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One of my favorite watches is my 1665 DRSD with a gen 1570 under the hood. I've been gathering parts to build a 1665 Comex to complement it for some time. After several setbacks, I decided to pick up an already built 1665 DRSD (yes, I now have 2) with a beautiful 1570 in there as well. As i debate which dial to sacrifice, I'm reaching out to all the experts. Both dials are beautiful but very different. My original one has only a faint tint of yellow in it - almost whitish creamy. The new dial is more yellow/orange. I like them both. I swear they are the same dial except for the color. Opinions, PLEASE!!! Also, although i purchased both with supposed gen crystals, both are very different. I will post pics later but the new one has a greater distortion effect. My old one: My new one: My old one: My new one:

It all started with a huge admiration over Ubis marvelous 16520 projects! The times i have come back to his 16520 threads can´t be counted on all the noobs 10 fingers all together! As you know..finding gen 16520 parts is a pain the.... Nevertheless..i started a 16250 project with a white lumi dial and thanks to finding some great suppliers my first 16520 were finalized sometime before christmas! Proud as a kid on his first day at daycare i nearly even wore it while sleeping. THEN the opportunity showed..a NOS Patrizzi dial with matching hands! Expensive as..a warm place with four letters...but i took the bait and begun my second 16520 project. The project includes: Phong case (U-serial engraved) Zenith El Primero NOS Gen conversion parts Gen 16520 rotor Gen Patrizzi dial Gen tritium hands Gen pushers Gen crown & tube Gen crystal Thomas Kriek crystal caseback Gen 78360 bracelet Gen 503 endlinks Gen springbars Today..and what a great day it is..i´m proud to show the final result! I could not be more happy with the end result! I´m wearing it in bed tonight :-) On with the show: Thanks for watching! I feel empty now.... Well...a quite busy day in the factory But that´s another story Cheers mateys!

Hi Guys! I want to show you my last project, I bought this MBW 5512 from a member of spanish forum one year ago with those specs - MBW old school case reshaped and modded CG - Yuki Hands, Dial & Pearl - Brazalet CO - Endlinks WSO - PWMF Insert excellent base for make lovely franken 5512 And One month ago shipped the watch to my friend Rezarius (that He has done fantastic job!! ) for install those gen pieces - GEN Rolex Crown and Tube 720/7020 - GEN Insert - GEN Pearl with nice vintage patina - GEN Crystal T19 - GEN Swiss ETA 2846 low beat movement I'm very happy with the finally result Thanks for looking & I hope you like it

Hi I'll introduce myself properly shortly and give a full breakdown of my watch box in due course! Suffice to say that I've been watching from the shadows on here for a while, muddling along with my own projects with the help of a very friendly and capable watchmaker. However, now we've hit a wall and could really use some help! We've been attempting to build a 5500 Explorer Franken from the following parts: - Gen 15000 Case / Back / Bezel - Gen Crown / Tube - Tropic 13 Crystal (slightly loose fit, but closet I could find - needed a bit of glue to keep it in place) - ETA 2824 Movement - Yuki 5500 Explorer dial (with feet removed) - Yuki ETA Hands - Raffles Time No. 2 Movement Ring Now all has gone together just fine so far, with the exception of the last item (the movement ring). The ring fits the case and ETA movement perfectly, but there doesn't seem to be anything for the case clamps to fit onto (i.e. there is no groove in the case). It looks like the original movement (3035) fits in the case with no movement ring, and that the screws on the movement holds into the case thread. Not sure what to do next - ideally looking for a DIY solution that doesn't involve lots of specialised machining! Has any one else succeed in one of these builds? Would one of Stilty's rings work better that the Raffles version? Apologies to arrive with lots of questions... Any suggestions gratefully received...

Dear all, before I start I want to thank this really nice community! I already bought some nice pieces here from some members and met some really friendly people - Also from Germany or Netherlands. Lots of support here!! I did not know that the scene would be so big in Germany too. Sorry to copy and paste that from my IWC thread. But I am really impressed here! So here is my work log for my Franken Rolex Submariner 16610LV and of course I have some questions!! What I have: TW-Best case (same case BK uses) 50th anniversery edition (green insert and bigger indexes) dial GEN crown GEN LV insert GEN crystal Yuki Tube Datewheel from the latest Seadweller Noobfactory bracelet (overworked) Cousins Bezel Click Spring The movement needs to be changed to an Swiss ETA 2836. Already have it here - See pictures below. First questions: Is this a good base to move on? Are there better cases available? Is the GEN dial worth to change? The bracelet is too short for my wrist. Is this the best REP bracelet I can get or would you recommend this. GEN is to expensive in my opinion. So what are your thoughts? Any other ideas or hints or feedback? Thanks!!

