Nanuq

Even though we’re overcast and raining it’s still light enough for beers on the deck. Who’s coming?!!

Easily fixed.  Dab on a little of this, problem solved.

You betcha! Every good Norsk has one in their freezer

@gran  it's your birthday!  Are you going to step in here with a wicked wristie?     

Per Rolex lore, this was the very last dial Jean-Phillipe the typesetter produced before being thrown out the door.

He had a nasty habit of sneaking a sip of the devil's brew between dial batches and his typesetting suffered.  Before long it became all too obvious when he messed up the spacing of the "o" in "chronometer" one time too many.

"OUT!" shrieked Hans Wildorf, and Jean-Phillipe was left with no other employment prospects than carving lawn ornaments.

Magnetism?  How long would it take for every wheel, rotating at its own rate, to go around until their all their alignments (say, north to south) lined up again?  This would be like the world's gnarliest least-common-denominator problem.  Maybe when every magnetic field on every part aligns it's enough to stop the balance?

Or maybe it's as easy as a kink in the mainspring and as it unwinds it "catches" as it goes around?

Paul and Womart, eh?  I remember having a watch from him that stopped the same time every day.  Tearing it apart I found a very nasty, very curly little black hair in the movement.  

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww.

Here's a mind bender... midnight on the Kobuk River, might as well have a weenie roast with some friends!  When the sun refuses to go down, we just STAY up.  Sleep?  We sleep when we die.  It's summer in Alaska!

Midnight in Alaska   (contrast adjusted to look all dark and creepy)

...when really it's plenty light enough outside to go for a mtn bike ride, then have a weenie roast on the deck with some friends. 

Behold the sacrificial Seiko ... soon to become a Caribbean "Soxa".

What a great post! And we tend to see ourselves as technically superior to those who came a century before us. It does my heart good to read articles like this. Thank you!

There are a few things in life where you can truly say it's much more of an art form than a science.  Any robot can make a watch, but an artisan builds a timepiece.

Well crap I’m sorry for misleading you about that dial. VH is as reliable a source as they come.

My God, that’s ......... something.

Speaking of crazy colors, what happened to the infamous Hands Around the World pink RWG traveling watch?!

Hey now.  Don't tease me like that.  We don't mention lavendar unless we really MEAN lavendar.     

@chrgod is in da house!!!   

Nice to see you again!!

Boy if I had a login to the server where that html lives, it would be a 30 second job.  I know Admin (Thomas) does, try PMing him or chat him up on WhatsApp and see if he can SED the file to replace rwgforum.net with rwg.cc

He's a geek and he'll totally know what you mean.  Or see if there's a way to make a translation term for rwgforum.net to automatically turn it into rwg.cc

Note when we try to write Ziggy on here it autochanges to The Zigmeister?  That's in the settings.  It might be possible to make it do that for URLs too.

7 minutes ago, robertk said:

I miss Jetmid!

Me too.... but my aim is improving.

Wowsers!  Do they make Patek Philippe Annual Calendar Chronographs in ORANGE now??!!!

   Gotta have one.

Welcome aboard!  This guy can be a pain to deal with, but he's got parts.  How about some pictures??

http://www.ofrei.com/page_156.html

Here are some reference shots from my 1972 Sea Dweller.  This has had A LOT of diving use all over the world so the shape of the CGs and lugs will possibly be a little worn down.  But the brushing on top of the lugs is factory so those have not changed shape.  In these pics it's wearing a factory service T-39 crystal.  Note this has the factory 702 crown which is slightly thinner than a contemporary 703 so it makes the CGs look different by comparison.

Since those pics were taken I've switched the service crystal for a factory vintage Tropic 39 Superdome and that changes how the dial looks.  I've found the Clark T-19 Dome is very close to this look, though thinner in cross section so the dial won't look quite like this.  Notice how the rehaut disappears in the curvature of the dome.

I hope these help.  Please let me know if you need more shots from specific angles.

Is that the most elegant seconds hand in all of Creation?  Love the tool marks on the 12:00 marker too.  

Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry classy.

1 hour ago, cornerstone said:

Perhaps we need a zone, or a 'vibe' of general arcticness where eye-mask headlamp combos could cover all the seasons? 

"General Arcticness"       

What an oddysey.  I'm glad you finally have your answer.  These old school watch smiths are a marvel to work with.  I have a 62 year old Submariner and it was running poorly so walking home one day I popped into a jewelers shop with a small Rolex sign in the window.  The old guy behind the counter perked up his ears when he overheard me describing it to his pretty salesgirl, and asked to see it.  He listened for a moment and handed it back "the beat is all wrong and it badly needs a service".  I thought shenanigans so I challenged him "how can you tell?" and he gave me a withering stare "just listen to it man!"

That was the start of a long friendship.  We talked Submariners for an hour and as I was leaving I asked how old the thing was?  He popped off the band, looked at the serial number and said "April, 1958".  I thought shenanigans again so again I challenged him.  It was then he took me into the Holy of Holys, his workshop.  My God.  He opened the thickest book I ever saw, rummaged around and found the page.  Ran his finger down a column and poked it.  I looked, and sure enough ... my serial number was late first quarter, 1958.      

Tom Nesbit.  Genius.  After we moved back to Alaska many years later I popped into a jewelers shop, again for my old Sub, and the kid behind the counter struck me as a bit wonkish, geeky, uncomfortable around people but friendly with watches and ... he wore a lab coat.  Just like someone else I know.  He listened to it and diagnosed it in a moment.  I thought "there's no way....." and I called shenanigans.  "Where did you learn to do that, Mister Lab Coat?"  He told me "I apprenticed under an old school watchmaker..." and I smiled and completed his sentence for him.  He was shocked that I knew Tom, but there are certain skills and traits that identify us.  When you've seen enough of how something is supposed to look and supposed to run, you recognize it immediately.  And you also know immediately when it's not quite right.

3 hours ago, Justasgood said:

BTW, banks make loans😜

Wait, what?????   And nobody told me??????

"Hello Trusty, I'd like to place an order.  I'll have one of these, one of these, two of those, why don't you toss one in for you wife... let's have one of those, and another in black....."

Ahhhhhh, it just looks like a Doxa.  It's actually a Seiko SRP dressed up like a Doxa.    

I'm trying to decide if my next one will have the black dial with orange minutes hand, or the blue Caribbean dial.