Nanuq

I’ve been after this project since forever. I always missed having a Red Sub in the lineup. I dabbled here and there and each time the results were horrible. Finally I found an old school MBW and the game was on. I watched from the sidelines until the “right” dial showed up, then I found the right bezel and started aging it. I went with a very early pointy-four insert and amber pip. Then an original Polex Pete silver flat-three overlay washed up on these blissful shores. I tried 1,000 different T127 crystal and ring and bezel combinations until settling on the Sternkreuz. Then I filed and sanded the MBW ring until it all went together. Then I sent it all off to my ever-patient builder and gave him very minimal guidance: “use your artistic eye”. He machined the case and worked the details until it all fell together, and now it’s home and finished. I still need to have the PP overlay installed, but everything else is DONE. And what a beauty. It’s more than I hoped for. Thanks again to NeckyZips for being reliable, and being patient with me. The man is an artist nes plus ultra.

Thanks mate. We were talking last week about vintage builds that have that certain intangible “something” that puts them over the top. I think this one is right there. Big props to Neckyzips for his artistic eye.

I really don’t know. It came with the handmade case and the texture, fonts and plots are perfect. Even the chipped chapter ring looks right. The A in SUBMARINER is ever so slightly too pointy but I can live with that.

You’re right Buddha, it’s much more like a 6202 Turnograph case. Good eye. I thought about grinding it flat and decided to leave it as is.

After about three years' time, I can call this one "done". The case looks to be hand made, from maybe the 70s, likely from Vietnam. It's nearly perfect, though a little too rounded on the sides. Inside the case back is the curly Rolex logo from the era, stamped deeply. The serial numbers are age appropriate and it has BREVET+ between the 12:00 lugs. I put a Brevet+ crown on it, and the dial is correctly dished, but chipped around the edges because the case maker didn't provide a good way to anchor the movement inside. The hands it came with were horrible, made from bits of different hands soldered together. The hours hand looked like card stock and the seconds was 2mm short. Over about a year I put together the parts, including a Tonny Watch negative relief gloss gilt dial (magnificent) and a perfect set of hands I found on eBay. We went back and forth and decided to use the original chipped dial because it has the patina and it's correctly dished. I went with a low beat ETA because a reliable A260 movement doesn't exist. And now here it is, and dang it, sitting here on the desk beside me it looks exactly like my 62 year old gen 6536/1. It looks absolutely genuine. I wish I could upload high quality photos to do it justice.

All the dealers will claim theirs is the best, it's always that way. Over time people will buy and evaluate them, and it will get pretty clear, pretty fast, which are good and which aren't. It's always been this way. So be patient, take your time, and enjoy the benefits of everyone else here testing the waters for you. Or be brash, leap in and buy one, reject it, buy another, reject it too, buy a third, do a comparison between the three, and show us which is best. That too has always been the way. But one way costs much less money.

I thought I’d try the Big Gonzo on a leather strap.

I used to have confidence that eBay weeded out the junk, but no more. I collect Eskimo art, specifically Fred Machetanz. There are two more pieces I want, each going for around $2,000. Around Christmastime I found one over there for a killer price, but it didn't look quite right. I did a lot of zooming and comparing with known good examples, and discovered it's a reproduction on canvas. I alerted eBay and gave them my proof, and they did nothing. It stayed up until someone paid four figures for it. Now eBay is flooded with fake prints and I'll never buy another one. Caveat emptor.

Call me old school, but I think four digit Rolex should have hollow link bracelets. All of mine do. That tinny jangly cheap rattly sound as you wear them is just part of the scene you occupy as you take yourself back 40 years and strap them on. There's just one flaw with Mary's band, and it's easily fixed. Et voila' voici un très bon sosie de 9315.

Another tactic is one of Mary's hollow link 7836 bands. Put a 9315 clasp on it, and you're pretty much done. Except for those lousy "figure eight" end middle links.

Hi Pezzie, I just set your account to VIP. The forum software usually handles that automatically but I get the sense you're pretty keen for a 1675. You're set to post a WTB ad now. Good luck!

