Zwiebak

Quick update: The gunked up wheels started to become a serious problem as the raffles crown does not clutch out and the heavy resistance made screwing in the crown practically impossible. Therefore I had the movement serviced yet again by a different watchmaker and now everything is fine. Furthermore I have ordered a jubilee to mix things up, but so far I like the oyster much better with the smooth bezel.

Definitely! The beauty is fully assembled now 🤩

Today I glued the datewheel onto the movement and the dial onto the dial feet. Exciting day to say the least, but everything went according to plan and it fits perfect.

Update: I have almost all the part together that I need. The last missing piece is the gen dial, which I ordered last week. So far everything went wrong that could go wrong but I'm back on track. First off, as mentioned above, the crown turned out to be a 24-600-0, not a 24-603-0. Furthermore it is not genuine, so that's a couple of bucks down the drain. Then raffles dials send me an unbranded crown. Some other things had defects too, so he send me a second parcel with the correct branded crown. I found a 24-603-0 for 165 € online, but as the rafflesdials worked very smooth a didn't look too bad I decided to not make the build more expensive than it already is and stick with the raffles crown. Maybe I'll upgrade in the future. The watchmaker who serviced the movement seems to have overoiled the ratchet wheels of the ETA 2836-2. Or they were defective from the start, but then he should have replaced them. Either way, the rotor spins a bit when winding the movement in a completely flat position. The watchmaker insists that this is a common ETA problem (which is not entirely false, but you can fix it) and that everything is fine. As this is not a significant problem I will be using the movement as is and have it serviced by a dude I was recommended after a year or so. Next it turned out that the bracelets I bought did not fit the case for whatever reason and the spring bars didn't catch the holes in the lugs. I removed the rings on the inside of the endlinks, which allowed me to attach the spring bars, but now the end links had nothing holding them in place and they were rattling around loosely. Therefore I resoldered the little rings and used curved spring bars, which is a bit of a hassle but solved the problem. This is how I want the final product to look like btw: 1998 no holes smooth bezel 36 mm Rolex Datejust 16200 silver dial Fingers crossed that everything will go according to plan from now on. Next steps include glueing the datewheel to the movement, glueing the dial to the feet, fitting the hands, casing the whole thing and getting it waterproof. Here are some pictures of the stuff I had delivered so far and the endlink rings I was talking about: https://imgur.com/a/0vr5E0O

Good news, so I can just take the disc off and I‘m good to go. I wonder why my watchmaker claimed this was not safe. Well he is giving a one year warranty on the revision, so maybe he just didn’t want to risk it.

There is only one seller who has these on eBay and he is based in your home country. This bit of tinfoil would cost me 20 €... is that really necessary? I’ve found this picture of a 2836-2 without a day disc on a German watch forum and I can’t see what this washer is supposed to hold in place. The hour wheel is held in place by this plate, is it not?

Thanks for your help! Do I need to put the circlip back in place after removing the disc?

Sound like the simplest option is to just leave the stuff where it is, no? If I remove the teeth from the gen datewheel and sand it down a bit, it should not rub too much on the day disc. Perhaps I can give it a good polish and apply some silicon grease to reduce the friction? That‘s what I will do.

Today I picked up the movement from the revision and my watchmaker advised me not to remove the daywheel from the movement as it supposedly is holding some wheels in place that might come loose. Can anyone confirm that? Should I glue the 3135 datewheel straight on and live with the fact that it will rub against the daywheel? Should it indeed be safe to remove the daywheel, can someone explain to me how? My watchmaker didn’t want to do it and I‘m afraid of damaging something or having springs fly across the room... PS: The crown turned out to be a 24-600-0 and therefore doesn‘t fit the tube. Thus I will stick with the stock rafflesdials crown for now.

Furthermore here you have a Rolex cross reference list so you can tell exactly which parts are needed for a specific case reference!

Here is the crown. As I said it is pretty scuffed up and dirty, but it turns out to have the correct thread for the raffles tube. 1. Do you think it is indeed a gen 24-630-0 crown? 2. Do you have any tips on what to clean / polish the crown with?

The movement arrived today 😃

@automatico @watcher I just checked rafflesdials' website. The 6 mm crowns he is selling separately come with a 5.3 mm tube (2.4 mm inner / 4.0 mm outer thread width according to specs). Therefore I assume that this will also hold true for the case sets he has on offer. I will keep you updated on that. Meanwhile I received an offer I could not refuse for a gen crown (very scuffed up though). Unfortunately the seller could not tell me which tube it was meant for, so fingers crossed it fits.

@alligoat Well I will see how it looks in person once it arrives, but judging from the pictures the coronet on it is way too small. I'm building the watch for myself, not to impress anyone, and if the crown is wrong it will be annoying me all the time.

Just thought I would share this link with you, that I found very helpful. Among other things it contains a table with crown, washer and tube reference numbers.