going strong

These new calibres look very interesting, indeed. But I agree with Ziggy's doomsday predictions regarding ETAs and their spares. I have a feeling that in 2 years time we will be musing about how wonderful it was to fit a rep watch with a nice, reliable Swiss-made ETA movement and then to be able to keep it running with relatively accessible spares from a number of sources (ofrei, cousins, etc.). But I am just as sure that once the supply begins to impact the Chinese markets, some clever individual or shop will come up with another movement to fill the void, and it will most likely be just as good and made in China. In fact, I can see a day when 'China Made' will become the new 'Swiss Made'.

I like the way you think.

Davey -- Not sure exactly which pusher you need, but I get the (threaded insertion into case) non-screw pushers from Ofrei.com. Try here.

I would second that and recommend that every serious Daytona fan buy one of these very expensive books. It is THE Daytona reference (excluding the current 1652xx models).

Thanks.

And I just found this in the Best book I hope at least one of these will be what you are looking for.

You probably already know about these, but just in case, here are a couple more Comex caseback variations from doubleredseadweller.com

You probably mean this one that I posted last year (from Antiquorum) I have never seen this version on a 1665 though.

Sorry, I missed that small detail. Try these