Nanuq

Outstanding job! Those are impressive results.

I've got the Maranez vintage, Maranez "contemporary" and the Heimdallr. Each one has its own strengths, but for best wearability I'm leaning toward the Tactical Frog. It also looks slightly bigger in the dial opening. Now I'm champing at the bit for a dive tables bezel. When are you posting photos of your Seestern?! Looking at photos online it looks just like the V2 Maranez in profile. Although I did see a link claiming Heimdallr is releasing a new bezel design. This could be the one!

I’d love to see Heimdallr adopt the dive tables bezel engraving. That would be the ultimate for me. The slightly domed crystal and low bezel make this thing just disappear on the wrist.

Forget about the Frog? Heresy!!

Yes please, I’ll have six each 702 crowns and tubes. And toss in a couple 1030 balances.

Tactical Frog (chuckle snort) gawd I love that name! If you’re on the fence about buying one, don’t be. These things are amazing!

I’ve thought about applying a little heat to remove the cling film... think this would do it?

I bought two new watches and tracked them to my door. Eager with anticipation I cut the miles of strapping tape and cardboard holding the Pelican boxes inside. With trembling hands I opened the first and there it was, my lovely new dive watch. And then it hit me. Oh no. Dear God, no. I forgot about the horror that is Cling Film. Every watch I've bought in the last 5-10 years has been encased in ever increasing amounts of cling film. It used to cover the crystal and caseback, now it covers every square millimeter of the watch, self adhering like a demented squid. It's in every crevice, it's on both sides and the sides of the band, it's in every deep hidden place in the clasp, in the endlinks, between the endlinks and the case... the stuff is everywhere. It's on the end of the CROWN, for crying out loud. And is it easy to get off? Oh hell no. Get out a fine blade and carefully slip it between the film and the steel, cutting it loose. And as you do, watch the fine scratches appear on your otherwise unblemished watch ... BECAUSE YOU HAD TO USE A KNIFE. I can't be the only one that hates this. Maybe the Trusted Dealers should have a checkbox on their systems where as you complete your purchase, you click the box to indicate Don't Wrap My Watch In @!#$^#$%^(I^@ Cling Film. Just think, they wouldn't have to pay some poor schlub to put all that cling film on there in the first place. Can it be that hard? I can dream, can't I? Until then I'll have to remember to keep a nice 12-year single malt available for the unwrapping chore.

Look at that luscious "dive tables" bezel, just like God intended. And a better quality BOR (even tho the endlinks fit is off) Time to order the Seestern Vintage!!! ......unless someone comes up with a link for a vintage domed crystal version that has this great bezel on it?

Yes indeed, and the yellow is even better, and the orange even better than that! Don’t get me started on the turquoise... I already sent mine plus some Yobokies “Doxa” hands for a little mix-n-match. It’s like a candy shop! Although, close inspection of the BOR band makes me think those are links that look like a BoR. Easily solved with a visit to Squinkys on eBay.

Hey it may seem like a bad idea now, but you just wait until North America runs out of reading glasses in +2.0 Who’ll be sitting pretty then! my precious......

I may have *cough* gone a bit overboard ordering those beauties.

How about a Heimdallr SUB 300T? For $179 shipped you can’t go wrong!

In my experience all the readily available "Rollie" cases take a 20mm bracelet, the only 19mm pieces you need to worry about are the vintage Daytonas. But some cheaper examples like the Silix are sized more like 40mm diameter, and the more expensive (more accurate) cases are gen sized at about 37mm. So dials, crystals and inserts aren't interchangeable. If you start out with an inexpensive case set, you're stuck using parts that will fit. Once you jump up to more expensive cases, then genuine and gen-spec parts will fit. You can make a darn realistic cheapie using the Silix sized cases and parts, and you'll be perfectly happy with it. For awhile. Then you'll catch the bug and start buying ridiculously expensive parts to build a gen-spec watch that really doesn't look that different than your first one. But you'll know the difference. It's an illness. Welcome to the Asylum! First one: Silix based. Second one: Phong based. Price difference: about $6,000

