Well , based on Mikes last reply I'm fed up with him. I always considered him as a friend and colleague but after this mess I'm done with him and aded him to my ignore list.
When Mike first became a member and started posting I was really enthusiastic. Watch technicians are scarce so I tried to motivate him to participate and get involved. We regularly exchanged PM's and in all honesty most of the time he was in quest for parts or wanted technical info on movements. I warned him not to take on too much work but this thread clearly portraits he walked his own path....
I personally don't think Mike has a lot of knowledge about movements.... Or at least his learning curve is still pretty steep. I remember one of his first posts in which he mentioned the tilting pinion on the a7750 being a big problem (Not! Maybe 1 in a 100).
Then some weeks ago, when this sh!t storm just started, he shot me a PM because he was having problems installing a brand new gen Rolex 3135 balance. Gave him some tips and off he went. Then some days later the owner, a member here (can't remember his name) emails me with the question if I can fix his gen Rolex 3135 as Mike messed up the balance.....
So the moral of this story, in my opinion, is that this guy knows some basic watch making but is far from a good watch technician. When problems or challenges arise he faults. His rant about it being "just reps" proofs this. It is a weak excuse from someone that just can not manage. For all those that are currently waiting for watches/ parts or were returned a non-working watch I have one advice: Leave appropriate feed back!