TeeJay

Beauties indeed That NATO doesn't look like the standard fair, what material is it?

I bought an LV messenger from Ken about four years ago now, and have always been more than happy with the quality. Okay, yes, one of the strap's metal adjustment sliders snapped while I was carrying the equivelent of 3 telephone directories worth of advertising fliers, about a week after I got it, but let's be honest, that was way more weight than most bags could reasonably carry without some kind of structural failure So what did I do? Did I piss and moan like a bitch to Ken about it? Did I run crying to Paypal that I'd been scammed by someone? No! I tied a knot in the strap and continued using the bag every single day, never once having to resecure the knot... The only reason I don't use the bag for daily use anymore, is because it doesn't have enough space to carry a survival kit and groceries. Not because I don't like it, not because it fell apart, not because it's 'cheaply made' so not 'upto the job', but because my needs in a bag changed, requiring more capacity, and no other reason. If I was going to restock my wardrobe, or get new baggage, Ken would be my first port of call

NightColor by Revell label sounds like 'Glow Paint' in that both are acrylic, water based and thick. I bought one of those 99¢ dried paint tins for kids that are activated by water and kids make a mess with, and take a tiny piece to mix in with the Glow Paint and water. Just a very little chunk of brown gives that tan look of aged Rolex lume, and the thickness, even yjinned with water, gives the grainy look.

NightColor has a pretty grainy texture, I'm not sure if it's acrylic or not, and when I've used it in the past, I've improvised a pestle and mortar to get it to a smoother consistency. Another luminous paint I picked up a while back was branded as 'glow in the dark paint' and that had a really creamy texture right out of the bottle, so was a pleasure to paint with (glow in the dark ouija board for a friend) but the luminosity was abysmal, certainly nowhere near long enough for use on a watch dial... I'm hoping that where the gold prep coat shows through the transparent areas of the decal, it will also lend a bit of tint to the lume I'm 50:50 on this at the moment, I can easily see it going either way with regards finish, but I'm looking forward to doing it, so keeping my fingers crossed

And what happens when you receive the refund, but just think "screw it, I'll just keep the stuff and say it got lost in the post..." I don't care how long peoplle have been posting, if they're a newcomer or a veteran, but I consider Ken to be one of the most honorable people I have ever dealt with, as a personal friend who sadly, I'll likely never have the pleasure of meeting in person, and it angers me beyond belief to see people behaving like this on transactions...

Very nice, what's the source?

If you look at Nanuq's pic above, it is spider-cracked and nice patina. I can get that using the Krylon clear coat gloss using a heavy 2nd coat. Then after application, handling it a bit. Smoothing the decal with a clean fingertip dulls the gloss some. It's not like a painted dial that picks up every fingerprint, but the clear coat will wear out if you touch it too much. Also, I use, and Rolexaddict now uses too, a water based 'Glow-Paint' for the lume. I'm not in his league, but better than some of the gens I've seen on line. He uses a needle, I've tried that and an oiler, toothpick and everything else you can imagine. I've settled on a toothpick with a flattened tip for the round markers. One dip, touch and it's perfect. Thicker, as RA does takes two or three dip and touches. The markers are harder, take practice, I use a nib pen like they use for calligraphy. It's a couple of bucks at the art store. It too takes practice, but I feel I have better control with it. I've had "photographic issues" my entire life! If he could, I'd bet freddy would like to reach through the screen and shake me! Like all of it, practice, practice, practice! The end result is the pride of accomplishment.

For luming, the best paint I've used so far is NightColor by Revell, and as 'the tool', I took one of the nylon threads which are used to attach labels to clothes, and fixed it to the blunt end of a triangular paintbrush I found a spare rep dial this evening and stripped the paint from it, so will be putting my plan into action tomorrow if the weather's okay The issues I'm having, are not only is my pc not working, but my iPhone is now experiencing the camera/insufficient memory glitch which I've read is quite common, so even if I was to use my regular camera, I don't have access to a pc to load the photos up

I know that for me personally, over the last few years I've gone from not being able to tell what a wokky rehaut looks like, to being bothered by the crown height of an otherwise perfect Submariner rep. Sometimes all that matters is what YOU notice.

