irate03

reworked the crown guards to a better shape, plus a light relume on the dial.

These are really appealing to me too.

Is this a fifty eight REP ????

Very nice build. where is a good place to get the caseback stickers from ?

I can understand that. It's a beautiful piece.

I posted my finish build elsewhere but i thought i'd add it here to show the contrast between the original Perfect Clones before modding above. I know the bezel still isn't right and possibly a combination of that and a better plexi will come in time. This is the stock bracelet that came with the watch too by the way.

This smells fishy. I’d totally believe you if you put a proper 18mm nato on it.

Thanks, bit fiddly but that worked.

does anybody know if it's possible to remove a link from Joshua's oyster folded bracelet ?

You know me, I always love a little photoshoot when I finish (for now) a build.

bracelet aged.

quick question. The perfect clones folded steel oyster bracelet squeeks like a granny’s four poster bed. What’s a good way to slightly age the bracelet and kill the squeek??

The case already has the beveled lug edges, I didn't cut that far enough back to remove them, I followed the line through along the case. Another little update, I've actually had some time today to really get stuck in to this so..... Case reshaped and polished with subtle ageing. Hands lumed, the GMT and seconds are slightly warmer just because I saw a few ref. pics that had these hands more aged for some reason and I liked the look Oh and I lightly stained the date wheel to add some patina but only very subtle. Older models had a silver date wheel, maybe this will be a future upgrade along with a "flat four" bezel and more gen like plexi with a more magnified cyclops.

case shaping

Firstly i ordered the watch because i had built from a TC before and thought it a good place to start, this was before a friend suggested perfect clones and i did some research on this forum about their watches. So once this is all done i will have parts to sell on, maybe someone wants to do a 5513 build with the case.

i've reshaped lots of Pam vintage cases over the years, slow and steady is the name of the game. Today the Tiger Concept 1655 I ordered arrived I had a feeling it would offer better hands and after seeing the Raffles GMT shaft was a bit thin I hoped the Tiger GMT would be my better option. Here's what I see, The case is a fairly raw shape, the crown guards are very shaped but look like more of a sub build option. The plexi has no cyclops and is the wrong shape. The bezel has nice engravings but the shape is all wrong (see the side profile pic) The hour and minute are better dimensions and I think the GMT is the best of teh bunch I now have. The seconds hand is ok but I think I'm going to go for the raffles seconds. Tiger bezel profile and CG shape below Perfect clones bezel profile and CG shape below Hour hands left to right Tiger, Raffles (the 'custom') and Perfect Clones Seconds hands left to right Tiger, Raffles and Perfect Clones GMT hands left to right Tiger, Raffles and Perfect Clones Minute hands left to right Tiger, Raffles ('custom version') and Perfect Clones

Thanks, Will the Yuki bezel fit the Perfect Clones case and fit over the plexi ?

I've been wanting to do one of these for a long time, I've been out of the game for a while too so digging out some tools was interesting. The base is a perfect clones 1655 just with an asian movement for now, this was always going to be a budget build and if I found I liked the way it worked and felt on the wrist I would in time upgrade the movement to something older. So the 1655 neat and pristine arrived and after wearing it for a very short while I took it apart Straight off I have noticed a few things, there were quite a few variations of the 1655 over the years it was around, various bezel fonts/sizes/thickness's, various dials with font, SWISS and coronet variations, some varying hand designs too. So I'm going for the best options I can get hold of. I also ordered a Tiger Concept 1655 which I will pick up in the next day or so, I think from pictures i've seen that it may provide the best GMT and hour hand out of what I have so far. I also bought a set of hands and GMT from raffles. The Raffles GMT looks a nice faded orange but on arrival I realised the shaft seems a bit too thin compared to my reference pictures. The seconds hand looks great. This will replace the stock seconds hand which is clearly wrong in so many ways. The Raffles hour and minute were a disappointment but this was a mistake on my part. There are two types for asian clone and two types for ETA and I got the hands that for some reason have a longer lume strip running across in to the black area of the hands. back to the stock hands, the Perfect Clones hour hand is too long, only slightly but I'm hoping the Tiger version will look better. I'm sticking with the stock crown at the moment as it looks pretty good, I will test water resistance with the stock crown, it would be nice to have a waterproof watch for a change. My biggest worry was with the lume indices on the stock dial. I saw lots of examples showing the outer indices sitting too far away from the rehaut. Thankfully the Perfect clones dial looks great. stock GMT and more faded Raffles GMT The dial has now had a light white wash which has given a slightly faded more matt look and I have stained the lume with a mixture of watered down fiebings water based leather dye. This has worked nicely, I didn't want supper orange tanned indices but subtle creamy patina and reluming would make the indices too puffy. It's starting to look better already.