archibald

Unless you wear a button down, it's heavy only IMO, but you WILL have buy more shirts than if you do light. If you pick up a few the JW Nordstom Egyptian Cotton (less than 100 bucks during the twice a year sales), the best dress shirts money can buy for the price, you wont mind so much.

True, but this is pretty hard to tell on the wrist. The minute you take the watch off and turn it over you're busted by the movement on the new version, so I'd go with the older version and remove the scond hand. That being said I love the MBW genta pieces because of the fit and finish. If anyone can recognize the flaws at a glance on my wrist, God love 'em, I'm busted. But the genlike fit and finish (especially the brushing) of the MBW's would convince 99.9% of the people who see your watch, even the few who could ever identify a Royal Oak (or an AP for that matter).

The short answer: because making watches is hard. The long answer: The chinese have been getting most PAM reps about 98% right for some time now. The things that they're not getting right, they're not getting right for two reasons: 1)Some things are too expensive for watches that retail for $400--high quality sandwich cyclopses intalled between two sapphire crystals, 7750 GMT's that set like OEM, perfectly decorated, CDG bridges are three examples. 2) Some of the flaws that drive us crazy just don't meet the threshhold of thing's they'll fix (the "A"'s, 100% accurate caseback numbering, and CG pin finish, etc. As someone said above. this is why we mod.

You could also just try to source a movement from one of the latest "ultimate" 104, 229, etc. The DW on those is every bit as good as lello and since they have the newest A7750 reliability should not be a problem. I would never waste a swiss 7753 on a 24 especially since an asian 7750 would be fine. If you are making a 24A and decide to go with the 199 xtal, don't forget to remove the AR.

Cross referencing w/ my inventory, looks like you have some 111/112 parts on the way. Congrats!

ooops sorry for the double post... Looks like there is a bevel on the gen---hard to see on the rep because of inferior date mag. I see that projectologist, who has a gen, is reading this--Robert, what do you think?

You may well be right--It's very hard to tell even at 10X. Gen on the left, my ultimate 88 on the right:

Cib0rgman, I think mwee is referring to the Date window. mwee, the latest "ultimate" dial has an improved date window when compared to the DSn dial, but I doubt it is as cleanly beveled as the gen.

Artisan plating has yet to return a single RWGer's phonecall or email as far as I know. I use a guy at the cheap jewelry/watch battery replacemnent/engraving store at a local low-rent mall--he's done yellow gold a few times for 20-30 bucks a pop (same price for a crown as for a whole case) and special ordered rose gold, which was pretty expensive because I had to buy his minimum order, like $100's worth of liquid. But still cheaper than than Artisan's quotes and a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a new rose gold patek rep. When pricing out plating, keep in mind you're paying for skill and time, not the miniscule amount of gold you're gettig put on your watch. Anyone looked into a US source for PVD gold?

All true. The best way to choke off the evildoer's money is to fill your SUV with Premium Unleaded. Re: 10k steel watches w/ ETA movements. We all know how the luxury goods market works. I love it when guys like Biver say they're shocked that their products are getting knocked off. They know as well as we do that as long as their business model, low manufacturing costs and high marketing costs, is in place the chinese can and will produce very similarly manufactured copies while the swiss do 99.9% of the marketing for them.

Bet that was a quick sale.

LOL! Another DSN fan offers a hearty endorsement. DSN does things his own way, and I admire him for that. For example, he's the only repmaker who's pieces seem to get less accurate as time marches on. BTW, I believe there were a few MBW 111's prodiced, or maybe watchmaster modded them and sold them as MBW, or maybe my memory is flawed and I'm talking out of my ass...

The only economy you need to worry about is yours--here's a checklist: Job situation look stable look moving forward? If yes, Check! Feel like dumping the cash in the Market these days? Me neither--check! Gas prices down and likely to stay down---check! Keep wifey happy? If so--Check! Is the car priced sufficiently in line with the fact that you can't give away cars? If so--Check! Buy it!!!

I bought an a7750 from ajoesmith which not only keeps damn near cosc time but also has a working regulator, decent pearlage on the main plate, blue screws, cotes de geneve on the bridges!

Might as well be a million, chief--no need to worry about the numbers until they put a "C" in front of them!

Looks great, Projectologist!! Wrenched off the wrist of a dead Nazi by your grandad, no doubt!

Marty, this would depend on the print resolution the media will accept--the quality of printing, presumably on an inkjet, is a pretty complex relationship between printer and media; even if your printer is rated at 2400dpi, how the final print looks depends on the bleed/absorbtion of the paper so you won't know until you try it

If you find one, please LMK.

I think it's a process called EDM, which uses electricity rather than acid. This technology should be available to rep factories, so you never know...

A 30 second job w/ the cloth Dremel tip and the red polish. Pop the crystal, hold it w/ a cloth because it will get hot, and dremel it for 30 seconds. Spray some windex, wipe off, and your 02 will be AR free.

Francisco, you are fast becoming one of the most valuable RWGers of all time! Thanks!! The secs @ 6 Daytona is a prime example of the archibald theory of rep accuracy deminishing returns: Once a rep crosses a certain level of accuracy, it will fool everyone but hardcore collectors. But because of flaws inherent to its form or function, will never fool a single additional person no matter what "improvements" are made. As long as Daytona reps use a 7750 of any kind it will be too thick and have jerky running seconds. 99.999% of the earth's population will not notice those flaws, but the remaining Daytona owners and WISes will instantly recognize your Daytona as rep no matter how many jewels are added to the movement, how the skeleton gears funtion, how truthful the dealers are, etc. You'll just have a longer time with which to not fool a single additional person. I'd love a great Daytona, but along with the latest versions of decorated 6497's etc., this movement is a non-factor from the getgo.

Wow!! Crown looks very nice. Can you tell us more about the C&C process?

Gen T hands. Gen T dial. Gen bezel, Gen crown. Gen CG. Gen Crystal. Jimmy case. Same movement as gen. Correctly BBed and OPed, random SN# caseback. Gen strap and buckle.....I'm thinking that Kruzer could probably take that watch anywhere with absolute impunity.

No doubt about it--this is an expensive project, and you have to patient. If you don't have one of the original MBW case, you'd probably start by buying the best rep you can find, then you have to get a machinist to make the case accept the movement and change the crown tube position. Then the hard part: find hands, a dial. The rest is easy but expensive...you pick up a ventu or other suitable movement-donor watch and pop it right in. Luckily, my smith is a (swiss) trained machinist, but even so, this piece took a couple of tries, just because it's difficult to predict where the crown hole needs to be--the ROO case is oddly shaped inside and out and difficult to measure. Interesting question about the 21J hands....was there an ROO rep w/ a 21J movement? I remember a quartz one, but not a "day date" version. If there was a way to use rep hands and rep dials, the project would still easier but my smith surmises that neither will work. Ultimately, going through the effort or not is your personal answer to the following question: How much time and effort is the correct crown position and a reliable movement worth?