freddy333

In general, I think we are saying the same thing. But I do disagree, at least based on my experience, with the two points above. First, regarding the proportion of the public that assumes every Rolex is fake. We must travel in very different circles because I frequently receive compliments from both friends and casual acquaintances about my beautiful 'Rolexes', and rarely (maybe three or four times in the past 20 years) has anyone ever asked if my watch was real. But I will admit that the last 2 times I was asked was in the last few months, and I think this is because there are so many people wearing obviously fake Rolexes these days. Personally, I only question a Rolex's authenticity when I can see it is a fake or when I see someone that obviously does not fit with a particular watch (like the case of the landscaper paying for groceries with food stamps while wearing a 'gold Daydate'). Of course, my watches are all well modded stainless steel models and do not contain any of the obvious mistakes that are frequently described in news reports and books about fake watches. Second, one of the reasons I said Rolex owners are more concerned with making money (I get this info from my friend, whose family owns a jewelry store chain) is because they tend not to have time for hobbies. Magazines like Forbes often do stories about the lives of wealthy people and these people almost always say that they are married to their businesses or careers, which leaves little or no time for anything else (and that often includes their families) that does not in some way benefit their work (alot of business executives like Donald Trump do take time out from their workday to play alot of golf because they consider a golf course the best place to conduct business -- I do not play golf myself, so I cannot confirm this). I think it is probably safe to say that the average Rolex owner owns 1 Rolex watch and wears it daily and to advertise their bank balance and not because they have a wealth of knowledge about watches in general. But I could be wrong.

Beautiful job, Rob. Gotta find one of those 23s (and a proper Daytona-style case, etc.).

Most members here know what to look for because we have all spent countless hours researching the differences between our reps and the gens, not to mention the hundreds of differences between the various gens themselves. I know alot of gen Rolex owners (my best friend's family owns a chain of upscale jewelry stores that sell Rolex) and I do not think the average Rolex owner can tell a good rep from a gen. Most Rolex owners are too busy making money to fund their lifestyle to be bothered to take the time required to learn about all the things to look for in spotting good reps. I am assuming that we are talking about stainless steel models without CZ 'jewels'.

Nice watch. I have had my eye on that model and color for ages. If they would only get the hand length (too short) and DAYTONA font right (the "A" should have a flat top). And I think I will have to keep dreaming for asymmetrical pushers.

Stainless Steel Explorer or Air King. Because these 'entry level' watches are so plain, there are fewer details for rep makers to get wrong and they look more believable on more wrists.

That was my understanding too. So that means that most Sea Dwellers and DRSDs should hack, which brings me back to my original question which is why the ETA 2846 that Watchmaster used in my DRSD hacks, but none of the ETA 2846s I have gotten as replacements do? All of the movements look and beat the same way, so I have to assume that there are either two or more versions of the 2846 or that there is a 'hacking' modification available (that some rep sellers like Watchmaster use for their 2846s). Woody -- I see that Ofrei has removed the 2846 from their ETA page of movements. It was listed a few weeks ago when I ordered mine. I just checked the ETA website and it lists the 2846 as "Phased Out". Something tells me that is not good news.

I never heard of Micro Mask. Sounds worth a try. Where did you get it?

SSS -- I had the same problem when I tried to mask shiny metal hands. It left gunk on the hands. But you can remove the gunk with denatured alcohol. But there is a much easier way to lume hands and it produces nearly perfect results with very little effort. You should relume hands (I have done about a dozen so far, including a set of very small hands from a friend's quartz watch) from the backside. You do not need to mask anything. Slide a toothpick through the hole in the end of the hand and then fix the other end of the toothpick into clay or Styrofoam -- or anything that will hold the toothpick in a vertical position and allow you to work on the back of the hand. The lume mixture should be watered down to the consistency of cream -- thicker than water, but still liquid. With the hand upside down on the toothpick, coat the end of another toothpick with lume and slowly slide the toothpick along the length of the hand so that the side of the toothpick straddles both sides of the hand and leaves a film coating of lume 'dangling' between the sides and filling the opening in the hand. You may have to do this a few times to fill in all the holes, but once the hole or holes in the hand have been filled with the lume, stop and let it dry for 10 or 15 minutes. When it is dry, repeat the process if you want a thicker coating of lume. Be careful not to make it too thick or the lume may come into contact with the dial or hand below it. Once the lume is dry, when you turn over the hand (view it from the front side), you will see that it looks factory fresh. In a couple of cases, I had to use a knife to trim a bit of lume that was peeking out on one side of the hand, but it took all of 2 seconds and the result still looked like a factory fresh hand. And if you use a lume that naturally dries with a granular appearance, it looks very much like tritium. I use the Bergeon Luminous Paste from Ofrei which I like better than SuperLume because it not only dries with this granular appearance, but its dimmer glow fades quicker (you will not be able to show all of your friends how you can read in the dark by the glow from your watch, but it looks more like what you would expect from a vintage watch with original lume).

