HauteHippie

What's been on my wrist so far this week:

RWG is at its best when Ubi's participation rises to this level.... Thanks, R for the very pin-worthy post!!

Had a CBR 600 F2... Wrecked it and almost killed myself in the process... Haven't been on a bike since. However, the bug is biting me again recently and I have my eye on one of these: No more crotch rockets for me.

Great post and welcome aboard.... You're hooked now!

Jmarin.72, glad to see you got genuine Chieftang AR. And those beauties look fantastic. No surprise at all that the crystals which didn't require Rocketeer prepping are turning out perfect.

Considering buying up your reps...

Wow, then there is no doubt in my mind at all that there have been parallel AR runs going on in the UK. Rocket also told me of a cheaper local alternative, and mentioned the specs... They were not up to my standards and I did, at that time (February), recommend against it. He didn't mention the green hue. I honestly can't figure out how someone thought he could get away with this big time bait and switch. Wow.

There are at least three others besides Asim and Rooster who have received crystals to my knowledge, and presumably more that I don't have knowledge of. If these people don't wish to post publicly, that's their perogative but I will say that, interestingly, one person has told me that of his 6 crystals received, one is green and another 4 are damaged. So its anyone's guess as to what went on with his crystals. I would guess Rocketeer successfully coated one in the UK, and muffed the others? But why did he send all of them back? Now, keep in mind also, that supposedly there were two runs worth of crystals accumulated in the UK by April, which would mean about 60 or so. And who knows how many more between then and now... but the point is that crystals being returned now may have never been in the chieftang run. The extra 30+ crystals may have remained in the UK this whole time and have been coated there... Where else did the green AR come from? I HIGHLY doubt in the two weeks he's had the chieftang crystals that he's done another run locally... There just hasn't been enough time. So IMO there has been a run ongoing locally in the UK in parallel with the USA run. FYI

I've heard that he's asked a couple customers now to spread the word about his AR services on the forums... It's almost comical at this point (but not quite).

Blackberry with 16 GB micro sD. Considering a 32 G upgrade though... Saw 'em for about $85 recently.

Congrats Stephane... you found a nice one. One of these days I have it in my mind that I'll own a red sub from my birth year.

mj ... Have Zig do the 7750 servicing and lume work. It'll be done right.

+1

Thanks trailboss. I certainly try not to in my own runs, although some do slip by sometimes..... But without rehashing the entire situation here, this is a special case in which Rocketeer agreed to do all the prep work and accept all the responsibility for less than perfect crystals. So I simply ensured that there was no endemic problem in the run by inserting my own "control" crystal (which I prepped myself, and came back flawless), took a quick at others and then shipped 'em off. Any prep work related problems - and there seems to have been many - were always to be Rocketeer's responsibility, so my usual inspection process wasn't contracted in this case. PS... A couple more messages have arrived from members who have now received green/yellow crystals from Rocketeer. If they're happy, that's fine, but THIS IS NOT CHIEFTANG AR!

Rocketeer was immediately responsive to two email exchanges this morning at approx 8AM PDT (GMT -8 hours). (Editted: AM not PM.) He does seem to read my emails, so if there's a general (and productive) message that those directly involved would like me to forward along, I'll do so. Just let me know. PS. If we could keep the noise to a minimum in this thread, it'd be helpful as well.

Really? Paraphrasing from the still-available thread: Chieftang (Feb 11) : You may now contact Geoff of RRWP in the UK regarding his services for AR runs. Chieftang (Feb 13) : Don't take the above as an endorsement, etc, etc. Pix (Feb 22) : OK I've taken the plunge for two watches. Now I really don't think the Feb 11 post should have been taken as a recommendation, but rather as a lead for those who had been asking about it for months. That's how it was intended, and as I reread it, in my honest opinion, that's really how it comes across to me. As soon as I sensed otherwise (2 days later), though, I gave the warning which was also reiterated on Feb 14. And even if the Feb 11 statement was taken as an all out endorsement somehow, am I really to believe that despite his notoriously slow email response times there were mass enquiries and responses with shipping info and immediate shipments of batches of crystals within two days of my initial post? If so, then at this point I will take full responsibility and the loss for those. Feel free to post your shipping receipt and you'll have a refund in full from me immediately. Now... On to other news. Today I received email from Geoff indicating he was scrambling to correct problems in the batch of 32 through refunds and/or recoating within the UK. He didn't indicate how many, nor who they belonged to. He also said that most of the 32 were not prepped by him, but arrived as already-prepped crystals ready to be coated. Take the info for whatever it is worth. I'm simply passing it along.

