panerai153

Beautiful, That 's a great watch, and a really fine job of modding. Why don't you give us a brief synopsis of what you started with, what you did, and a ball park idea of the cost. I thought it was a gen when I saw the first photo!!

Looks like the rehaut on the puretime 6542's. Wok all the way!! Amazing how folks could bid on something like this. 5 minutes of research, Google Tudor 7016 and read and look at photos of genuine Tudors. Maybe I need to put mine on Ebay, it looks a heck if a lot better than this one!!! Just joking!

I can guarantee you that you will regret trying to get oil in the movement from the back like you asked. You will end up making it worse, then what are you going to do? Throw it away and buy a new watch, or get it serviced? Either way, you are going to spend the price of a service. If you can't afford to get it serviced properly, I would wear it until it either quits or becomes unreliable, then make the decision about the service or replacement. And for your info, KY Jelly is a vaginal lubricant, commonly known around hospitals as motion lotion!!

Pretty apparent that watch isn't going to fool anyone that has any knowledge of the GMT IIc's. you can see the flaws really well with the side by side. Blue is way too bright, but the numbers engraved in the insert are a real tell from afar. If it were me, I would wait on this model for a while, hoping the manufacturers fixed a few of the really bad. Mistakes.

Looks like the invisible watch!!!

For 125.00 USD, not bad, the dial plots are not correct, their is too much lume in each one. Gen and good aftermarket dial plots are flat, not convex like this one.

16613

Pretty easy, measure the size of the springbar inside the clasp, you can order them from any watch supply house, probably find them on EBay as well. That one was probably broken when it was put in at the factory. I have never had one of those internal springbars break.

The old White face.

It's a sad commentary to our society when you have to build a bank vault to store your possessions in. The sadder commentary is the thugs that steal because they are too lazy or stupid to find or hold a job, when caught, usually are back on the street before the police finish all the paperwork. .

I asked two days ago to have it closed, Mike asked that it be closed, it has deteriorated into a name calling, acrimonious thread that is not serving any useful purpose. What is happening is folks are saying things in the heat of the moment, which some will regret later on. Sadly, some don't even have a dog in this fight, but post anyway. I can guarantee, nothing good is going to come out of this. Mike, if you are reading this, don't get sucked into this any more than you have. I know that a lot of the comments have been hurtful to you and make you angry, but the best thing is to stay above this, keep working and all this will pass.even though it's difficult, try not to let this thread lead you to make statements you will regret later. This thread, like every. one before it will, if not closed will run it's course. Have a great day everyone.

Don't build it like my 16613!!! Make a budget and price all your parts on the high side What I believe you will find that when you factor in using all gen parts, movement, dial, bezel/ insert, crown/ tube, you are going to find that the sum total of all the parts is going to be very close to the cost of a genuine.

Looks like a sort of off white, or maybe cream,not champagne or white

That's not the point. Not everyone is waiting on parts from China. And even if they were, and update is in order if the customer wants one. A simple, your part is on the way or they sent the wrong part, is sufficient.I'm very happy for you that your line of communication has been intact, unfortunately, that has not been the case with others. Under normal business circumstances, if I were waiting on a part, or my order for something was delayed, I would get on the phone and call the business and ask customer service where my order was, or shoot them and email asking the same question. I don't think that in all my years of doing business, I have had to wait over a day or two to get a reply from someone. In Mike's case, I don't have access to his phone number,and like others, my PM's have to this point been unanswered.

I agree, very nice, if you can find a recent "pointy 4 insert, you will have a wonderful example of a 16610.those are really nice watches, and pretty darn close to perfect out the box.

You are right about the build, you warned me about all this way back when I first posted the TW best photos!! I do like this one a lot, and It is sure to be a permanent part of my collection. Thanks very much for your input.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the smaller watches, in fact I believe that the trend will turn toward smaller size watches over time. There are just too many of us who have smaller wrists that cannot wear a 44-48 mm watch. I have an IWC Gold Calatrava, it's probably 36 mm and it is a wonderful dress watch. Looks great with a suit or Tux. I don't wear it often, but it's one of those that will hang around forever, as it has a definite niche.