Oh for sure, I totally understand what you mean, and I'm exactly the same, I'm now noticing flaws I wouldn't've noticed before, but, that's because we're watch enthusiasts The guy on the street, or even the average gen owner, simply would not know the flaws even if they were pointed out to them For example, the etchings on the clasp leaves of my DateJust are gibberish spelling, and I think the minute markers on the dial should be in line with the lume dots, rather than lining up with the tips of the hour markers, but on the wrist, it looks the business, and it's not as if I take it off to read the clasp, I keep it on my wrist, so while the watch is a far from flawless replica, it's still a perfectly passable rep in the context of flying under the radar on a day to day basis

thanks for your advice I'm actually thinking of getting an authentic one, but its just that I am afraid of scratching it, etc, or even worse losing it. Thats why I wanna get a rep, close enough so i can just wear daily and maybe keep an authentic in the safe, or wear them on special occasions.

You're very welcome, I'm always happy to help where I can But as above, please do not buy a gen just to then throw it in a safe... If you're going to do that, just donate the cost of the gen to an animal welfare charity where it can be put to good use, because IMHO, when you get a rep, even if it's not 1:1 perfect replication, that will become your watch: the one that feels familiar on your wrist, and unless you hang around with a bunch of douchebags who're likely to actually call you out on the watch, honestly, hardly anyone will ever comment on it. On average, I've had maybe one comment per year over the last five years of collecting. One was about a 16610 Submariner, two were about a Panerai 029a GMT, the other was about an innacurately built Snowflake Submariner project in progress, and they were simply polite interest, nothing sinister. As I said before, unless you plan on trying to sell the thing as real, the flaws I mentioned above such as clasp etchings or movement decoration simply become irrelevant when it comes to wearing your watch day in day out

Another fine build from the maestro

The pics I've seen of Nanuq's gen looks 'gilty' in spots and white in others to me. To my knowledge, all the 1950s gilt dials were gloss. Age has diminished the gloss for certain. How much gloss now is up to us. The decal manufacturer I use recommended using Krylon crystal clear to seal the decal. It comes in gloss, matte or flat. The Krylon is cheap at Walmart, and it does not make the ink bleed. That's what I used on the bare brass to tone it down some, in matte with the decal finished in gloss.

The more 'gilt' in the printing the less of the dial shows through. It will knock down the gold or brassy of the dial for the look that you want. But. And there always is a 'but'. Inkjet uses green in the mix to make the gold color, and that comes through on my equipment. As it set and dried, the green 'tint' was more pronounced. I used Photoshop to blow the pic up, find all the green I could and delete it out. It helped a lot. But I am still experimenting with that.

Hmmm, might it be worth trying to achieve a kind of semi-gloss appearance? Not a uniform finish like the DSSD dial, but maybe a gloss clearcoat, but then an irregular dusting with matte clearcoat as well to create 'patches of patina'? The project I have in mind is a fantasy build of a GMTIIc, but as if rather than building a 6542, the guy got bored and instead pulled a load of parts from stores and slapped them together for the lulz, so if gilt dials were originally gloss and that gloss degrades over time, that is definitely something I would want to try and achieve I want it to look as period accurate as possible, as if it was a completely one off build from back in the day I've been having photographic issues lately, but will report back on the progress of the dial

That depends on the model, and then possibly the year. The 6204 Submariner had gilt/gilt while the 6542 had a gilt dial with silver hands. But in later years of the gilt dial I've seen both ways, so they could be replaced or could be Rolex doing as they pleased, again.

