fraggle42

Yep, it hasn't been that long, but an email so you know if you'll be receiving it before xmas or next year would be good to put your mind at rest.

Is this the first email you'll have sent since you ordered it?

Nuclear Reactors.

Do you think they are just misunderstood and actually are a viable energy source that we're going to have to use if we don't want to go back to the dark ages.

Or are we stockpiling an unsolvable and dangerous problem for our children to try to solve?

Coal and oil are getting more and more expensive to aquire, whether the cost is directly related to extraction, or indirectly related to problems with poisoning water tables, ruining natural beauty areas, or wrecking innocent peoples lives who live near the extraction locations. The never ending rise in fuel prices shows us that. Fracking may be a stopgap of a few decades, but it's finite.

Nuclear is a viable alternative. Safety records are good, but the risks of a huge disaster stemming from what would otherwise be a small accident are there. Some reports gather the figures for deaths and mutations from disaster areas that may possibly be related, some reports deal with hard figures and simply refuse to include deaths from cancer that may have been caused by the radiation, it's impossible to prove it one way or the other.

Some EU countries have now completely stopped nuclear development programmes, some have shut down their nuclear reactors. Supposedly the net effect of all of that has set back the "green" energy generation agenda by decades, and none of the green alternatives seem to be making a significant difference.

Is this all just a knee jerk reaction to what some see as a minor incident (compared to the total number of deaths caused by the tsunami), with relatively few deaths?

We can fire a satellite into space that provides us with 100s of channels of TV and send robots to Mars, I'm sure we can fire a few rockets full of nuclear waste into the sun where it'll be swallowed without a trace.

What do you think?

They are damn good.

I find that I am technically good, but artistically poor at recognising what "makes" a good photo and seeing photo opportunities.

I've got friends that are the opposite, but knowledge and technical skill can be learned, the natural talent to spot good photos can't be learned.

And then there are the people who are both, and your daufghter seems to be in that category.

Give her access to a whole variety of cameras, filters, lenses (tilt slide lenses are really cool to work with) and let her go play - which is what you're doing anyway!

It is good. Seen it before, need to save it to disk really so I can so I can play / pause / refer to it at the workbench.

One thing they don't mention is the quantity of oil. I assume one drop, but what size dropper to use?

I didn't get mine until a few weeks after MOAB had raffled his off.

Decided to send TC an email (polite of course) and he shipped it a week later IIRC. Actually since he ships them to someone in the UK and then onwards, I think my email crossed paths with my package coming the other way

Maybe send him an email to ask how the build is going?

I did have some pictures of it all set up on my phone but can't find them anywhere now.

I think I've just discovered the down side of synching all your pictures to your phone and then trying to find a couple amongst 15000!

I can definitely recommend the Aerospace, I love mine! Got to send it off to Breitling for the full makeover, fantastic value for £300.

That Aviator Pro chrono is lovely, 42mm and just enough interesting features on the dial to go well with the PVD. Needs a nice dark brown Pam style strap to go with it though.

And yes, considering used watches for the upto £2k price brings in a lot of nice stuff.

Keep your dream-but-affordable watch ideas coming guys!

An extra 10 links? 10?

The whole strap on this Omega I'm wearing has 15 links in it.

In that picture you've taken, with the clasps closed (as they'd be when you are wearing them) they look approximately the same size.

The divers extension on the one on the left is open, which'd give you an extra 2cm length or so.

Utheman it's hard to believe that watch is from the early 1900s, it's as near as damn it brand new!

Gorgeous condition and gorgeous watch.

I bet you're proud to have that one.

Does look nice.

What size is it? Most of these things look lovely but are tiny!

It's standard. Well, when the package comes into your own country it's standard, I haven't heard it happening half way along before, but that may be usual for Aus?

Loads and loads of people have seen this "Received by xxx Customs",

I think a random sample of packages are picked off the conveyor belt and sent to customs.

Most just have their import paperwork examined and customs duties worked out depending on the value on the paperwork.

A tiny fraction are opened and the contents checked.

It seems that most packages can spend from a couple of days to a few weeks in customs, there's no telling.

