altesporsche

I think the problem is when is it enough lol surely I agree that it's silly to pay 75% of the cost of a gen for a franken.. but I've done it. Like many of the fellas have mentioned above, it's about the search and the research of parts and period correctness etc..to get as close to the real deal as possible. I actually think that the guys here know a lot of the Gen watches more than collectors of gens. Ive bought a lot of gens and some quite expensive, but none of them felt as good to wear as a watch you spent, months, weeks or even years on building lol call me crazy but I enjoy it. Will I ever get back what I have out Into this hobby ? Hell no.. I have about 30 watches I'll never wear, but don't know how to sell them as I don't know what they are worth and can't be bothered with haggling with people on price etc.. from time to time I list some of it, if it's in front of me and I know people need it or are looking for it.

Black enamel paint or something. ill give it a go in the next few days and post back.

Just finally finished my 201A build. Quite pleased aside from I have to redo the black paint on the caseback and eventually get another CG as I'm not fond of this one. The build is: -Wolf reshaped 111 EL case to gen specs (this guy knows pre V cases well) with DSN crown and tube for pre V. -DSN CG refinished (not happy with this) -Matt C3 pre V spec crystal -dial is the new Rolie 201A dial and hands -Gen swiss 6497 with cote de Geneve in the correct pattern for a Pre V and correct markings for early pre V 201A, brass hour wheel like gen and polished CP -Jacob caseback with small serial -gunny tan strap I've had for years, so buttery soft !

That's not even a good rep lol and the 0035 serial is well known to be a fake and they all had that back in the day lol too funny !!

Dealt with her in the past ! A great addition to the community ?

Sorry didn't mean to insult if you took it that way when i assumed you were Norwegian Just assumed so as its quite hard to get into that sector of offshore. Its a great spot to be as im sure you know this from your son. The money is good but the schedule is the best you can get offshore. International Contracts are much higher paying, but you also dont get the same treatment as you would in the Norwegian sector. Ive been wanting to for years, but you would have to know Norwegian and mine isn't that great even after living there for a while. I was there with National Oilwell Varco, Aker's rival lol I almost went down the instrumentation road a while ago before i went to university. its a great field and pays well, also with the way the industry is now on a low they continue to be in demand, so a good place to be. Im sure when things pick back up your younger son will have no problem hooking a big job with an oil and gas company. Once you are in the industry you can pretty much pick what you want to do and where you want to go when the markets are up. I remember back 5 or 6 years ago, you could literally quit and have a job somewhere else the next day, i miss those days lol and the money was just insane. I had mechanics on my rigs making over a quarter of a million USD. That dial looks great !! how did you do the comex on the dial ? screen print or transfer ? it looks really good ! looking forward to seeing the finished watch. and budget builds are nothing to look down on.. ive seen some builds that were pretty damn fine and cost very little to do. It sounds like you have a lot into this one and im sure it will be well appreciated by your son ! looking forward to seeing the photos ! Cheers ! C.

Im a big fan of a vintage stuff as well ? I am also in the process of building a COMEX, but the earlier 5514 version lol it's been a two year or more process because I'm anal about parts. I will look forward to following your thread on the Comex for your son, I always loved the 16800's you are damn close on the Subsea engineer ? And yes on the oil and gas. I worked as a tooling engineer for ROV's for a while then a subsea engineer for some years and now back into my field of fluid power working as a hydraulic engineer for the complete drilling package and subsea systems. I get to get my hands dirty a little more and it keeps the mind fresh lol You must be Norwegian ? Or your son won the lottery lol as Norway is the dreamland for offshore workers. Everyone wants to work there but it's nearly impossible. Id go there in a second even with a hefty pay cut lol but a lot of it is because I love the country and would use it as an excuse to move there. Cheers and thanks for reading ! I'll be looking out for that project.

Already tried it and it's not good at all. I bought the 1mm and it's far too shiny and metallic for the I indicies.

Here is a quick job on a ceramic sub V3 all but the 40 , 50 and half of the triangle are painted quickly. Still looks miles better, hope this helps ! Cheers and good luck with it.

Hmm all I can say is give it a go, I don't see why it wouldn't work. I have a V3 sub here I can try as that also has the white paint. Ill get back to you, so you don't ruin your insert. Cheers

@Sogeha you saucy fella lol ?

Exactly @mrsoundman ! That was my point and the whole reason I posted this. Model paint for the most part is acrylic so you need to seal it and still it's just paint and will wear much easier than the chemical based paints used in a simple sharpie marker lol we use the gold version of this marker for marking stainless tooling that we send several thousand feet below the seabed to drill rock.. so it's a tad more durable than acrylic paint ? im not crapping on what this guy is doing, but yea I inquired about getting one done for a watch I'm building my brother (don't want to buy a gen insert to give away lol) and when he came back with it having to be removed (which is expected and quite easy for someone who's done it before) but for the majority of people who feel better sending it out to be removed, it becomes a pain in the ass. Then ship to Singapore, turnaround on his end is 2 weeks for his 99.99% platinum (which is impossible for this application) as there are only a few ways you can plate or coat non metal ceramics and plastics, one is electroless plating which would involve submersing in an etching bath that would ruin the polished surface as well, then you have sputtering which is the process of applying plating in a vacuum chamber and quite costly equipment (not worth it for this application) then you have electroplating which cannot be completed unless the electroless plating is performed as a means for the materials to adhere to in the plating process, then finally you have spraying which is taking a powder form of a metal and basically brazing the material (no go with Plastics) and I can't see this with ceramic due to the high melting temp of the 6 platinum group metals being between 1770deg C and 3050deg C, it's actually unlikely that even Rolex uses pure platinum as a plating on ceramic. I can see if the service included an insert and then you send your old one back etc.. but $290 is steep for "plating" as only the GMT will need the cleaning up of the edges (again visible under 10X not the eye unless really really looking for it) anyways that's just my 2 cents worth from 10 years of experience with precious and noble metals and a Phd in mechanical engineering. In my eyes with my gens next next to the "sharpies mod" lol it's much more worth it than giving someone almost $300 usd or more after having someone else remove it etc.. in which you are half way or more to the cost of a LN insert , just to make it look the same as spending an hour with a $8 marker that is nothing like the "old school" model paint mods..