That's a great front for building reps, if this is indeed the case. Have a nice well equipped factory, build sterile legit watches on the day shift, and build reps on the second shift! watches are exactly the same except for dials and rehaut engraving. If the police show up, with a few minutes warning, the reps disappear and everyone is working on the legit sterile dial watches. Great idea.

Very interesting!!! Why would anyone post a bunch of reps onWUS? Just asking for the flame thrower to be directed at him. All I can say is either this guy is the most naive guy in the world, or he is a con artist with balks of titanium!! Great entertainment.

Thanks Mike I appreciate your response.

He still hasn't contacted me despite PM's on the 18th, one on the 22nd and another yesterday, simply asking for and update on my Daytona.

Man, you know, I never noticed that. At some point, I'll send it to Matt, he has someone in Dallas who is a professional dial refinisher who can redo them or replace them. Thanks for pointing that out. At normal hand to eye distance it's not visible. I actually took some more photos this afternoon and i'll look at them.

I can't either!!! I would have probably had an MI if I had kept up with the costs. It doesn't hurt as much, because you aren't paying attention when you spread it out over months.

I've posted a couple of threads here about my 16613 that I bought back in March. First thread, everyone said the dial was terrible, which it was, and the worst thing, the case is none gen like and will not accept a gen bezel or crystal. Since I'm pretty into frankens, I was not happy with the watch, but what the heck, it could be fixed. When folks post here, and ask about building watches, I have always chimed in with advice about deciding what you want to do, make a budget and try as much as you can to stick to it. Sort of "plan your build, build your plan" great advice, right, too bad I'm not good at taking my own advice. I think now with 20-20 hindsight, a piecemeal build is probably the most dangerous to your wallet. you do a little something, quit for a while decide to do more, buy a couple of parts, send it off and when you get it home, you repeat the cycle. Sort of like someone building a two room house and then adding a new room every year or two until he has a 3 bedroom 2500 Sq. Ft house. in the end, lots more expensive than building it the first time. So here is my little tale of the "add on "watch. This watch has a long torturous history!! I bought it from a repgeek member in Greece. It started life as an old Eddie Lee TW best 16613 sub. I purchased a gen insert and crown from a member here. I sent it to Matt (mymanmatt) and he installed the insert, and a gen tube and the gen crown. He told me at the time the case was not gen like construction and he couldn't get the bezel off without bending it. Also it wouldn't take a gen crystal. So we went with what we had. I posted a review with a bunch of photos on RWG, and everyone pretty much agreed including me the dial was horrible. So back to Matt and a gen dial which he procured for me. When I got it back, the lumi dial glowed like a torch, but the rep hands were not so good, so I packed it up and sent it up to MD2020 to get the hands lumed to match the dial, no problem, got it done, got it back and the lume was very nice, matched perfectly. In the meantime, I got hold of a ST3135 case. This one is very, very close to the gen case. Matt also found a brand new 18k aftermarket bezel that I purchased, so packed it up and back to Matt for the third time. He replaced the case with the 3135 case, installed the 18k bezel, a gen crystal, gasket and retaining ring, my gen dial and insert and drilled out the bracelet endlinks to accept gen springbars. So 6 months later the only thing left from the old TW best 16613 are the movement, hands and bracelet!! It took a while and had I done my homework before buying rather than after, I might have just started with parts and gone from there. I got the watch in early March and got it back in the final version from Matt this past Thursday. So total three trips to Dallas and one to Chicago. Too bad I couldn't get frequent flier miles for it's travels. Sum total, I very reluctantly added up what it cost me, and the total comes out to a little North of 2.1K. I'm not real sure what I could have saved by starting off with a TC 16613 or just a gen spec case to start with, but if I had assembled all the parts at th4e beginning, it would have meant one trip to the watchmaker, not three. So that alone probably saves 120 or so dollars just in postage and insurance. Well no matter the costs, and all those trips to the PO, it's done, and finished!!! Nothing more, just a lot of wrist time.