fraggle42

Maevit, look at the Armidas. They have very nice brass case that develops a lovely patina, and to my mind once the patina has developed you'd be pushed to tell brass & bronze apart, and they are a lot cheaper than $700, approx half that. I got mine for $340 used, only a few weeks old and with an extra strap. (mine is the dateless one which is now sold out)

That video is gorgeous, has all the reasons I was excited about being flown out there! Plus bears and moose and the other wildlife of course

Saturday, time to clear up the partially blown over wall and 20' prickly bushes that were attached to it. Beater watch + really tough gloves

Definitely, I'll be in touch if I'm sent out that way. The trip I was going to do we got some extra time to complete our software so managed to get all the final tweaks done here so they didn't need to send me out there in the end. I was quite fed up that I wasn't going to be honest, never been to Alaska before!

Well I went for a wander around the city center shops today to have a look around. The darker version of that Ted Baker jacket is nice, but just not the right colour for me sadly. I'll keep an eye out for them on EBay, you never know, someone might have received the wrong sized one one for Christmas and as they're sold out now they can't exchange it so may just sell it. I did spot something that I really like, Barbour Challenger http://www.johnlewis.com/barbour-challenger-waterproof-jacket-olive/p39923 Nice dark Olive colour, very good fit to me, totally waterproof (which is interesting as it's a tweed jacket!) and only £210. It'll be a nice change from the usual fleeces I wear Nanuq I've got a North Face jacket, McMurdo Parka - I was going to be sent to Anchorage for a few weeks for work and needed a decent jacket as I wanted to get out and about with my camera, so got myself one. 550 fill goose down, quilted and the inner liners that soft you don't want to go back indoors as you'll have to take it off! Not sure what temp they rate it too but it's bloody warm BUT not really hot when you're wearing it and it's not that cold, seems to be a very clever jacket! Thanks AJ, it will be a nice pay rise to have (aren't they all!) but not a life changing one - that may happen next year! (hasn't stopped me ordering a Laco earlier today thou)

Thanks guys! Gives me an excuse to dig a few of the less frequently worn watches out and play with them

I love the collections of APs, the pic of the three of them for some reason reminds me of three StormTroopers ready to march off to battle from the Death Star, I've even got the music playing in my head LOL! Yep, definitely need more pics of that gorgeous tourby (not that the rest aren't lovey, they are!)

Lovely watch and pics and I love the setting you are in. Is that your house and "garden" / woodland? If it is I'm extremely jealous!! Places like that are so rare and hard to find for a reasonable price, and the affordable ones I've found are mouldy wooden shacks so I'd be buying a plot of land basically.

I bet this watch has some tails to tell...

Decided to go with the first one and of course it's now sold out everywhere! Humbug!

Some from an inexpensive gen and some from a watch put together by one of the members here. All pics taken with Nikon D300S, Tamron 90mm macro lens, Sigma 2.0x teleconverter and 40mm extension tube. Lighting is two 135W daylight lamps. I think this combination gives me roughly 4x magnification. Nomos:- Lovely guilloche dial and watch:- The Nomos movement is a lot cleaner than the rep movements, but it isn't perfect, it has some fine oil / grease type contamination on the balance regulator. Nothing that'd stop the movement or affect its time keeping. The movement of the guilloche watch has been serviced by a watchsmith and is basically the same. Clean but not perfectly clean, nothing that would affect the timekeeping. I would think that the only way to get a perfectly clean movement is to assemble the parts in a proper clean room, which I don't imagine many watchsmiths have. The dial side shows what can be done without a clean room but with a lot of care - both lovely! (excuse the dead pixels in the camera, they're exaggerated by the sharpening)