What he said. Our brains are remarkably good at making sense out of coherent information and being happy, and when things don't add up somehow, in the slightest way, they immediately alert us something is wrong. That mark in the dirt on the trail, there's a bear nearby. Those slightly turned front wheels of the car in the intersection, he's about to hit you in the crosswalk. It's the lizard brain and millennia of remembered lessons. So "The Look" is remarkably hard to achieve. The pieces all "go together" and they all tell the same story. In my eye it's nearly perfect. To put it over the top, I'd hollow out the pearl and make it a little less yellow. Cut off a pushpin and use it like a drill. Then you need to wear the hell out of it. Use it for EVERYTHING. Yard work, gardening, carpentry, surfing, cutting wood, changing the oil. I had to do that with the Big Gonzo and it made all the parts "tell the same story". In a year it will look exactly right. Well done! That's an accomplishment to be proud of. Like Timelord said, "Built not bought".

Yes the triangular ring compresses the crystal onto the rehaut neck. Then you can see in pic #4 how I changed the flats on the wire retaining ring they are more like points, and give more friction against the ring. Then the bezel is held more tightly against the retaining ring.

Hi Ronin, let's see if these pics help. AFAIK the newer 5513 et al are held on by friction between the bezel and ring. The bezel literally snaps over the ring with an interference fit, and the dished spring exerts upward pressure onto the bezel, creating friction between the top of the bezel and underside of the ring. Press down to turn. For the older models, the bezel snaps over the ring, again with an interference fit. The retaining ring is triangular in cross section, and the wire spring sits beneath it, making friction against the underside of the triangle. I've found I can bend the wire spring to accentuate the points of its hexagon, and get more friction. These are all gen These are my MQ 6538, built with the same gen construction, same triangular ring

Best thing is to be here regularly looking for new posts since your last visit. A good build takes a lot of effort to get right so the good ones don’t come up for sale very often. But if you keep checking you’ll eventually be in the right place at the right time. Another option is to sign up for VIP so you can post a WTB topic. Good luck, a 1675 done right is a thing of beauty.

My gosh, you have a perceptive eye. I was rather proud of that mark. Its intent was subtlety, to generate the nearly imperceptible impression of fatigue. I didn't want to make the watch look tawdry and used per se, but enjoyed. It was with the gentlest touch imaginable that blemish was placed, not unlike the hesitant kiss of young love or the gentle brush of an angel's wing: The dented crown, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.

HAAAAAAA!!!! I love it. But does it have to be a Doxa? How do you think the Nastymariner got to be so gorgeous?! Yes, that IS an 1/8th gap between the endlinks and the case, and no, it didn't really come with a domed crystal.....

Magnificent! I can just hear them now as they sidle up to you, batting their baby blues... "Tell me, big boy, what's your lug spacing?!"

Cull the herd.... you know, there are 3 or 4 watches I'm thinking of getting rid of....

You mean.................. this?

That was (cough) one month this summer. I may have got a little carried away. Although..... I've seen a resurgence in Russian dive watches. Some tasty stuff there....

Cornerstone is getting ready to buy a rep? Oh this will be good. 🍿 This summer I went a little nuts buying and building dive watches, only one rep among them. Did you know you can make a Seiko SRP Turtle into a Doxa lookalike? That led to a very tasty Blancpain FF, then a Zodiac Super Sea Wolf, then a Maranez microbrand. Someone stop me!!

Ronin, you and Jigelo are exactly right. The place is aging and there's not much influx of new kids to keep the place hopping. When Whatsapp came out we lost more than a dozen of our core members, someone formed a group over there and called it RWG Elite or Alumni or something, and they left. The interface is easier to maneuver and it works a lot better than Tapatalk, so that kinda sunk us. It's sure great to see you and jigelow again! Stick around, hear?

Has anybody else noticed how the flavor of this place has changed over the years? We’re posting more gens than reps. Keep em coming! A little bauble for the ever-patient Ms Nanuq [emoji173]️