Here's another option

sss -- I would not use painters tape for luming hands. I agree that that probably would not work. The procedure I suggested is for luming dial index markers only. rbj -- What did you use to apply the lume onto the masked dial? And what was the consistency of your lume (watery, creamy, syrupy, buttery, etc.)?

I just finished installing a gen triplock crown and crown tube in Josh's 116509 Daytona and wanted to alert other modders who may be considering the same mod of this model that you will need to countersink the crown tube hole in the side of the case (I used an 11/64" Titanium coated bit) to allow the crown to sit flush when screwed down into the closed position. Unfortunately, I did not realize this until I put the watch together, so I will be taking everything apart again. But it is all worth the extra work because the watch looks and feels a bit nicer with the gen parts.

Right, I forgot about that trick.

Stilty -- My experience with self-stick labels is that they are hard to remove once applied, so they may damage the dial paint when removed. That is why I focused on painters tape, which is designed purposely to be used as masking on painted surfaces without removing the existing paint. My original idea was to scan and then print the dials out onto DVD labels. Then just lume the label. If the lume turned out well, you could apply the label over the dial (after removing the existing lume and paint) and you are done. If you have ever used one of those DVD labels, you know that once they go on they do not come off (even when you want them to). Unfortunately, that approach involves the issue of getting a printer that can create multiple layers to mimic the original dial's thickened paint, which opens another set of issues. And one of my main goals here is to keep the entire process simple with just a couple of steps.

I would suggest CQout also. For a watch like that (a low end design that has no relation to anything Rolex ever made), your best bet might be to search images.google.com for 'rolex' or 'fake rolex' and be prepared to do alot of searching and following false leads. Eventually, you will probably locate someone with that watch.

Pug -- I do not really know. The real issue there would be that you would either have to purchase the printing equipment (unless you already own it and I do not) or farm the work out to a third party. And I think the home brew procedure, at least if it works out as I envision it, should produce similar results in much less time (no waiting for a third party to fit your work into their other work) with fewer headaches (you control the quality) and at minimal cost. I think that creating the template, which must be pretty accurate, will be the only difficult part. I am not really happy with either of the two Rube Goldberg options I described above, but I think they would probably work.

Thanks Randy. And I know what you mean about the pain of slow set. I used to have a gen Datejust and it was the slow set date. A major headache if you do not wear the watch for a while and it runs down and the days go by.

Painters tape can be lightly applied to a Sub or SD dial without removing any of the existing paint. You may be thinking "So what?". But follow me here. Last night, I spent an hour applying and successfully removing painters tape from the dials of my WM DRSD and Comex non-date Sub. I did this several times on both dials without any visible change to the appearance of either dial. The DRSD is about 5 months old and the Comex Sub is about 5 years old (the dial has a bit of discoloration due to age). The tape has to be applied lightly, just enough pressure to get it to stick and not so firmly that it will remove the paint when the tape is removed. The point is that if a few more details can be worked out, this means that there may be a way to mask the non-lume parts of a dial to make reluming an easy procedure for modders. The next step is to figure out how to locate and cut out holes in the painters tape corresponding to the exact size, dimensions and locations of the index markers on a Sub or SD (or whatever) dial so as to create a template that could be placed over the dial to make reluming a simple process. I am just starting to play with ideas, but two options might be to use tracing paper to create a master and then transfer the coordinates for the indexes onto the painters tape. Or use a flatbed scanner to scan the dial image into a graphics program and print out a paper master. Cut out the holes and then trace them (the holes) onto the painters tape. I am sure there are other (better) methods, but that is where I am now. Once the template mask is placed onto the dial, one simply dabs the lume paste onto the index markers through the cutouts and then peels off the painters tape. The result should look like a standard silk screening. And the real beauty of this is that once you have a master template for a particular watch dial, the template can be mass produced, making the tedious and difficult job of reluming a rep dial a pretty quick & easy job that most modders should be able to on their own.

