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Good news everyone! Well, not entirely So there's there's this now much touted and supposedly colorless A/R that came out on the overhauled Noob 111M and 219M. Seems like it will be the choice of A/R on the factory's forthcoming models that are currently on pre-order, notably the PAM29M. This new A/R is in fact different from the previous 111M batch that had a light but noticeable turquoise tinge if you caught it just right. By the way, the HFactory's A/R on their 005M & 000N is very similar, as in it's no longer colorless as was the case with early models like 219L, 177L, etc., wonder if they're now using the same vendor? Right, but I digress as the subject of this writeup is the new improved A/R on overhauled Noob watches and other bits on my mind all relating to the Noob factory. This latest batch of Noob 111Ms that I received last night has this transparent A/R among a plethora of other improvements over the the initial batch. More on the other improvements later and in a separate thread. This A/R is indeed pretty transparent in almost all lighting conditions. You might catch a pleasant extremely faint purplish tinge to it if in focused spots, very much like OEM late model crystals. E.g the light source reflection will show an extra faint purple tinge but the whole crystal will not reflex with any color. Not something we've seen before from rep factories. BUT, a little venom bittereth much sweet. The factory cheated - this new A/R is double-sided, that's how they're getting it to be so effective. If you want further evidence that other models received or will receive the same double-sided A/R, you can see the exact purple tinge that I mentioned in Angus' photos of PAM29M, look carefully at the cyclops. If you already took delivery of the NF 219M or 111M, another way to show this "wonderful A/R" in action is to breathe on the crystal, the water vapor will fog up the crystal and as it evaporates really quickly look at the watch in focused direct light. There is no doubt the A/R is double sided, and you'll see more reports of this. So what is the problem with double-sided A/R you ask? It's quite simple, on a watch like Panerai whose crystal is not protected by a raised bezel like Breitlings for example, the outer A/R will scratch and make the crystal look damaged. There is a reason why Officine Panerai coats their crystals only on the inside. With A/R coating of all kinds, if breach it with something that can make it all the way through the coat to the crystal, it will look like the crystal has a nasty scratch in it. Alternatively, if you just mar the A/R with something blunt that doesn't cut through it all the way, it will look like you've drawn on the the crystal with a pencil, the mark appears like a faint gray hairline. Except you cannot erase this hairline. What's going to end up happening after awhile is the same thing as way back in PAM stone ages-- you'll have watches with damaged top A/R that look like crap. Of course most folks that have a crystal press and some experience tinkering with watches will want to remove this top coat of A/R, even if it means diminishing some of its "completely transparent" prowess. And that's going to open a whole different can of worms, but let me explain. In order to remove the top coat you can use several methods depending on the strength of the coat. If it turns out that the new A/R is feeble, you may get away with cape-codding it off or using Polywatch paste + an eraser to strip. Really, this would be best case scenario but I've not attempted it yet so I don't know if it'll work. On the other hand, if the A/R is hard like the older versions of A/R from Noob factory, you will need to press out the crystal and go at it with rouge and a buffer or dremel with a buffing attachment. It's not a good idea to do this exercise directly on the watch because you'll be working on it for awhile even with fast aggressive compounds like chromium oxide. The crystal will heat up a great deal, really a rather healthy amount, enough to boil water on it. It may melt the crystal the gasket unless the small rim of crystal bed in the case that the crystal touches with its bottom can conduct/spread the heat quickly enough. This surface of contact is so small that I doubt that it will be capable of any decent heat transfer though. So the solution then is to press out the crystal, strip the top A/R coat, and now it's time to press the crystal back into the case - all straightforward but this is when you may find out just how flimsy and fragile the Noob crystal gaskets are. Yes, the crystal and bezel gaskets are indeed quite flimsy on the noobs going back all the way to the original 111J from late last year. The problem is that they're cut out of nylon, and are very thin. At 0.37-0.40mm thickness they're way too fragile to withstand multiple crystal swaps. For comparison, tther rep gaskets from DSN or cartel are .45 to .50mm thick, premium gaskets like OEM PAM, JimmyzFu and C3 are .55-.57mm thick. I worked on about 60-70 Noob watches beginning with 111J and now I have twenty of the new 111M cases sitting on my bench being reshaped for my PreV project. On some of them, the crystal sits lopsided from the factory (protruding more past one side of the bezel than on the opposite side) because the thin crystal gasket got pinched under the crystal when it was being pressed in at the factory. Nylon compresses and stretches relatively easily so it becomes hard to fit the gasket back in the crystal bed when the crystal's been pressed out and pressed back in once or twice. Same issue is present with bezel gaskets, they get pinched and there's then a gap then between bottom of the bezel and the mid-case. It's more correctable because the bezel does not provide water resistance to the watch the same way the crystal gasket does. So you can just use an exacto knife to amputate the pinched part of the gasket as long as it doesn't mean cutting it completely up. However, if the bezel has been removed a couple of times, its gasket is flattened and doesn't spring back much so you end up being able to pry the bezel off with your fingers. Meaning it will eventually fall off when worn. Noob factory basically made these gaskets a throw-away item. As much as H-factory case construction sucks in my opinion, at least they got their crystal gasket the right thickness @0.55mm and made from teflon/hytrel instead of the flimsy nylon. Next stop - the crystal itself. It really came a long way since PAM111J where you could see the inclusions with a naked eye, really not a good crystal at all and even worse A/R. This has been corrected by the Noob factory, the crystal that came out with 005M and 111M releases looks much much better. But where it still lacks is the top edge chamfer. It's ridiculously big, almost twice as big as it should be in fact and it feels like it's getting bigger all the time. It now looks like the Noob is trying to one up Rolex 25-116 plexi with their crystal chamfer. The issue with the double sided A/R, the crystal and the gaskets, which should have been corrected a long time ago are definitely a "two steps back" kind of thing. I like Noob factory, they really try to push the envelope and consistently put out interesting and difficult to replicate models. They improve on their existing popular models. They stick to OEM case construction. All are excelent points in my book. I used to rip on the HFactory for their corner cutting, non-OEM case construction and other bits, but I don't care about them anymore because I hope the future is behind Noob Factory, they will keep putting out excellent exciting stuff for all of us to enjoy. They just have to remember that when you're better than everyone else, you are held to a much higher standard.