All you can do is wait and hope! Or what most of us do, forget about it, and when it does come it's a nice suprise

I think there is only one or maybe one solid and one skeleton gen chinese tourby movement.

They seem to sell for about $600~$800.

UPO with gen dial, hands & crystal

The first thing I would do is use this lovely resource you're reading right now.

Choose one of the models you are thinking of modding and try to search for that.

For example you could choose the B01, searching for "B01 franken" gives... hmm, 7 results. Not much.

What about the others?

skyland franken : 65 results

avenger franken : 180 results

steel fish franken : 3 results

black steel franken : 65 results

Looks like the Avengers the one to go for!

Don't ever forget that this forum (and the other ones) are a brilliant resource for all this kind of information, and also for the guides to doing the work too.

If you think about the skill involved in each way of doing it, with a cheap A 7750 movement the assembler just has to put the movement, dial, hands together, put it in the case, put crown and pushers on, etc. it's a (relatively) simple skill level.

To fix a Swiss 7750 you would need a trained watch smith, someone who can dismantle the movement, fix the problem and put it together. That person would need to be paid a much higher salary, plus there are only so many old 7750s out there, so if you want to produce 5000 chrono watches it'll be 4750 Asian movements and 250 Swiss movements, just makes sense from a cost point of view.

And you're still going to have a problem in that the watch smith who got the job is the one happy to be paid the lowest salary of all the other watch smiths who applied for the job, so isn't going to be the best, so the fixed and reassembled watch, well, I won't buy one, put it that way!

If you really want the chrono movement to work at its best for a long time to come, buy the watch you've decided on with an A7750 movement and then get it serviced straight away. The service will make sure there's no dirt or grime in there, and there is the correct oil where it should be (and there is not oil anywhere else, which is a bad thing in watches)

Yeah, this time of year the whole worlds postal systems are very busy with holidays, Christmas, people taking time off work so short staffed, etc.

It can take a week, it can take 3 or 4 weeks, just got to wait and see.

It'll be just as lovely when it does arrive!

Don't forget to post pics for us to see

Derek, the first one is a scam site, do not use it!

At this moment in time the second site, p-cls, is the genuine site for Perfect Clones.

I don't know how long you have had it, but Amazon let you send it back if you're not happy with it within 14 days of receiving it in the UK.

Cheap? Probably yes, but will have to book them early (probably too late for 2014 now) and the cheap ones won't be close to the show centre.

And most of you lot have as many gens as you have reps!! Cheap hotels indeed!

Just been having a play with the Basel show iPad app. It's cool

Details, images and videos from hundreds of exhibitors, funky 3D map of all the halls.

I can see me wasting quite a few hours looking through that thing.

And per day entry cost is 60CHF, or 150CHF for an 8 day pass.

One thing I can't help but wonder, how much is it to get into the Basel show?

Has anyone organised a GTG there? Would be a hoot, a few days in a cheap hotel next to a good bar, Basel in the daytime, bar in the evening!

It was at the 2012 Basel show Andy, so you'd think it would be for sale somewhere by now? Ah well, if I ever see one in the flesh in 6 months time, it ill be a good test to see if I still love it or not.

I had a look at pictures of that Sinn and personally found it very plain? Nothing wrong with plain, but why that one? I'm curious And that other watch is very, err, green! Certainly very, very different and I like it. I'm just nt sure if I like it just because its different, or if I like it because of its design if you see what I mean.

My little franken PO has come home to roost on my wrist

Ok, here's two for starters.

Tudor Black Bay, can be had for £1700 on bracelet from Italy.

And whilst looking through the Basel 2012 report on WUS, I saw this Aviator Professional Chronograph

http://www.swisstime.ch/index.php?id=41&idDetailProd=2443#.UqYdJeJlmRl

PVD loveliness!

I can't find it on sale anywhere, but supposed to be between $1000 and $1999.

haha, well at least (s)he didn't leave you a present

He's 19 and at that age where "presents" can accidentally happen, so that thought did cross my mind!

Tent now turned over to the open side is on the top. What's the bet he'll try to jump ontop of it in the middle of the night and I'll find him stuck in there tomorrow morning?