Sorry to hear it hasn't gone smoothly for you but you really started off on the wrong foot. You ordered the blue one and after getting QC pics you decided you didn't want it as the blue didn't look right. There's plenty of opinions on here you should have searched for or asked for, about how accurate the blue colour dials are, there's member reviews, comments. Also how do you know the TDs camera has accurate colour rendition? Or the TDs computers monitor? Once the TDs have a watch they are stuck with it. They can't send it back. They can't get their money back. It's up to you to do the research first and decide if the watch is for you or not, and only then ask the TD to get you one. QC pics are there to make sure it's the right watch, right strap/bracelet, etc, obvious errors that busy people (the TDs) may overlook. Bracelets being too short is a common problem, best to ask on these and the other forums if anyone has any spare links, or buy a strap for it. About the Aqua Terra, I don't know this particular model but I guess there may well be cheap reps and super reps of it, do you know which one you have? Obviously the cheaper the rep is, the cheaper it'll feel. (but some models even paying for the super rep some members have found they're not that good and best avoided - again, research and read!) Sorry to hear about the problems with both not running, that obviously shouldn't happen but sadly is something that can happen during shipping. The AT does sound like a simple case of the second hand being knocked out of alignment and needing a very slight tweak to get it running properly. The quartz may just need a new battery, they're only a couple of quid for a new battery and the ones the factories put in them will only last a short time anyway so it may just be a case of the battery gone flat. TDs do not exchange faulty reps, it's not like a gen shop. There's no guarantees or exchanges simply because they're not legal. It'd be like me buying a load of illegal arms and then going back and saying "This one is rusty, that one has scratches all over it and I'm short 5 dozen rounds!". They'd probably shoot me, take the arms and resell them! You can send the faulty AT back to China at your cost for repair but that'll take months and you'll run the risk of customs intercepting the parcel, the parcel getting lost in China, and of the repaired watch being damaged again on it's way back. Most here recommend you find a local rep-friendly watchsmith and have them repair it. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Oh yes, cleaning them isn't a problem, it's just the amount of contamination from just one light touch is amazing. You clean whatever, take a picture, rearrange it slightly, accidentally brush it against the white backdrop, or the side of a finger, or even clean it and decide to give it a last cursory wipe with the edge of the cloth, or see a hair has settled on it and flick it off with your finger, take another photo and go "WTF?". At least I'm not a microbiologist who gets to see all those microbes and bugs and stuff, I'd be forever showering myself in boiling water

Yep, the Aviator is a gen with see through case back so I'll take some pics of that movement for comparison. What I see when I'm taking the photos is that it only takes the tiniest brush of my finger or t shirt or something and a nicely cleaned surface has a whole load of crap on it

Decided to have a play with the macro kit again. Tamron 90mm Macro lens + cheapy extension tube set + Sigma 2.0 x teleconverter. The only editing in Paint .NET is to resize, adjust gamma, brightness and contrast slightly as mixing the teleconverter with a macro lens and extension tubes does mess up the cameras internal auto functions a little Seiko Midnight Monster Patek Phillipe with Lemana movement Armida

Just before work broke up for Christmas I was informed I am to get a small promotion and a nice pay rise, which are both very nice. So I'm looking for a good quality jacket for every day use. Lightweight is essential, it's really for appearance as I drive to work and am outside for the few second walk from house to car, and car to work. Something along these lines http://www.johnlewis.com/ted-baker-zainab-herringbone-weave-coat/p735359 (this one is the wrong colour) http://www.johnlewis.com/reiss-emperor-peacoat/p641176?colour=Heather Or this (without the furry hood bit) http://www.johnlewis.com/ted-baker-lolgren-virgin-wool-coat-dark-khaki-green/p793205?navAction=jump Do any of our rep dealers do anything like that? Any other suggestions? It'll be going with smart casual shirts + jeans / trousers + hiking boots (got to wear hiking boots / other tall boots as I need to use a shoe insert to compensate for one leg being shorter than the other so can't wear any shoes or trainers)

Just woke up at 11am this Christmas morning - a nice lay in! Happy Christmas all!

I decided this year to get 4 winter tyres + wheels for my Ford Focus. So far the weather hasn't been below 5 deg C, over 10 deg C most days and we have floods, high winds and storms. Doesn't look like I'll get to play in the snow.

Nice one, congratulations for having a go yourself! Now there'll be no stopping you

LOL, your wrist sizes!!! That Rolex Challenger is a beast for sure. It looks over 20mm deep?

I decided to wear this today, and then went out for a Christmas Eve bike ride and came home to find out that the heavy "thump" I heard yesterday in all the wind & rain was a brick archway collapsing round the side of the house, so cut up the mangled bushes from that.

When I read the size of it I thought of AJ and MOAB He's also listing another very similar (but ~50mm dia) watch, same colours, roughly same case & crown, same awful lume. At least the sub dial hands on the smaller one almost match, the ones on this big one are totally different. Do you think s/he could get me into trouble with EBay if I sent a few choice messages? "I just want to congratulate your 3 yr old son on his first lume job!"

Fill the empty space in the case with lead, wear one on each hand and you've got a work out regime!

Very nice, all three of them. A pity the 5002 / 5004 combo doesn't have a working power reserve. Over 46mm dia! That's big Wear them well.

Hehe, I like it. I'm an iPhone man myself though.