I've seen this and it looks great and for those who do want to spend $290 usd to have it plated, sure go for it. It would be a waste on the LV as the color of the insert is wrong anyways, but this does take the rep LN and GMT to a higher level if you like to look at your insert with a 10x loop lol My "old school paint mod" that I descovered last week while trying different things, is for those who don't have or don't want to spend that kind of money on modding a rep insert and the rep inserts all aside from the GMT have nicely cut edges just not champhered as I have mentioned above. And it's actual metal in the marker and super easy to do. Alsp im making zero off this, its was purely an FYI to those who wanted to give it a go and have an insert that looks as close to gen as possible without spending a lot and an insert.

Hey glad you guys gave it a shot ! It is actually dead on with the silver on the GMT insert and the LV and LN Gen inserts I have. Good call on the cleaning with alcohol, to ensure a good bond. And in all reality even even if it wears after a while or anything, it's super easy to reapply. To be honest aside from the small champhered edge in the Indices (hardly visible to the eye) this takes the GMT and the LN to Gen look and well aside from the Green ceramic in some lights it also helps the rep LV as well. Looks awesome fellas ! Glad I could be of help to the community. Now if only we had a good green insert for the LV's things would get really interesting and save people the $1400 for a gen LV insert.

Directly over the paint that was there. Sharpies have a really good bonding agent in them and hard to remove when dry.

That's a damn nice watch !

I used a sharpie marker see the photo below, I only have gen inserts in my builds now, so I'm testing this out for the sake of the community ? I have another marker I need to check today, if you want to wait it may even be better. You see platinum isn't a shiny metal it's actually a dull grey that catches light a little different than gold or silver. When you see shiny platinum it's plated with rhodium or pladium etc.. by products of platinum production that have very high reflective properties. For example "white gold" is plated with rhodium for its reflective shine. I have a chrome marker im picking up today that I will try as well and I think given the textured base in the indices it will dull out the bright chrome to a sheen much like the gen color, or so I hope lol anyways I'll post on this later. Doing this as a little project to keep sane lol when I can get away from being a new dad ? Cheers fellas ! Here is the sharpie I used just incase anyone doesn't want to wait lol

Yea my intention for passing this info was for those who would like to DIY and for those who do not have a lot of experience in modding or painting parts etc.. so I've been testing different things. I'm trying to find the best and closest to the gen color without getting complicated and here's how I did that 116610LN insert ... with a silver metallic sharpie marker, a 2 pack for $6.99 at staples ? Lol it works and it's damn close to the gen color. Just filled the indices and rubbed over with fine micro fiber cloth to take away the access on the polished part of the ceramic. This is still preliminary and im still testing other things and have a few pretty cool markers ordered that actually have metal in them like the silver sharpie. So once I get them and try I'll post photos and what I have tried, I'm also going to see how durable the sharpie that I used is, but I'm guessing it's quite good because I use the black and other colors for marking steel through hyd fluid and grease etc.. at work. Cheers !

Here are some comparisons for the V6S compared to the gen half regular V6S and half painted. 30 50 and 40 are painted and the indices between, but the 10 side is unpainted and original V6S colouring

Been playing with paints and colors in some V6S inserts I have and a GMT CHS bezel that I have and came pretty close to the gen look with an easy fix.. have to see how long it will hold or how it looks in sunlight compared to the gen, but if so this is a $8 mod that fixes the shitty V6S plat color indices. This was a few tonight quick but good result in the 15min I spent at it. A 116610 insert that I had kicking around and a GMT next to my gen GMT. The numbers left of the triangle have been painted. Would like some feedback and the 116610 the left side has been colored. With the 116610 I have taken the photo on an angle to show that the original color goes flat unlike the gen that stays kinda bright in low light. So if you see to the top left it's in the shade and still much brighter than the right side in direct light on an angle. Right of the 30 marker is the original V6s color and left is painted. This is just a quickie, will get back with results of when I spend time at it. I know now there are a few fellas who are charging a lot to have them done with real platinum to be close to gen as possible, but this is for those who cannot sink huge amounts into a watch and also something even a beginner can do himself.. simple mods that keep the hobby fun ? Sharing some knoledge for the sake of the lot of us lol

That is freaking stunning !! I'm on a Rolie kick lately, my 70' serialed 6263 on my battle scared forearm from installing a fuel pump in my 911 turbo the other night lol

Thank old buddy ! hope all is well ! Cheers!