Nanuq

JoJo, is it the "white copper" coin edge? It will fit my 6536 ... Can you send pics and a price?

JJ, can you PM me details and a price for your gen bezel? Aero, that's a GREAT build! Nicely done!

......or when you find yourself reading what Shundi wrote about watches instead of oogling his avatar.

Thanks Aeromatic, that's great advice. An abrasive like steel (wire) wool will definitely give a well worn, dulled look. I find also that a really old watch has shiny areas, with a patina of fine swirls and scratches. To get a subtle polish to the wire wool look, try some Flitz metal polish. It's a paste, and good for removing corrosion and final polishing. Work some in with your thumbs, then wipe and wash the residue off. Repeat until you get the level of shine you want.

Wait a minute. Are you saying you take your watch off at night?

...when you have CrazySaleMan on speed dial in case you forget your watch at home! Who ya gonna call ??

Good tips, Lani. Thanks. This is also true of those aftermarket riveted Rollie bands ... blasted little tiny screws will come loose and you're toast.

Have a speedy recovery! And put away your credit cards until the anesthetic wears off.........

Wow, Forrestal - that's a NICE insert. Did you age it yourself? That looks like the bezel from CWP. Smooth it with a mild abrasive to remove the sharp edges, then do the Freddy333 oven/cookies baking trick, and you'll get close to the look of the original "white copper" bezel with the plating worn off.

Long Live the Ubi-mariner!

Since his handle is "MOP" I propose building a Sub with a Mother of Pearl dial!

Very good! Now talk to me about the apparent width of the rehaut ring, the "original" dial diameter, and a no-crown-guards case.

Good, good... now what's the most troubling "feature" of all? (hint: there's another very lovely 6536 sitting right there in the same Ebay search, for face-on comparison)

Hmmmmmmmmm... it took me about a year to find the Certina in my photos, and Corallines will take just as long. It sounds like you better find something else, and make it snappy! How about a Rolex 1016 Explorer? Gorgeous little things, and very sleek on a lady's wrist.

Okay lads, let's see if RWG is delivering on the knowledge base. No-crown-guard Subs have been discussed here quite a bit. Take a look at this auction and tell me if this is a genuine 6536. Ready? Go! Is it, or isn't it?

It's a looker for sure! And very interesting in that it's from the Synchron era, with matching signed crown and caseback, but not the dial. Nice! If anyone buys the Beads of Rice bracelet in his other auction, shoot me a PM and I'll send you a pair of curved endlinks for it. Or if you want to trade it for another similar but more correct (for the Synchron era) Beads bracelet I've got, I'm in.

The real backstory here, Lani, is that once you have that PloProf, you won't need the Ubiflake any more.

Ahhhhhhh, and that's what makes a vintage watch as a gift exceptional: it took some effort to find that piece. You didn't just walk into a shop and slap down some green, you searched for it, thinking of her the whole time. Hey, we all know we do it for other reasons too... let her think what she will!

I'm waiting for a photo of a real live member's watch to see just how red the printing really is.

Thanks, TMG! Say, you want to trade that "slightly used" vintage piece of RWG history for your NDT DRSD straight across? *crickets chirping*

Ahhhhh, this is a good time in your life. Your planets are coming into alignment! The ever-delectable Ms. Nanuq likes analog watches too, and really likes my vintage Doxa. So I went hunting with those criteria, and found two that fit the bill... the Doxa Coralline and the Certina PS2. Both are available with orange dial. In the end I went with the Certina, and she LOVES it. Doxa for the Ladies

The closest you'll find without spending your grandkids' inheritance is the MBW/K model. Unfortunately it comes with the same bizarre bezel they ship with the Milgauss. Most people that go this route wind up replacing the stock pieces with a CWP bezel and new crystal. So far I haven't seen how that attaches... dunno if the CWP piece clicks onto the crystal retaining ring, or if other work is needed there. The CWP bezel comes straight from the machine shop so its edges are very squared and sharp. If you smooth it off it will look more realistic. Then try Freddy333's trick of baking it with a batch of cookies to get a subtle golden hue. That's what you're looking for.

Boy there were some great posts here today. Thanks for chiming in, gents! I'd like to toss in another thought. Back when we were all watch noobs (except for Ubi, he was born a WIS) wristwatches and clocks were mysterious beasts that could only be opened, much less touched in the innards, by grey haired men with aprons that smelled vaguely of oil and pipe tobacco. We knew there were wondrous things happening inside those cases, and if you listened closely you could tell watches apart by the sounds of their ticking. But God forbid you ever touched the guts, for fear of breaking it! Time passed, and each of us experienced the very first time when we opened a caseback, laid the watch down on a table, and leaned in close. We saw the balance turning and the wondrous little bits moving around, and held our breath so we wouldn't get it steamy. We soon closed it back up, but the seed was planted. And before long, we had it open again. Then came the time we did our very first surgery, removing a movement from the case. We were oh so careful to not lose those !@#$^!^&* tiny little screws, but dammit they just seemed to jump off the table. With trembling hands we turned it over and dumped the movement into our hand, and felt the world pause for just a moment. We looked at the dial and the hands, wishing for a better magnifying glass. All those gears and screws! It was simultaneously breathtaking and frightening, so delicate and breakable and fascinating. It just felt like it was breaking as it sat in our hand, so pretty quick we put the movement back in, half of us boogered up the keyless works getting the stem back in, and we struggled for a half an hour to get that !#@$%#$^@# tiny little fricken screw back into the case clamp, but lo and behold, the threads caught and it sunk down tight against the clamp and wow... the movement was back in! We gave the stem a few turns and it took off running, and we felt like we had just climbed Everest. And all of a sudden, that watch was ours. We had taken it apart, and rebuilt it, and it still worked. Now it meant something to us... it was more than "just a watch", it was part of us. Something to be proud of. Any old Joe can buy a watch from a showcase. To take one apart and reassemble it and have it work... that makes it a part of you.

Sorta gave the hands and indices a pleasant smoky color, didn't it?

Yeah I think when it comes to cooking a watch with heat... this takes all the marbles. Did you know it's possible to melt a sapphire crystal? Neither did I. That sucker's collapsed in the middle. And truth be told, I didn't "just" use a gas burner.