With a little help from here and there i managed to assemble 2 x Franken Skylands! I used Trevors V4 as base and added gen dials with tachys/ hands. ETA 7750 (high grade) with Breitling rotors and gen date wheels were installed as new hearts! SLATE

Hi All, I wanted to send out a quick thank you to Fidhle007. I think the pictures speak for themselves but I wanted to publically say thanks and give a huge endorsing recommendation. He was accommodating, extremely fast, trustworthy and a pleasure to work with. Anyone out there who knows enough to be dangerous but is a bit nervous about jumping head first into a watch build I highly recommend you get in touch with Brendan (Fidhle007). Stats TC V4 Sub w/o rehaut engraving: TC V3 Bracelet: V2 DWO: Gen crown: Gen Crystal (BNIB, with LEC): Gen Insert: Gen Retaining Ring Gen Bezel Ring: *Assembled, timed and sealed Thanks for looking!

Hey all, I'm looking for a nice franken Tudor for ~$1,000-$1,200. I like the 9411 model, and I'm comfortable using an ETA 2824 movement instead of a gen. Who is this 'Phong' guy I keep hearing about? Does he sell frankens? What's his deal? I've never built a watch myself, so I rather buy it 'whole,' or at least have the builder (concepta?) source all the parts. td

Hello guys ! To start this topic I'm gonna quote Toad and his well known sentence : "What the @#%!$?? Another Omega Seamaster (SMP 300) Chronograph review?" Calm down ! it's not a review, I just wanted to talk about a project I had, a long time ago. (For those who remember, back in 2008, a friend gave me the parts that Omega replaced during the service of his gen SMPC http://www.rwg.cc/to...__fromsearch__1) I took some time to learn, find informations, get tools, parts etc. and a few month ago I started to build my SMPC ! First of all, the title is a joke !... Even the gen springbars don't fit !!! (ok, they fit but the endlinks are not perfectly acurate so the gen springbars are not usable with the rep bracelet. But I will talk about this bracelet later because there is a lot to say !) Let's start for real ! In it's acual stand my project is : - Gen ETA7750 - Gen Dial - Gen Hands - Gen datewheel - Gen rotor - Gen spacer ring, antimagnetic cover etc. - Main other parts are coming from a SMPC rep (from Tony) Assembly is not finished yet, due to a lack of time and because I wanted to waterproof the case before putting the mouvement in it ! So let's talk about waterproofing ! To test my case in the cheapest way, I have build a Nalgene tester as explained in the dedicated RWG topic ! That's what I used to do it : (Nalgene bottle, presto valve, pump with homologated manometer, duck tape, lunetz, ear protection, your empty case, water and white teflon tape) Now a few pictures because I know that's what you're waiting for ! Before testing I greased all the gaskets that are supposed to waterproof the watch. Below you can see the begining of the testing protocol (described on the dedicated topic) For my first attempt I tested up to 3.3 bars (3.1 on the picture) during 8 minutes. Unfortunately, as you can see on the next picture, this case LEAKS !!! Worse than wikileaks... Bubbles coming from under the bezel are normal but those coming from the pusher are not ! And there were bubbles coming from the He valve too... so... (I don't remember about the crown but that wasn't the biggest leak) And this leaking problems needs to be solved. First the He valve, because it's the biggest leak. The easyest way to solve the problem is to seal the fake He with epoxy. But I dont like this solution and I was hoping to find something more "elegant" ! In fact I have a genuine He valve but those b@$£##-$! from Omega screwed up the threads during the disassembly, so it's not usable, but I was expecting to be able to use only the "He crown", but unfortunately the replica is not accurate concerning the He tube... threads are way different. Here you can see a close up look of the two "He crowns" (Gen is on the right side) (note that the rep is already rusty !) (and note that those ******* chinese have forgotten to put a gasket in the rep crown, so I have used the gen's gasket for the waterproof test, but it's too small to be efficient) (Yes, it's the ETA fully Gen equiped that you can see in the background ) Another thing, while I am speaking about "He crowns" : The rep is not accurate ! It's way too high... So I was thinking about threading the gen "He crown" to fit the rep's tube ! But I don't know wich tool I could use to do that, so if somebody knows, HELP is welcome ! Now (if you're not too tired) there is this problem with the pushers : they are leaking and complicated to disassemble for greasing. Once again : I have the genuine parts ! but what is complicated is that I'm not sure that the threads are the same between gen pushers and rep pushers (I'm scared now with this big difference for the He-valve...) Moreover I need a specific omega tool to remove and install pushers without damaging them. (and this tool is expensive at Ofrei, I saw one on the bay, but it was still too expensive for a tool that could be useless if there is a rep/gen difference) (The omega pushers tool) So I tried to make my own tool, with a special plastic glue that melt in hot water and a screwdriver. Protecting the watch with tape and coating the pusher with WD40 to be sure that the plastic doesn't stick. Unfortunately the plastic tool was not strong enough to apply the torque that was needed to unscrew the pushers. (see picture below, gen pusher on the right side ) And the picture above is the occasion to speak about the bracelet, because it's not as accurate as you could think. In fact you can see the shape of each link is wrong, there is a "flat" on every end. And a quick look to compare with the genuine will show you that the links should have be rounded on each side. (Gen pictured below) This is not important if you have big wirsts, but with small wirsts this flaw is very important ! By the way it's usefull to recognize fake bracelets that could be sold on the bay. So I've started to modify the shape of some links with my dremel, but its pretty difficult and I'm not going to make all the bracelet. (I may devellop this part in a future post) A few pictures of the mouvement to end this presentation : I have not taken too much of them (and most were blury ) because there are already beautyfull topics explaining how to install valjoux datewheels on 7750 and how to replace your A7750 with a gen ETA. Here the change of the datewheel. It's very important to note that unlike the A7750, you need to unscrew two retaining plates to remove the datewheel. In Pugwash step by step tutorial, he was working with an A7750 and he could remove the wheel direcly, but if you are working on an ETA, read and trust the official Service Guide ! and remove the two plates. (I have scratched my black DW trying to remove it while it was still attached on the other side But it's not too bad because I will not be using this part) Last but not least a little photo of the gen dial on the ETA (looks like it's not aligned but I think that it's right now !) That's all for today ! Thanks for reading ! and Thanks to the forum that has leared me so much ! Next update in 3 years ! ( ) Comments and Help are welcome

