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gattenda

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Posts posted by gattenda

  1. all i know is that if something goes wrong (like what u get is broken, unfunctional, etc) DW will ditch you for sure. Only if you pay for a purchase, then he'll do what he says. otherwise, he will tell you something like "hi. i'm on vacation. i will send you replacement on xx/xx. thanks. david". he'll always and only give you positive replies. but never does what he says.

    on rwg.cc, it seems that saying truth, which are negative about big time dealers and these "reputable" sellers is a taboo. i'm sure, this post will be deleted soon by someone....your guess as good as anyone's...

    if things go right, great. if things go south. you are on your own with this david wong bastard. this is the truth. real truth. i've bought 1000usd worth of stuff that did not work. he only gave me "no problem with refund. thanks. david" crap for wks and months. he never did anything to correct the issue. only those nice sounding emails that makes u feel like he'd actually do something to help u out.....

    cheers.

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    Does anyone get this every time you click on anything on rwg ?? i do... and it seems awefully a lot like a nasty spam.... if i click "yes" or "ok" then whoever wants to track my clicks can monitor my every move. so i click cancel. but when i choose that option, i get this stupid annoying window poping up every time i click .... anyone know a solution for this? ....thx...

  3. Rob's strap finally arrived...... it's been a long journey but every month was worth it.. I love the fact that this is custom (even tho i do like MF's strap for its quality at its price) and the price is a bit high but the quality is certainly there. I then gave a bit of vintage taste to it (sorry, Rob). With the watch, whose dial and hands had been vintagized carefully previously, my project 6152-Molnija finally completed. The matt black shade of the dial, smoky dark brown tone of the numerals, and weathered uneven (but not too much) color of the strap - I think overall it came out fairly well and has a believable old look. I looked at dozens of vintage pam pictures i can find on the web to study how authentic ones from the 30's look. In my eyes, they had these tones i reproduced in my dial and strap (if you think otherwise, pls be nice and keep it to your self...heh). The only i might modify later is the crystal profile, since it's a bit too thick. the gen one had more gentle profile, which doesn't create severe distortion.

    Thanks everyone for various suggestions. Thanks, Rob for the awesome strap.

    Now i'm off to my next projects.... one of which... many have warned me for its difficulities but i think i found a way....

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  4. Slay

    once (or twice...) i broke those feet. i then bought a bag of copper dial feet from Ofrei (yes..) and did the following

    1. file down the base, as this is too thick and creates a gap between the dial and movement.

    2. super-glue it onto the dial. the position needs to be somewhat accurate but as another member suggested, you can use both sided tape to determine the position

    if you don't do 1, then the total thickness of the dial gets too thick. depending on what you are working on. just be a bit careful and patient as these things are tiny and foot can break off its base.

    if you want, i can mail you a few pairs (no cost to you). the bag contained something like 100 pairs. just PM me your address.

  5. the traslation by software is somewhat off and tough but i guess that's inevitable (btw, i didn't read the entire translation since i can understand the orignal ad).. basically just to highlight the key points, this one is better than DW's in terms of aesthetics, because the sub dial at 6 oclock is not glued (like DW's) but raised just like other 2 sub dials which are functional. The ad says something about the dail being very accurate and the pushers are, of course, asymetrical. you can get options like plastic bezel, the box, tags, etc. The movement looks like so-called "lemania" copy, which is pretty robust.

  6. i've found this site and actually visited and met the guy some 2yrs ago. his "store", which was located in a really crappy rundown apartment-like building, was like a garage that has not been cleaned for 30yrs. a bunch of [censored] all over the place. there wasn't really a store. it was a storage with roll up door like a garage door. the storage was about 15x15 or so. i seriously doubt if he can find anything there or if he has any of the stuff he listed on the web. in person, he didn't seem to sell or do business (i was very presentable and professional looking as i stopped by after work). i asked him to show me some rolex watches and parts. he said they are in the "safe" and unless i make a commitment to buy, he won't show me. I said i have to see them for me to make a purchase decision... that's where our conversation ended. he did not seem trust worthy or someone who has quality items to sell. that's my experience to share with you guys. may be you have better experience. good luck

  7. my friend bought daytona from wo-mart. the pusher was stuck. paul told him to send the watch to some guy in east coast to fix it. the watch came back and now the pusher is stripped. the watch stops often. my friend contacted paul and now paul doesn't respond to his emails for weeks now. that's the kind of service you get from this paul guy. another friend of mine bought pam111 from paul. this one did not wind. the winding stem was stuck. luckily this was corrected by the same buy in east coast.

    nonetheless, paul's watches have more issues than other sellers. may be secret of his lower selling prices is he buys shitty quality ones from the factory for lower price... who knows. it's probably worth paying a bit more and get watches from the sellers you can rely on. eddylee, ken, these guys are reliable, responsive, .. just way better all around. that's my opinion.

