Nanuq

Freddy, one more important point that has not been made here: the dial painters you used will refuse to repaint a dial to change its "denomination" for lack of a better word. They will not paint COMEX where it does not belong and they will not change a Daytona into a PN. Period. They were willing to repaint my Radial dial as a glossy gilt 1675 only because there was no original documentation showing my '64 as matte or gilt, and the original dial had been changed by Rolex NYC to the "radial" variant.

Today I'm thankful I'm surrounded by family, and I'm thankful for friends past and present. On Thanksgiving, no matter where we were in the world, Larry would always send me a "give thanks" message. He's not with me anymore, so today I'll wear his watch in his honor. Give Thanks.

WM, I'm sure it's just a matter of time. But really it doesn't matter to me, there's not a lot of real discussion over there of what matters to me in watch collecting. I want to know how it was built, and why. I really don't care so much what it looks like. So was this a joke, or a prank? No. I posted a picture of a genuine Pan-Am "albino" 6542 that I happened to know existed. I'm sure the debate will rage for all eternity over whether it's genuine. Refer back to the other guy last week that posted his new 6542 with the non-original steel insert... that was received with open arms. If that's the only part of Freddy's watch that's not original, then it too deserves the same accolades. Yes I pull pranks, over here. On gen fora I love a good joke but I never deceive people. They're cut from different fabric. Most of them are far too serious and identify "who" they are by what they own. That kind of person rarely suffers fools so it's stupid to act a fool. So now I'm going to go put a voltage regulator from a Morris Minor on my $12,000 vintage Land Rover, and be proud of the fact that it still works as well as new. And that it's a real Land Rover.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm wearing these two: Thanks for being a mentor, Earl... And Larry, thanks for being my best friend...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Whoever, get on a plane and you're welcome at my table. We're doing an old fashioned family dinner with roast beast (remember those 3 brown bears?) spuds and the works. Get on up here, we'll save a spot for you.

Yes that is against forum rules. And every part of Freddy's watches is genuine. So....... is it a replica? In my mind, no more than my vintage Land Rover, with every piece from the front bumper to the back replaced with genuine Rover parts, or aftermarket if no more parts are available.

Well said. Everyone is somewhere on a learning curve. I started out with an LCD watch that showed analog hands and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Lots of newbies are learning and refining their tastes and turning to gens... some are developing the skills to fabricate parts from scratch. We're all learning, hopefully with no end in sight. It would be shocking to find someone in our corner of the watch world being ostracized because his watch didn't meet some artificial standard. That kind of snob is not welcome here. Nobody here is enough of an expert to look down his nose at anyone else. Period. There will always be someone smarter than me, with better watches. It's a humbling thought, one well learned. In the end, there's a huge variety of watches out there, because we're a huge variety of consumers. I'd hate to have to own one of your newer Daytonas (all due respect) but I'd love to wear a Jean Claude Killy especially if I'd been able to replace the crystal and crown myself. Truth be told, I'd rather have your Phase-2 6542 with a black gilt dial than my all original 1964 GMT with the radial dial. And the custom "dual date" feature! Life is short. Enjoy the day Freddy. Now where did I put those BSC fasteners? My exhaust manifold is leaking. Again.

Really, in the end, aren't these all just wristwatches? It's fun over there, or I should say it was fun, posting up the photos of my gens. I got a lot of nice comments but it's dawning on me that it's mostly about "look at my new watch!" over there. That's fine and all, but in this place we get to talk about things like soldering up parts to make our own GMT hands. And minute details like the contour of a 6542 crystal retaining ring. That's my cuppa tea. I guess that's why I'd rather drive an ancient Rover instead of a sparkly new one... I'd much rather be able to completely disassemble it, fabricate new parts, and rebuild it again. That makes it "mine". I like that. It was fun and all, there's lots of fine people over there, but I think I'm home here with you lads.

I'm almost ready to post the photo from TZ ... as a "look what I found!" comment. I wonder if that would force his hand?

Yeah, and I had people agreeing with me that it was an extremely rare "dual date" 1675 with parallel date wheels. I mean come on, people... use your brains. There is no such thing as a "dual date". It's like these people are afraid of failing to adequately worship their watches or something.

Yes, that's the white 6542, it was in the thread about makine a "white" GMT from an EXPII and a 16750.