Alligoat -- I have a 5 year old Comex Sub that has one of these bezels. I have tried all the usual procedures for removal (which work on everything else), but it will not budge. In fact, I slightly cracked the original crystal in doing so. Tim -- Watchmaster and MBW are sort of interchangeable and semi-generic terms for a type of rep that is very popular among modders. Their main claim to fame is the fact that the cases are very close in size and dimension to the genuine models they copy. Because of this, you can often replace parts like bezels and crown tubes with genuine parts with little or no modification to the rep case. There was a group buy of MBWs through TTK recently, but I do not know if any of the watches have arrived yet or if there will be another group buy. TTK or one of the members of the buy might want to chime in here if there is more info. I have been thinking seriously about getting one of the bezel removers, but at something like $175, I want to be absolutely sure it will actually remove (safely) all of these problem bezels (as well as some of the vintage and current Daytona bezels) before spending that kind of money. I know a couple of members own them, so if they can offer any input on the subject I think alot of people here would appreciate it.

Thanks Randy, but this brings up 2 more questions. 1. Do you mean that the movement in the genuine DRSD that the WM DRSD is based on would have had one of these older 1570s that did not hack? So the non-hacking 2846 that I just installed in my WM DRSD is more accurate than the hacking 2846 I just removed? 2. I am confused about the quick set dates. Although neither hacks, both of the 2846s I got from Ofrei have quick set dates. Did any of your 2846s have quick set dates? The DRSD I received from Watchmaster came with an ETA 2846 that had both the hacking feature and quick set date. The 2 movements I received from Ofrei look exactly like the one I took out of Watchmaster's watch and they have the same quick set date but no hacking feature. So by my count, there are at least 3 different versions of the ETA 2846 movement -- 1 that has both the hacking and quick set date (like the one that came with the WM DRSD), 1 that has the quick set but not the hacking feature (like the movements I got from Ofrei), and 1 that does not have the quick set date or the hacking feature (like Ubi's).

Congrads. That is one of the most beautiful versions of one of the most beautiful watches in the world -- black dialed PN Daytona. Now if I could only find one of the non-Oyster (button pusher) DW Daytonas for myself. The stuff dreams are made of.

Thanks Stilty. Are you or anyone else familiar enough with WM's DRSD to know which gen movement would be correct -- hacking or non? While hacking this subject, I might as well kill two birds -- I also have a Comex no-date Sub (the one with narrow 3, 6 & 9 indexes that came with the 'Comex 729' on the back) that I was also going to use one of these 2846 movements in. Does anyone know if the movement in the gen Sub hacked?

Tim -- I know about those Accutrons. I have been on the lookout for a nice Spaceview 214 myself for several years. Almost bought a mint one about 5 years ago, but I thought the $300 price tag was outrageous and I am kicking myself now. Unless the core is damaged (it looks ok in your pics) or there is something special about the wire (which I doubt), I would think that most transformer manufacturers would be able to re-wind them or produce something similar (if they do not already have something similar on the shelf). If not, they should be able to point you in the direction of someone that could. You just need to match the wire type & gauge, winding layout and number of turns on the core. Coils are pretty basic components. I no longer have the tools required, but I used to wind coils that were only a little bit larger for electronic kits that consisted of wire that was a little bit thicker than human hair. I wonder if there is a problem with some of the other electronic components -- alot of older 1960s capacitors and ICs are no longer made and some can be very hard to source. After I posted this it occurred to me that you might even try phonograph cartridge makers like Audio Technica, Shure, Grado, etc., since most cartridges contain very small coils (smaller than the coils in a watch) and they often use all sorts of exotic wires and winding techniques. I am sure that one of these companies could assist you.

I have not tried it, but I bet a hair gun or heat gun will do the same thing without any damage or discoloration.

Good to know I am not alone in running non-hacking 2846s, but I would still love to know why some of them (like the one I just removed from my WM DRSD) hack? OR.............are the gen DRSDs supposed to hack?? Does anyone (Ziggy or Ubi) have the stats on which of these had hacking movements? It would still be nice if the movement hacked (much easier to set the time), but if the gens do not hack, then I might just live with it.

The jaggedness is only noticeable under 2x or higher magnification. Here is a 48-bit 1200 dpi scan The '11' on my 2nd DW looks better, so I think there may be some variability from DW to DW since the problem seems to be in the vinyl material and not the printing.