Yes I offered to coat crystals that came from watches collected by Rocketeer, after a lengthy discussion behind the scenes and seeing pictures of previous work of his. It was a mistake. And one that I won't ever be making again. Another mistake made was by yourself, however. And you need to accept that. As I've pointed out, I told everyone in early February that my agreement to do an AR coating on batches of crystals received from Rocketeer was not an endorsement of Rocketeer, of his business, nor of his capabilities and I warned everyone to do their own due diligence more than once before watches were sent. Now, I certainly hate to see this happen. And I feel your frustration. Believe me. But I think you need to try to relax just a little, and give him more time to return your property. You've only given it two weeks so far. And yours might be just fine. Lastly, that green crystal is the one I received a pic of in PM on RG. That is not a chieftang AR coating on that crystal. At best it is a chieftang AR coating on top of an existing coating, but even that looks extremely unlikely. This customer was led to believe he had received chieftang AR, and it looks as though he has not. This is a problem that he and Rocketeer need to sort out. There is no possible way for some crystals in a run to turn out perfectly, and others to turn out defective unless the defective ones were not prepped correctly. All crystals are always coated in the same chamber, at the same temperature, using a PVD process. All things being equal in the prepping of each crystal, all crystals turn out identical every time... every time.

I'm not sure why you think I would know how many watches are in Rocket's possession. I don't have any visibility into his operation. I believe it was 32 crystals that I received from Rocketeer. Two had cyclopes attached and could not be coated. 32 crystals were returned to Rocketeer after being coated. (Two uncoated) This is news to me. And think about this.... In recent previous runs of 50-60 crystals, I've had about 2 or 3 per run that have had problems and were recoated when I did the prep work. You do the math. I suggest getting your money and your screwed up crystals back from Rocketeer and passing on further work. Just my 2 cents.

FYI... I received a PM on one of the other forums today regarding this EU AR run. This member just the other day received his watch with installed crystal back from Rocketeer. It was a UPO, which I've coated many many times in the past. His crystal, however, looked like no UPO crystal I've ever done. It was extremely reflective and gave off green hue. Now anyone who has ever been a part of my AR runs knows that [a] the crystals will "disappear" after coating (see the hundreds of pics on this forum) and I have never used a green coating. There are two possibilities: (1) This crystal was not prepped prior to being submitted to me for AR coating. The customer was led to believe it was. If a crystal with an existing rep factory coating intact is coated, this will cause a color shift to green. The high reflectivity is a little puzzling though. It could be that the new coating applied over an old coating doesn't perform when the effective substrate is not the sapphire itself, or.... (2) This customer's crystal was coated with something other than chieftang AR. I do know Rocketeer had been in talks with a UK AR lab. So if anyone has heard from him that he's done a coating run in the UK with crystals originally planned to coated with my AR, please make this information public. I certainly do not want to be associated with an inferior coating, and customers absolutely need to know what they're getting. Now, let me just end this on a positive note... Because I've also heard from a few others involved in this run who have received watches back now, and everything went smoothly. So for those who haven't received theirs back, keep your hopes up. There is also good news coming in. And typically I only hear about problems, so this good news has been quite welcome.

Let's send Jimmah Cartah to Iran. He will get everything sorted out.

Now that's neat. Me likey!

Today & Tomorrow: Sunday: The weekend duo:

M! Haven't seen you on the forum for a while. Great post and great to see you again. B.

Looks great Ubi. Gens were probably crooked back in the day anyhow.

Concepta, just a couple quick camera phone snapshots.