Logan

The Swiss makers seem to be getting painted into a corner market wise, Once upon a time the illusion they sold of superb quality and hand crafted manufacture might have been mostly true, but the prices were not crazy either, so they sold quite a lot, today you're paying $25 grand for a cnc machined, computer designed watch that costs a few hundred dollars to make. Next year it'll be $30k So the result is a smaller and smaller market, paying more and more for fairly average products. It's a shrinking market and is very fickle, and they have to keep increasing prices to make the equation work. To make matters worse the quality isn't really measuring up either. Pretty much every big brand has had amateur grade screw ups on mega priced models, simple stuff like parts corroding, platings coming off and dust left inside.

Welcome.. Good to see a few more Kiwi's showing up here

Sounds promising.. I'm probably keen depending on the end result and price of course.

Frank Mullers staff (or manager, I forget) were pinching parts and building their own watches a few years back.. so I suppose that really counts as a swiss made rep. I'm not quite sure that's what this guy was one about though..

And they wonder why people download..

The genuine makers didn't used to really care about the crappy reps that tourists brought on asian holidays and threw away after a few weeks when the gold rubbed off.. but the modern super accurate reps are a very different story. Expect a lot more pressure

I wonder about the Top Gear guys.. the watches they wear are almost always one that decent reps are made of.. could be coincidence..

Good link, wish I understood more German but informative anyway.

@sdrew, you have actually looked at the pictures of the movement we're talking about right? As this thread has repeated stated it's NOT based on any eta movement, It really is a part for part (well almost) clone of the 3135. The only significant difference is the genuine has a free sprung balance with tiny weights on the balance wheel. The clone has a traditional hair spring regulator.

I'm in Queenstown at present, but have a house in Auckland too, so up quite often. Watch work in front of the fire is going to be my winter hobby this year, hoping to perfect 7750 rebuilds as I've got a bunch that need attention. I wouldn't mind arranging a get together for NZ members sometime, I know of 4-5 who are somewhat active here or the other forums, and I expect there are a fair few more lurkers.

I wonder why the bezel construction is so different on the rep? You'd think there wasn't any real reason to not do the genuine system? The only explanation I can come up with is needing more surface area for the insert to adhere to, allowing lower tolerances between the two parts, vs the snap in fitting that the real part uses.

I don't know of any NZ based service options (I do my own work, sorry prefer not to take paid jobs) , but no body really gets too upset over reps here so I imagine you could find someone. Try pretty much any suburban watchmaker (not the Mr Mint shopping mall kind though). All they do is swap batteries all day so I can't imagine it would take much arm twisting to get a rebuild of a proper mechanical done. What part of the country are you in?

On a genuine the best is to wash the watch is warm soapy water, on a rep I'd stick to a tooth pick

Such an inappropriate material for a watch case part, sure it does't scratch but if it cracks instead how are you better off? I imagine the genuine service centers make a fortune swapping out bezels that take a light bump on a door frame or something.

wow.. the fit and finish of these new Omega's is getting extremely good.

I like where this is going !!

The Omega chrono end link on this rep has been made to a completely different strap width to the regular Seamaster and I presume also to the genuine as I can't imagine Omega using a different dimension on essentially the same strap. You're best option might be a set of original end links which 'should' fit the rep case, and the correctly dimensioned strap. Why change out the strap anyway? The chrono strap was pretty good from memory and the clasp was very good. I had this same problem a couple of years back when the chrono came out and I ended up using a rubber strap instead.

haha.. beginners.. you've got no idea where this is all going to lead..

Quite a few dealers list them still, but who knows if that means they actually have stock.. if you can find one it's a pretty nice watch, although the bezel just turns the whole crustal and inner ring, not gear drive like the real thing. The GT is also based on a regular 7750 layout so no gears or fancy date mechanisms to break

Theres a limited amount you can do, the parts are mostly brass, so the plating has to be re done if you try to modify anything.

Actually I'm surprised how infrequently anyone comments on my reps, I've had less then 5 compliments for strangers in a decade or so wearing 1:1 reps of some of the worlds best watches. You'd feel awfully ripped off if you spent the big bucks on the real deal and got zero reaction wouldn't you

Yeah I get orders pretty often, anything as low as 3 days sometimes. Usually 5 or 6 days

Btw you can move the crown out a little with just a thicker o-ring and adjusting the stem slightly, if you need more that about .5mm you'll need a new tube or a crown with less rebate.

For some reason the Arktos seems to be plagued with bad CG's, mine was one of the worst rep parts I've ever seen, honestly you could see the sand from the casting on it still. I swapped mine out to a V guard, which was a project on the board here 3-4 years back. That fitted just fine apart from the lever engagement point, i.e. it was loose. To fix that I made up a new crown tube on the lathe to move the crown out a little. The only suggestion I can make to get a better guard is to buy one of the 111 or similar models and part it out.

As far as I can tell the 2824 and 2892 are the same, but the 2836 is different due to the day wheel mechanism and has a spacer between the movt and dial. The caveat is that the 2824's sometimes have the 2836 spacer to make use of the same case.. it's never easy !! The 2892 is thinner but the difference is behind the stem (auto rotor side)