Mendota Explorer

There are lots of 36mm Exp 1 reviews over on RWI and Repgeek. This discussion has been covered many times before. Overall, Angus probably has the best one if you can get it from him. He had it in stock last year but then quickly went back out of stock. It is the ETA 2824 version, so the crown stem height is correct. Some are too low on the case. Dial, hands, and everything else are dead ringers for gen. The big detail is the crown itself, and over on RG a member who sells gen Rolex crowns and parts bought one last year. He reviewed it and said the crown was indistinguishable from the gen Explorer crown he had for sale. It was that good. I already have a 36mm Explorer from Josh at Perfect Clones, but if it ever dies I'm replacing it with the one from Angus (Puretime). Either that or I'll build a vintage 1016. Some other members on RWI have had MarvelousReplica source them a 36mm. That one is also very good.

I was hoping to tinker around with a Silix using the red depth rating and try to make a hobo version of it, but this is just amazing. Hodinkee has some incredible pics of gens.

Wow. I cannot wait to see this cased in a watch. The red depth rating is a grail of mine.

Amazing build. Simply spectacular! Yes, I'd also be curious to know if there is a back up dial source if what mir36 wrote is true. Is Voldemort retiring?

Has anyone heard any more news about Athaya's case that he's working on? That could end up being a great and much more affordable option in the future. His 8mm crown is fantastic.

Wow. I can't wait to see more of this and what it will be used for.

Funny.

Adjusted for inflation, if a Rolex cost $250 in 1972 dollars, it is the equivalent of $1,363 of today's dollars. We all know the retail price of a Datejust is far higher than this, so Rolex has really done well for themselves with increasing their prices.

Very nice work, fellas! Kime's 6200 is the cat's meow. What a gorgeous, amazing piece.

Whoa! This is gorgeous. Amazing build. And how on Earth did you take such professional looking pics? These look amazing.

I wonder if Josh is also out?

If you go over to Rolex Forums there are threads over there discussing this. A Hollywood costume/stage prop guy commented on this one and said most of the time they use reps. Not even good ones. Someone just goes down the street and buys whatever they can. They just don't have the budgets to deal with product placement issues and these are just props - usually immaterial to the story. That said, some actors do indeed wear their own personal watches. Robert Redford wore his own sub in many of his movies. Jason Bateman wears his own in his films. Stallone wears his own Pams and is a huge fan of the brand. Those and others are the exception, though. Most of the time all this stuff is just props.

Very nice. I love that dial and hands!

Will this work on Android and will it be compatible with my Chromecast so I can stream it to my TV?

Bc, where did you find the 1.78mm ones? This is exactly what I need for my PT 1680. My lugholes are big enough for the 2mm and they fit in my endlinks, but with the tight fit in the endlinks the pins won't line up with the holes. I need the smaller size.

Yuki is definitely great for communication and fast shipping. Glad to know that this is a great source for these 1016 parts. It's on my wish list.

Hopefully an expert can comment but right off the bat, that dial and hand set are for a gen Rolex 15xx movement. You can clip the feet and use dial dots or others have used replacement feet (I don't know which is better) but then you are still left with gen spec hands.

Thank you for posting pics of this beauty. I've been dying to see it. Can you share the specifics of your build? I would love to learn the details.

Hey guys, this one has been on my radar for quite some time. Love the pic with the sub in the background. Are you all using Angus for this one or is the latest version available through anyone else yet? Is the red released in a V3 now or is it still the V2?

Very cool process. I have a small butane kitchen torch for making creme bulee, so that would be perfect for this. When I get around to starting my project I think this is going to be one of those "must do" mods. I keep coming back to drool at these pics. You did such a great job with it. The aging effects on all of the parts is just fantastic.

This turned out so nice. It is really stunning. I posted this on HF, too, but I was really wondering how you produced that brass effect with the bezel. It looks so gen-like. Great photos and staging, too.

Gorgeous watch. You take such great pics.

Simply gorgeous. I love it. Is that the stock bracelet and crown? Which crystal is that again? I really like the shape and profile of it. Does anyone know what gen crown would fit this, and if you would need to retap the case? I also love the color of the insert. It looks fantastic.

Rafflestime sells metal ones for $10. Would that work?

In re-reading this thread, it appears that this is the standard Puretime 6542 that has been upgraded with a Phong bezel, gen-spec crystal, and Raffles small GMT hand. Is that right? It doesn't look as wokky as the other Puretime 6542s are. Was something done with the rehaut or are we just not noticing it because the aging is so well done? How did you spiderweb age the insert? That looks fantastic.