Mendota Explorer

I guess I was one of the lucky few who did. I sent him my PT red 1680 and Noob GMTIIc in Oct of 2012. He was going to regulate both, put a vintage gen crown on the sub, swap the plexi on the sub with a Clark T19, and replace the crown on the GMT because it was stripped. He did all of the work for free in exchange for me giving him a good word on rg and rwi. He wanted to build up a name for himself. I supplied him with all of the parts to use. Well, I had to hound him for progress updates and I thought I was losing my stuff at times due to no communication. Finally, in March of 2013 I received my stuff back with the repairs completed. The hands on my sub are scratched ( I didn't actually notice this until a few months ago), the T19 cracked during install, which is common because we kept the plastic gasket in place, and he somehow dinged my insert on my sub. Again, I didn't notice it until I was recently looking at some of the update pics he had sent me for the T19. I saw the ding and then noticed it on the insert. Sloppy and careless. It's tiny and that's probably why I never caught it in the moment. This must have been right before he wigged out on everyone here. I feel bad for everyone who got shafted by him. I honestly thought I was getting ripped off many times during the 5 months that he had my stuff. That's a long time to do simple repairs and between the excuses and lack of communication, I was convinced that I would never see my watches and parts again. I hope there is some kind of silver lining and positive outcome for the members here who got bent over by him. That's really a douche move to turn on fellow rep lovers. We are all in this hobby together.

LOL I never even looked at that fantasy piece until now, so that's funny. ...sigh. ..

cc33, great pics of that dial. One of the things I want to do, if I ever get around to starting my 6538 build, is I want to try to reproduce the lighter 6:00 marker that Rolex used to signify a radium dial. I found some amazing shots online showing this. They colored the lume for the 6:00 marker whiter, and that meant radium was used for the lume material.

Nah, I prefer the red. To each his own, but this is way too vanilla for me. The red stands out.

Would acetone work to help remove that clear coat? I thought I had read something over on one of the other boards a few years ago about using this first. You use a Qtip or cotton ball and apply it in a circular motion. Then you can go to town on it with the bleach.

Yikes! $1,000? I mean no disrespect to the man, but holy crap that's a lot. It's one thing if you do it yourself and make this. It's a labor of love and you are tinkering around with your own watch, gaining valuable experience, and all around just having fun doing it. The end product is something that has a different look and you have a cool story to share with anyone who asks you about it. "Wow, you made this yourself? That is so cool. How did you do it?" It's quite another to fork over a grand for the same thing, which at the end of the day doesn't look as good as your own does and is totally a fake watch.

Gorgeous!

Very nice build!

Glorious build. That second batch of pics really shows how exceptional this is. I love it!

Very interesting! I didn't know that. Thanks for the enlightenment.

Great! Thanks. Makes it easier to do one stop shopping. I can get my brevet crown and a pearl at the same time.

How do these compare to the Yuki pearl? Would they be a good option for the Silix big crown insert? That stock pearl is awful.

^ Just curious - does he refinish dials or produce new ones? How would someone get in contact with him for vintage Franken builds, such as 6538 or other big crowns where it just isn't reasonable or even physically possible to source a gen dial for a grail build?

I just clicked on Mulholland's Ebay profile from the link that was posted here. He has zero listings and it says he is no longer a registered user. Hmmm.

Great thread. Will be bookmarked for sure!

Damned fine build. The 1675 is definitely on my wish list for vintage pieces.

This sure is a gorgeous piece. I would love to add a 6542 to my watchbox. It's definitely a top 3 for me. Enjoy this one!

Puretime has a brand new version coming out on the site. You might want to PM Angus over on RG and ask about it. He's great about answering his PMs over there. In fact, that's how I communicated with him on a previous order. We did everything through PM and left the emailing part to his staff for QC and shipping details. I don't think anyone has ordered it yet, at least I have not seen any pics or threads posted indicating that anyone has actually ordered it. His new version is supposedly fixing the hands issue. Not sure about the matte dial versus glossy issue that has been plaguing the previous versions, though. You can't tell from the pics. Again, he could tell you. When in doubt, his 36mm is spot on. In fact, when his crown is compared side by side with a gen crown, it's darned near perfect. That's a big issue plaguing the 36mm versions - the crappy crowns that some of them have. If his new 214270 fixes the issues for that version, then he'll be The Man for the Explorer 1s for sure.

+1 Look through the listings over on TRF and VRF where you know they are going to be legit. Like has already been said, there are some very good aftermarket ones out there and maybe you could use one of those if you age it to your satisfaction? Remember that most gen owners aren't WIS and could care less about these details. If their insert somehow gets fouled up and they need a new one, the average Joe will balk at the price of a gen insert. "You expect me to pay how much for a piece of tin?" For the average Joe a good aftermarket insert is just fine. After looking at enough vintage pieces it becomes quite evident that more and more people think along these same lines, especially when a good aftermarket option exists. There are frankens and cobbled together pieces all over the place. Just sayin'...

Please post a pic. It's too hard to visualize this based on your description.

LOL

^ Nice! Very good looking build.

Man, I love that watch. I've got the build thread over on Homage Forum bookmarked so I can drool at it on demand!

LOL. We agree to disagree, though. You've read the same articles as I have, so you know there are writers in the watch world who have first hand experience contradicting what you wrote. Check this out and you'll see what I mean. The R&D budget you referenced is not for what you think it is, and yes they employ a sh*tload of watchmakers. Personally, I have never visited their headquarters so I cannot comment, but since this author was invited there to personally witness the production, I tend to believe him. http://www.ablogtowatch.com/10-things-know-rolex-makes-watches/

Please elaborate on what you mean by "mass produced," as that is a common misconception that is thrown around out there. Are you referring to their process of producing the cases? You know that each watch is assembled by hand, right? So while there are components of the watch that are indeed produced using large scale manufacturing processes, the actual time piece itself is assembled by hand. I'm not making that up. You can go to their website and watch their library of videos documenting the entire process from producing the case at their own foundry all the way to installing the hands and regulating the movement.