irate03

finished another ammo strap from the same pouch as the strap above. Dark Ammo strap fitted with an Elias bronze buckle. I think this will look good with bronze / copper compression bar tubes as you can see them through the holes in the leather. Both straps below are from the same ammo pouch, the darker brown strap is darkened just with neatsfoot oil. Not sure if i'll keep this strap yet hence the reason I've not punched buckle holes in it yet, it may look good with a build I have coming soon.

These shots below are iPhone 5 and snapseed creations.

It's a vintage explorer 1016 that I built and documented in this thread > http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/151773-another-1016-build-lots-of-pictures/

Thanks, I built the 6154 from a silix case, Athaya dial and hands, it's got a 6497 asian movement for now, one day it will have a vintage molly. The strap is also made by me . The case was heavily reshaped by me to get closer to the vintage gen, and the crown was shaped a little too until I can afford to replace it with an Athaya 8mm brevet crown. I painted the dial, I was originally going for a red /brown dial but the engravings are very shallow so I had to change ho wI applied the paint and after about 5 attemps I ended up with this, which I am very pleased with.

Thanks, for daily wear I prefer a normal buckle which sits flat out of the way. But I've just ordered a bronze GPF buckle to go with a special build coming soon.

These are my first straps, I've been building the watches for about a year now and I wanted to try straps so I could build the whole package top to bottom.

Thanks, I've made another one !!! Ok so here are some little pics along with a few from the 24mm strap I made last week. This one is 26mm and very soft. I'm still waiting for a different type of tool to thin the leather, the one I have only really works well on ends. So this strap has stayed nice and thick.

This arrived today. I bought it to go with a vintage sub build I'm planning but Silix cases were out of stock so i've decided to try it on my wife's vintage explorer, it's very comfy.

FINISHED this is my first finished strap !!! there are obviously some flaws and errors that I will endeavour to learn to correct for the next one, but please critique away !! info - French army ammo pouch, not sure of age. I tried to keep some of the original stitch holes and cracks in to keep the character of the leather.

I ordered a silix watch yesterday but they have come back and told me all big crown Rol models are now out of stock !! can anyone recommend where I can get one for a similar price. The two models I looked at had all the main starting points, big crown, coin edge bezel, numbered dial and the right bezel insert. I don't want to have to buy all these features afterwards as my budget won't stretch that far.

Looking real good hippohippo, will look amazing when you age and relume the hands and dial. I ordered the same watch from Silix yesterday and they have come back saying it's out of stock !!!!. the alternative big crown model is also out, They have two small crown models with numbered dials but the dial numbers look to fat and the insert is wrong and the bezel is not coin edged. Can anyone recomend a place to order a similiar model as base for a vintage build that is similar in price, there's no point me buying a model that needs lots of replacement parts at teh moment as my budget won't stretch that far.

The dial was ordered blank, unpainted and I painted and aged it myself

from here > http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290609009603?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Shot on Canon 5D mkII and mkIII's using either an 85mm f1.8 or 24-70mm f2.8L and a variety of canon Speedlites. All edited in Adobe Lightroom.

Well I'm glad I have stirred up something across a variety of forums the comments on my 1016 build have been very positive especially here. Mind you, coming here and seeing the builds has shown me just how much I need to learn about the details.

I don't have access to a bench mounted drill or similar at the moment. unless you have a trick to share

after reading quite a few 1016 threads now, i'm a bit gutted about the lack of lug holes, but this watch came complete for about $80 and i've seen reps with holes for a lot more so I guess for a serious budget build I will have to live with it until I find someone with the right drilling equipment.

My oven broke before I had chance to try this, we're still without an oven at the moment so I used my tried and tested watercolour, coffee and matt spray varnish technique that I use on my pam dials.

Thanks for the great comments guys, this is the first Rolex i've done, I have been building vintage Pam's up till now. The strap is a budget one I bought off ebay because I wanted to get a vintage Nato but didn't think my wife would wear it, I didn't want to use the bracelet that came with the watch because it would have been too heavy for her. So I went with this and just vintagised it a bit and had to shorten it as it was very long for her small wrist. http://www.ebay.co.u...984.m1497.l2649

new to this, where do I source the dial please ?

I've just posted my build, which I actually made for my wife but the more I look at it and your lovely collection the more I think I might build one for myself

After two Pam homage builds that I am very happy with, I decided to try to build something smaller for my wife. She likes small watches but has never had a mechanical watch so I hope the weight is not an issue. DAY 1 - today my explorer 1016 Tiffany arrived from Silix, it came with a bracelet, the quality looked ok but i'm not an expert in bracelets, it is irrelevant anyway as I am going to use a leather strap or leather nato. I'm still very unsure what to use as my wife has small wrists and I want the leather to be very soft but I have a very limited budget. In the past for my Pam builds I've bought cheaper straps and aged and softened them myself which has worked out very well. The strap size is 20mm and I think the size for a plexi will be about 30mm but i'm guessing at the moment. The lugs are not drilled through, not sure if I can ignore that little details at the moment. Here are some images of the case before I take it apart. My first attempt at luming the indices. pre-mixed lume straight on. I'm thinking I could add another layer but maybe with some matt varnish added to the lume, what do you think ? some of the reference shots i've found have lume that looks quite fluffy like this. So here's the new vintage aged dial. I lightly sanded the hands as i do with my Pam homage hands, gently at 600 grit then softly at 1500 grit. dabbed with coffee, left to dry then touched up with a mix of waterbased paint., I also added a drop of extra lume to the seconds hand to give it a raised finish, then gave it the coffee treatment again. Here are some more close up's with a proper camera this time. It's way to small for me but i'm falling in love with this watch !!! :shh: The engraving is off, apparently it was made in SWITZERLADN I was scared about killing the keyless but had to press VERY!!!! hard to get the stem to release. The dial is quite nice as is, but I wanted to give it the full vintage treatment Play putty to cover the bezel plexi and crown tube and.......... in to the box of hard sharp pointy things you go..... so while I wait I took a crappy iphone lume shot It's done, the plexi arrived from Cousins today. it was a 30.3 high dome armoured, remove the armour ring so the inside recess fits on to the case, I think the stock plexi is a fraction thicker at the bottom as the bezel pushes firmly on where as with the new plexi it just sits on, so I used G-S Hypo cement both on the plexi and under the bezel, it's nice and solid now, I'm still waiting for a Clark Tropic 22, it may or may not fit. But for now i'm happy AND MY WIFE LOVES IT !!!!!! RESULT. here are some lovely pictures.

I got a rep to build with but it sadly doesn't have drilled lugs.