  8. Since the Japanese website is still up and running, he's probably fine. Let's face it, unless ETAhonpo had something really unique (like the 1st gen 187) nobody was going to pay more to buy from Ken instead of Josh or EL for the same stuff. He probably wasn't getting enough business to make maintaining an English site worth his while.

    actually, Ken is an awesome seller, who is willing to work with you. I agree that the listed prices are higher than other sellers BUT he is fluent in English, his follow up is great, he is polite and get back to your questions real fast. I'm not going to mention the final prices i came up with him, but basically, i got an excellent deals with him than anyone else after all. Nothing like stupic paul whose english is real weak and sells cheap shits. For example, my bro bought daytona from paul and it was broken to begin with. paul then told him to send it to some guy in GA, when he got his watch back, the pusher was stripped, and it still stops frequently. after 4months, my boro still has this POS daytona that is dysfunctional. Paul keeps ignoring his requests to fix it up.

    i've done lot's of business with Ken and he's been the absolutely the best seller ever in terms of responsiveness, flexibility. the only thing is that he doesn't carry as many items as others.

  9. How could he tell ?!

    donno... i'm just sharing what i was told... now, mine does have " (eta) " stamp on it like The Zigmeister showed. also it's been running pretty perfectly for the past week. i took a close look with my loupe, the balance wheel is spinning with enough clearance to stuff around and without wobbling. i'll keep monitoring...

    donno... i'm just sharing what i was told... now, mine does have " (eta) " stamp on it like The Zigmeister showed. also it's been running pretty perfectly for the past week. i took a close look with my loupe, the balance wheel is spinning with enough clearance to stuff around and without wobbling. i'll keep monitoring...

    hair spring looks good on mine too... may be i got lucky

  10. Yet another AMAZING post from the master- The Zigmeister... :notworthy::notworthy::notworthy:

    It seems that PAMs with this so-called "new eta 6497 movt" were released about 2 months ago, and the problems are only starting to surface now... Maybe we might begin to see more members with similar problems in time to come? :huh:

    Anyhow, one dealer I know (I'm not mentioning names, though) coincidentally emailed me today that he has reason to suspect that these movts aren't etas after all... Mystery...Mystery... :brow::brow:

    my dealer confirmed that this is ASIAN.

  11. some pictures from my project. the crystal is the default one (looks crappy, i know), i need some more time on that one...

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    I've over-killed the hour hand, so i'm going to ottofrei to get some lume to fix it up. in the meantime, i'm enjoying the super-beat up look.

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    Only for those who attempted the project know the significance of the clearance between hands and the dial.... i've learnt a lot about mechanism of a simple mechanical watch...at 2am with a bottle of red...

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    I'll probably make a few more, since i have 2 more vintage molniya's.

    thanks everyone who posted quality info and answered my questions along the way

    special thanks to Finepic and madasboot

  12. I C... may be there are several vintage movements and they are slightly different. the one i have is just like the picture shown, except the center jewel is a brass piece (i think the one i have may be 1 generation older). i measured the thickness and this was thinner than the one in the rep.

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  13. when i tried to fit the rep's hands onto the same vintage molnija movement, i ran into some problems. anyone with experience pls give some help...!

    A) the rep dial too thick/cannon pin too short. This cause hands to not stay on. I swapped the cannon pins so that longer one from the rep is on the molnija, but the main shaft was a tiny bit too thick for the rep's canon pin and it won't rotate (can't adjust the time). :(:(

    B ) movement too small for the case. i guess i just need to find a way to make a spacer... any good suggestions?

    thanks...

  14. which boxes do u guys have? there aren't many that'll hold panerai size watches side-by-side. i found one that is good price (under 50) but the interior is cheap vynl. i also found a few that looked ok in pic but they seem too expensive for the quality (500 range). any info you can share would be great.

    thanks

  15. I don't get it. I used a SnapOn bit to work on an MBW DRSD. I used a handheld drill at low speed, set the case in a vise and used 1 drop of 3-in-1 oil per lug. It cut through like butter. Could probably do another 3 or 4 cases with the same bit.

    may be MBW's SS is softer grade than other reps... all these alloys change their chracteristics quite a bit when a composition changes (for steel, it's carbon content). Same with the drill bits. same "cobalt carbide" bits can have different hardness depending on composition. just a thought..

  16. I would be very careful getting them made like this. There are several variations of existing crystal out there all with different sizes so which one are you going to make??? My maker takes the existing crystal and sets his machine to copy the diameter exactly - guaranteed to fit and then I hand finish them to create the curved sides which is something that cannot be done on the mnachine. Never a good idea to make a large batch of something unless you know it is going to work as you could end up with a lot of unsold plastic on your bench. This is why I have them made one at a time to order and for £85 inc shipping they are not bad.

    Finepics,

    thanks for the insight. i did consider that there may be slight variations from one another, depending on the vendor, etc. I was giong to take 1 of them, then measure using a digital caliper (0.01mm accuracy) then give that to the shop. Also, for the exact reason you mentioned, i am discussing with them about reducing the volume to may be a dozen or so. Nonetheless, my negotiation hasn't concluded yet and lower volume would naturally drive the price higher, so the figure i gave is still rather a best case senario, and i have to agree that 85GBP is not a bad price at all (except USD is currently too weak...)

  17. Thick plexiGlass for vintage pam's (6mm at center) - i found a local manuf who would do a custom cut. the tolerance i gave them was 0.015in. the lead time is 3wks, so in about a month, i will have a batch. i also got a pretty good initial quote (still working on the last detail). so i think i can provide them for a reasonable price. it will be well under 100. if anyone is interested, PM me.

    I'm also thinking about having my friend, who has a machine shop, make a tool to remove/install crystal to the bezel (reading from various threads, this sounded like a bit tough without proper tool - if anyone has info on this, i'd appreciate).

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