jimcon11

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Good stuff everyone

That looks pretty nice to me, you should tell us more about it. Im having a hard time placing a date on that watch just by looking at it... looks vintage but the hands seem more modern to me.

The arguments on those boards are epic. Don't get me wrong, there's some amusing arguments on the rep forums too.. especially in the ones that aren't this one.. especially in the member trade area.. but something about the persnicketiness of their users combined with the extremely high values at stake leads to some hilarious all-out wars in Rolex land. I've noticed threads where a trivial disagreement leads to whole pages displaying "content removed for personal attack". One of my favorites was the one about the 'teen watch dealer', where various old timers faced the affront that some rich kid was apparently dealing huge value vintage pieces on instagram, and proceeded to character assassinate him for selling a 6202 Turnograph that nobody could actually agree was "real" or not.

Hmm I got 24 for both Your big crown is amazing; it's greater than the sum of its parts, even though they're mostly gen. I'd take it over almost any of the real 6538s I see for sale. I'm doing the best I can with mine, but I kind of like pushing the envelope of the "no gen parts" build. Like you said, it's all about seeing the details that aren't generally too noticable, but can nonetheless throw the complete package off. Thanks for the reference there, that crown really is a beauty. I'm starting to see that the Athaya crown does not hold up to scrutiny quite as well as I thought, but I still think it's a great aftermarket part in that it captures the spirit of the real thing nicely, unlike a lot of aftermarket parts. It would be great if Adrian stepped up his Rolex game and developed some more parts: hands, crystals, bezels, etc.

That's interesting, I certainly hadn't noticed this before. It looks like an almost uniform tool mark from cutting the teeth that is left unfinished. Or is it just a by-product of jacketing the brass? My knowledge of metalwork is woeful. I have a spare Athaya crown that's all chewed up (from bending my tube slightly to the correct pitch) so I might experiment a bit. The Athaya crown looks really accurate to me, but this is one issue. Another is that the Brevet and crown markings are a bit flat and less 3D than gen. And I believe the concavely curved "top cap" portion after the teeth is a little short, and I mean just a hair. I genuinely appreciate the feedback. It seems like constructive criticism is often lacking in these forums because nobody wants to sour someone's mood on a watch they are happy with, but it's totally necessary in order to achieve the best possible work and something you're truly satisfied with. This watch looks great in some lighting conditions but rather off in others. I'm adding this to my long list of improvements: -early 7922 case engravings -gen 390 movement (have it, needs slight modification to fit the case) -gold plated dial instead of brass, with more matte textured surface, slightly increase chapter ring size -smoother lume work, less yellow color, and white paint under the plots (this is probably the biggest issue for me) -better evenness on hand aging, slim down minute hand a bit (right now it completely covers the batons markers and I think it should be slightly thinner) -proper big ball seconds hand -gen insert (mkiii with big serifs is my favorite ) -gen crown or roughen inner edges

Nice man, that insert is accurate for an early 7922, See Thanks, I'm glad the thread was helpful. The 7922 is a special watch to me, something about the dial text captivated me when I first saw it. I love the calligraphic styling, and the fact that it flies under the radar being a "big crown Submariner" but not a Rolex. I've tried to learn everything I can about this reference, but I haven't gone as far as ordering books or corresponding with collectors or historians. I wish I had become interested in this watch 20 years ago, when you could actually buy one for peanuts. Collectors have realized how close these are to the famous 6538 and prices are in the stratosphere. There are several other vintage watches that I'd like to research and replicate to this degree, but you can only wear one watch at a time and I hate seeing them sitting on the shelf

Congrats man, that is simply an amazing 5513. Can't really go wrong with that decision

Is the real one on the right ? I'm guessing by the cyclops magnification. I always wonder why Rolex chose to alter the perfect shape of their case to make it so blocky, remove the bevels, etc

Nice job man. It hurts me to age a dial once I have one nicely made but it needs to be done. I'm planning on doing a final dial eventually, with gold electro-plating, white paint under the lume markers, better lume, and textured a bit like yours. From all the pics I have seen, the Tudor dials tend to look fairly matte now; I'm not sure how glossy they were originally but probably not as much as the concurrent Rolex dials. Now how to get the raised ink effect on the text... that is the final frontier

fresh snow

^I love the Snowflake I guess I was wondering, relevant to the topic here, if the HR 5517 dial is on par with the VN dials in terms of accuracy and fineness of print. It might be possible that HR can do gen movement dial feet too, and this would be an option for the OP to consider. I haven't studied the 5517 closely but I love military watches so I'm thinking there might be one in my future

How do the HR milsub dials compare to the others? They seem to be regarded best among all the HR dials and I've seen a few nice builds with them. I think the cost is less too although cost shouldn't be much of a factor in a build of this caliber. To me the MQ and Ruby look over-serifed. The Phong dial looks good except the I-beam effect on the batons is oddly exaggerated. You might realize that nobody makes a dial you're happy with, and in that case it's possible to make your own with printable decal paper. That way you can take all the typography directly from the real dial. The downside is that it's quite a lot of work to produce one finished as nicely as the good aftermarket dials.

Jack gives some excellent advice. Regarding the build, it could be as simple as assembling it, or it could be more involved. Do you need the case reshaped? Do your crown and tube look right and actually function correctly? Do you have the right gaskets, and a proper watertight seal around the crystal? Does your movement fit the case perfectly as is? Do you want your dial and hands relumed? Do you want it aged to look 50 years old (and what amount of aging)? I would try to answer these yourself before you get someone else involved. There's an art to building these so that they look like an authentic watch instead of a bunch of brand new parts thrown together. Many people can accomplish the latter but only a few the former. And it really comes down to luck whether your parts all fit together well or if you need a lot of craftsmanship to get them to. I could help you out but there are a lot better builders here that I would defer to and I'm sure they will contact you. It does look like a great start though, you already have some of the hard pieces figured out.