The decals I use are for inkjet, so they do not print white. If printed on white decal paper the picture is just what you'll get, regardless what background color the dial is. If you use clear, as I use most of the time, the lighter colors are opaque, so yellow like gold will pickup whatever the background is. I've experimented putting a decal on a rough sanded brass dial. It is too 'gilty', looks a bit like gold leaf.

Then I tried a matte clear on the brass. That toned it down some, but not enough, particularly in bright sun. What seems to work best for me so far, is the brass dial rough sanded, then white or creme paint smeared on it. I use a piece of thin cardboard and 'squeegee' the paint across. That leaves some streaks of white and shiny brass. The decal then picks up both so the gilt looks like it is aging to white. It also picks up the contour of the paint, so there is a noticeable patina to the dial. Head on it looks glossy and smooth, and from the side it shows the spider cracking of the heavy clear coat I use, and the patina surface.

I hope that gives some help. If it's been done wrong, I did it! I've experimented a lot with the decals, and really enjoy trying to figure out how to perfect them.

Very helpful indeed The project I have in mind will be closer to the 6542 than a Submariner or Explorer, so maybe I shouldn't be so hasty as to dismiss the silver hands... The Antique Gold is a funny color to describe, it's quite a dark color, almost bronzey in its finish, rather than yellow gold or polished brass, and I'm hoping the translucency of the decals and then matte varnishing would subdue it further, so it's 'more color, less shine' As with most of my projects, this one may be a while before it gets put into action (I need to complete my 16610 to 16800 transition first ) but I thought it wouldn't hurt to do a little research into the options

There will always be some flaw in replication, so unless you want to try and sell the replica as the real thing (the only time flaws would truly be noticed or an issue) you might as well just buy whichever one you most like the look of, and enjoy it Chances are no one will even notice what watch you're wearing, so personally speaking, I don't think it's worth the hassle of worrying about the flaws, which really only show up when the watch is viewed in dinner plate-sized photos on a screen... On the wrist, most flaws will simply not be noticed, so wear what you like the most

I found a spare set of dial decals the other day for an Explorer Precision dial, and thought if I was to prep the dial blank with Plasticote's Antique Gold paint rather than white, it might give a nice gilt effect Of course, planned watch will not be an Explorer, but I just wondered if gilt on gilt was the acknowledged route

Thanks for the continued feedback and fantastic examples, amigos I may indeed have to go gilt on gilt with my idea (when I can get it off the drawing board and onto my wrist )

So Deep-Sea only then?

That would give away that I'm overcompensating Gotta keep it subtle

I would say yes.

At least the ones I've seen typically do.

Usually accompanied by gold bezel (or gold accents), gold bracelet accents and a gold crown too

Though I'm sure there are exceptions to every rule.

Many thanks

Just wondering, TIA

I'm poor and hung like a hamster, so need to wear a Rolex to feel like a Real Man

For lining up, I simply put the crown stem back into the movement, center the dial's centre hole precisely over the pinions, and then use the stem to align against the 3/15 minute marker

Same reply as above really, I just put the tape on the front of the movement where it won't foul any moving parts, sometimes using two or three layers of tape to get the right spacing, and ignore the ring all together I would recommend tape over the dial dots, as it's possible to cut the tape into squares larger than the dots, so getting more adhesion between movement and dial

Fantastic

Either a vintage GMT, or a Tudor Snowflake

Beautiful photography Not watches I'd choose for myself, but they all work very nicely together

Sorry to hear that, I hope she will be okay :-\

I've never used the ones specifically sold as 'dial dots' but have used regular double sided tape on many occasions to fix a dial to the movement, and never had an issue with the dial slipping or moving over time

I don't blame gold I blame the lack of appreciation of their family history and greed for this problem, not the price of gold.

I'm sure great-grandpa Wilbur would rather an heirloom get melted down to put food on the table if the situation came down to it. Sure, greed is one thing, but when there is a genuine need for money to pay food or heating bills, people often have to make tough choices