I make it a point to get together with him every time I go to Hawaii. He's crazy busy so no, he never checks in here anymore. Remember that Doxa SUB 300T we all chipped in for when he was in the hospital? He wears it every time. What a great brother.
Does anyone remember our own brush with infamy? Remember....... "Jetmid"???
He was our very own rich kid with private jets and expensive watches and hubris out the wazzoo.... and we had a lot of fun at his expense.
When I was building my Snowflake (Phong case) it would leak like that. Upon CLOSE inspection I found the "flat" area on the midcase where the caseback o-ring seals was deformed. It was bulged out a smidgen, probably when someone tapped threads into the new tube hole during manufacturing.
I had my guy machine that flat and that let the caseback come in a bit further and get the right squeeze on the o-ring.
That's the spirit! I thought I'd built an admirable 6538 until a couple guys here, when pressed, pointed out things I never even saw. That led me down a better path.
One more tiny detail, count the "teeth" on a gen 8mm crown vs. the Athaya crown. That's an arm's length visual that's pretty easy to pick out. You can refer back to my two earlier photos.
That's a beautiful result. That said, never say never ... just when you think it's done something else comes along.
Look at the "case" side of your 8mm crown. See how smooth it is? A gen crown has thin stainless wrapped over a brass form, and you can see the rough edges on the inner face. I'm sorry I don't have a better picture, but here are two to show what I mean. I bet you could take some jeweler's tools and scribe the inner face of your crown to make it look more like the gen piece. With your skills it shouldn't be hard at all.
Athaya crown
Gen crown