Hey brother I'm right there with you. To my feeble way of thinking I blame most of this not on Covid, but in what was done to us using Covid as an excuse. We've been lied to, we've been intentionally misled, we've been hyped up, we've been ridiculed, we've been called troglodytes for failing to "follow the science", when no two scientific bodies can agree on what the "science" even is, and we've ridiculed our brothers for wanting to have opinions different than ours. This last year and a half has torn families apart, it's torn deep friendships apart, it's torn apart the national pride and sense of trust that many of us hold dear. It has shaken us to our core and we are now divided. Left refuses to talk to right, red hates blue, country hates city, up hates down, in hates out ... we have been masterfully divided into smaller and smaller groups, and pitted against each other. Social media has become a cancer on society as we stand back and hurl anonymous rocks at our neighbors. We can now justify animosity toward "the other guys" because dammit, they hurt me or said bad things about me and I'm just not going to take it anymore. So we justify our behavior. What did Bill Maher call it the other day? The "dorm room bitch session" the internet has become? He's right. We are so focused on the meaningless minutia that we've lost sight of what matters. It's hard to feel admiration for the long, sensual beauty of the lugs on a Big Crown. It just feels... wrong. Superficial. Our minds are spinning with the latest statistics or the latest "facts" or the latest talking points or the latest news... looking for anything to justify our anger. Raw beauty is covered up with the dust of a crumbling society. Our attention is in all the wrong places and it's eating us up from the inside. Sure, a Lamborghini is enough of a sensual hit that it breaks through the fog for awhile. But a guilloche dial? Too easy to skip over. So what do we do? #1 - Turn off the damn TV. Quit visiting the political websites. STOP IT. Their goal is to make you angry enough that you'll click on headlines and satisfy your hunger for more adrenaline. It's all clickbait and they are spinning you up. They have you hooked. STOP. #2 - Go outside and play. Leave your phone home. That's right. Put it away. You'll live. See if you can turn it off and leave it off for 24 hours. Find a place and sit down and just look. Be still. Listen. Smell. FEEL. Do it for an hour. It's a lot harder than you think. Try writing down what you experienced at the end of the hour. See how much you can recall. #3 - Find another living being and share an afternoon with them/it. Take your dog for a walk, some place HE wants to go. Try to be as pure and simple and enthusiastic and "in the moment" as he is. Take your best friend or wife or someone special and go do something new with them. See them in your surroundings with new eyes. Smell. Listen. FEEL. Take it all in. #4 - Do something kind for someone else. Do it so they'll never find out it was you. As you're doing this kind thing, plaster a big dumb smile on your face and keep it there whether you feel like it or not. You'll discover the smile will make you happy, not the other way around. It always works, get in the habit. #5 - Pray. Meditate. Close off your distractions and spend half an hour with your "higher power", whomever you like to think that is. Express gratitude for how good your life is. Think of your friends and think something positive about each of them, and give thanks for each one. Feel gratitude. Speak thanks. There are lots more good steps I could list, but these are the biggies for me. They help keep the important things important, and push the nagging irritations to the back. They shut down the noise in your head and let you just .......... be. Pretty soon you'll start to treasure that sense of peace and it will slowly become important to you again. And when it does, simplicity and appreciation for simple beauty will follow. You'll realize your focus has shifted completely away from the craziness in the world, you'll appreciate leaving your phone at home when you go out, and you will have broken the hold this frantic world had on you. Be an oasis. Welcome people into your small, calm world. Refuse to react. Smile. Feel gratitude.

Time to exercise the safe queen

Looking back through this topic, we've apparently lost many of the earlier posts. So if you can, please put them up again. Here's one from me, a Doxa Black Lung, one of about 14 ever made.

Hey we need to keep this topic going! Here’s my contribution for tonight.

Back to the Oyster band

Ubi my old friend, I hope you don't mind if I post these. I saved them from when you first showed these two builds here.

AAARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I have JUST completed my intensive 2 week round of anti-seizure medication. I kept finding myself in obscure places, trembling like a leaf, with no idea how I got there. My team of doctors found what we believed the panacea and I dutifully completed the course of medication. My tremors had subsided and I've had no more blackouts for 3 days. And then @ubiquitous goes and posts this. My God in Heaven. It is absolutely unbelievable that something so perfectly executed could spring from the hands of a member of good old RWG. Ubi, could you tell us again how you accomplished this? I love to hear the story. *tremble*

Yikes! Thanks, I had no idea the prices have climbed that much. My new price.... one MILLION dollars.

When these things come back in stock they sell out in hours. I just checked and every color is back in stock! Go get 'em!! You won't be disappointed. https://www.maranez.com/shop?page=2