I better not.... it's watermarked with "FREDDY333" and a google search for that reveals a bunch of links back to here, including pics of your Phase-1 6542. But here's another great photo from an old By-Tor thread where someone put an EXP-II dial into a 16750:

I'm a member over there... want me to toss it out there as a Google search nugget?

Yeah Freddy, toss up the "raising the bar" photo. They'll fall over dead.

Hah! Kind of like my other cars... I think they have air conditioning, but who's to say? Never tried it.

I feel your pain. But not my toes... it was -14F driving to work in my old Land Rover and the heater was making vague warm suggestions, at best. I kept most of the ice scraped off the inside of the windows, and now she's sitting with the windows open to air out. By this afternoon the moisture from my breath will have sublimated and I'll have clear glass again. Pretty neat how that works. Whoops! Time to go outside and plug the old girl in.

Mmmmmmmmm, tasty! Nicely done.

Nope, the bears are all snoozing now. The woods are MINE for another 6 months!! But this morning, coming down off the mountain I saw the biggest Lynx ever. WOW was he a big boy! Snowshoe hares nowhere to be seen...

Yeah baby! We'll build a fire on the deck and roast a weenie. If the flame freezes we'll just break off a piece and take it inside to finish the cookin'.

I like the Davis Vantage Pro. It updates the display much more frequently than the other brands so you can catch the big gusts. And it keeps graphical history for each sensor so you can look at trends. Up in the mountains we get wild weather and I can watch the barometric pressure coming in waves by watching the history. It's wireless too, so I put the sensors outside and set the receiver indoors, then on a separate channel I rebroadcast my signal so my mini station in the bedroom upstairs gets the same display. The only shortcoming is the wind cups flying off at high speed in the cold, but most locations don't have to worry about that. TeeJay, the International Date Line runs between the islands, called locally Ignaluk and Imaqliq, for Little and Big Diomede. They're also known as Tomorrow Island and Yesterday Island, because the one in Russia is 20 hours ahead but it's only 2 1/2 miles away. Yes, your life would be brief in that water. It's slushy down to about 20 degrees from the wave action, then a good cold snap freezes it solid. We swim in 40 degree water in summer and we're okay for 20 or 30 minutes. But that stuff will take you out.

TeeJay, actually, the natives have relatives across the water, so when the ocean freezes up they run across there on snowmachines. Their genetic histories go waaaaaaaaay back together. JMB, did you say -54F? Pffffffffft. T-shirt weather. My job prior to this one was on the north slope, in the corrosion control group. We had to read all the sensors every week and plot failure rates. -54F was like a summer breeze, a walk in the park with your sweetie. We'd often slip off our boots at -54F to enjoy the soft snow between our toes. ;-) One week it hit -72F ambient and the wind kicked up to 45mph. The wind chill was off the bottom of the charts, but we estimated it at -165 to -170F. That was a touch chilly. Freddy, it's not really cold out, but the wind is brutal. We use arctic entries so the house stays pressurized in the wind, and the windows don't blow in. There are companies here that specialize in coating the inside of house windows so when they break the shards stay together like a car window in a crash. Up at the mountain house I have windows 10 feet tall across the downwind side of the house, and it's still scary as heck watching them flex as the wind sucks the cedar shakes off the house. On the downwind side. I got my favorite wife a really cool birdhouse for outdoors, it's 2 feet square, built like a victorian mansion, with peaks and gables, and weighs like 40 lbs. I mounted it to a post outside, on the ground, and I went to check on it (can't see it from the house with the swirling snow). This morning it's......... gone. Just completely gone without a trace. Not even any shrapnel out there. Nice thing though, this weather will get the crabby old bears into their dens so the woods are MINE again! Gimme my skis!

freddy, yeah, the centrifugal force of the high speed spinning tears the little cups off the ends of the arms. And don't believe that nonsense about "-39" windchill. Holy CRAP is it cold out there. maxman, here's how close Russia is... that's it across the open water there.

We're having a bit of winter weather here... fricken wind broke the anemometer again!

Here's a Yuki pearl after much fiddling. I polished and drilled it, and filled it to match the hands. It stands slightly too proud of the insert, but it's pretty close.

Oh, that's nice. Can we have one BIG photo straight on, of the installed completed dial? I'm thinking of begging JMB for a gilt small rose dial. ..................like I need another piece to put into the rotation!