My little project moves on, ever so slowly - partly because I have a lot of work and partly because the tools take a long time to get here. This time, it's the HE-valve: It's not drilled through - there is no screw or anything else on the other side. It would seem it's glued on (or stuck on the case by some other means). I can't move it in any direction. Granted, it's water proofed for sure, but I'd still like to stick my gen on there. I was planning on being able to "use" it (ie being able to screw it) but I'm thinking I'll just chop the gen valve in half and epoxy it. Probably have to drill it away, and hopefully without hurting the case. Has anyone who did a He-valve swap seen this before? I'd like to get some input before I start drilling away on the HE-valve.

hmmmm, my franken 45...i love it, i really do-so why the urge recently to sell it on...hmmm indeed. i dunno, for months i've been wearing my 42mm watches, and my 45 has been sat away, pretty much begging me to wear it, yet when i do its just starting to bug me-like when a girlfriend wants you more than you want them...ha! but its just not doing it for me anymore...maybe its me getting older and not wanting something so loud on my wrist anymore...meh, i dunno, so what do you guys think? leave it locked away in the hope i may re-discover it in a few months? let somebody else enjoy/use it? or break the franken up and flog the parts? what to do, what to do??

well hello on this lazy hazy sunday...around a week ago i posted my first topic to say hey and got a fabulous welcome from alot of like minded people on this forum-i then promised more pics of my collection by friday...but work had other ideas-so two days late here be my pics! apologies for some fuzzy-ness, its sunday, im still half asleep etc etc but you get the idea! hope you like and please post yours too with some words about your watches-always good to talk all things time is it not?! when im more awake and have more free time i'll try and get round to writting some specific reviews of the pieces i own to hopfully add to an already healthy community of information. the longines and rotary are gens, the orange 45 planet ocean is a franken with gen dial, hands and bezel, the 42 planet ocean has had a smaller He valve crown added for a more proportionate look. enjoy!

hi there, hows everybody doing?! i've been reading a few threads on this forum over the past few months and found them super informative and friendly-so i've signed up and thought id say hey. im james and i've collected watches for many years-both rep and gen.i'll upload some pics of all my collection over the next few days and hopfully will get some nice comments and get to know some people. i have a big love of all things omega, so below is one of my faves-it started life as a standard upo 45.5mm...a good few hundred quid later its now my super franken and i love it! it has: gen dial gen hands gen bezel the gen dial and hands made a MASSIVE difference, the lume is like nothing else i've seen! the bezel too just screams qaulity-the insert is one piece with the ring and not wanting to impose possible damage i went with the complete assembly glued in place-looks over function i guess! all the work i did myself, fiddly but a proud feeling once complete-if your gonna try yourself watch out for finger prints on the dial and hands! i had to do the work twice-second time with gloves! im now awaiting a gen rubber strap, black with orange stitching and deployment clasp, gen tube and crown and caseback-but will have to wait til after christmas for those... the bracelet it came on was ok-ish but just was'nt upto standard, so i mounted it on a 22mm mesh with "seat belt" omega style buckle-not to everybodies taste but i think it looks pretty damn fine! wears incredibly comfortable too. anyway onto the pics! hope you like...