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Ok - So I had a summarized build-thread already, but it was lengthy and I wanted to start fresh with a new post, as I am now calling the watch finished. Since the last post I have swapped the hands and added a genuine clasp to the bracelet. Special thanks again to Dbane, NeckyZips, MillerDave and Yuki as well as other members I picked up various odds and ends from. Many thanks to the community over-all for the insight, wisdom and motivation to build this. Spec's 1680 style sterile case - transformed by Dbane with gorgeous bevels and finish-work. I drilled out the lug-holes myself, but they needed some extra help, as did everything else. Spot-on mid-case engraving done by Neckyzips. Genuine 5512 Caseback - sourced from VRF - with Genuine OEM Rolex 5513 case-back sticker from eBay/Germany applied. Genuine Rolex T-19 Plexi Genuine 55xx hands - steel, sourced on eBay, relumed by Big Dazza. Replaced gilt/bright gold hands in favor of these. Genuine Rolex 700 Crown and Tube Genuine Rolex cal.1520 movement, completely rebuilt with new (genuine) auto-rotor and main-spring by master watchmaker Genuine Clasp mounted to rep Rivet Oyster Bracelet (StoneP sourced) - have genuine spring-bars and 2 other straps. Genuine Bezel assembly with aged rep insert sourced from Big Dazza Yuki 5513 Gilt Underline Dial - relumed and aged by Big Dazza, genuine foot-stem positions for a smooth fit This is my first build here - really thrilled with it all together. Here's the link to the original thread and again, these shots were taken with Canon EOS DSLR with 35mm lens. Tuned in Photoshop. For sale, $34,500.00 (clearly, I have no wish to part with it, ha-ha)

1962 “El Corniño” pcg gilt 1675 We watch collectors admire and fantasize over the minute details of vintage timepieces, particularly Rolexes (or Panerai): brownish tropical dials, creamy, puffy lume, yellowed tritium, perfectly faded bezels exposed to harsh seawater and burning suns. We dream of finding that vintage, gilt, tropical 5513 Submariner with some faded caseback engraving of historical significance belonging to a Special Forces or Comex Diver, still stored away in an old metal box. We imagine that gilt dialled 1675 with the faded Pepsi bezel, that belonged to the PAN AM Captain of a Boeing 707 and has been all over the World. Maybe it belonged to an Africa Explorer and Photographer and accompanied him on his solitary National Geographic missions in the beaten up Series II Land Rover: deep into the wild Congo and up the Zambeze to the Victoria Falls, following Livingstone´s epic journey. We imagine us wearing it, dig to discover the story behind that comes with it, visualize all the places it has been to and the events it was present to. On the hard side of real life we also wonder, if it will work at all and possibly worry about the gen parts being truly gen. Than one day RWG comes along, with all the fantastic builds around and, after a while, You realize it might be much simpler to collect some gen parts, maybe get a 1655 rep (there are the 1675 and 16570 options), have it´s caseset reshaped by RolexAddict and everything nicely fitted, so it will be exactly as You wanted it to be. So this is a link to what I was looking for: http://www.rolexforums.com/showthread.php?t=352553 And another: http://www.hqmilton.com/watches/1963-rolex-gmt-1675-pcg-gilt-chapter-ring-dial-with-box-and-papers And a review I used for research and this text: http://www.woundforlife.com/2015/03/13/under-the-loupe-rolex-gmt-master-1675/ And after seemingly endless reading, researching, digging, dreaming, hoping, with some luck and persistance “Never give up, never surrender” this is what I gotJ: The argentinian 1962 “El Corniño” pcg gilt 1675 First let me say, that this is one of the most iconic and beautiful watches I have ever owned. Not just any 1675. Between all of the variations GMT-Master, it´s this early successor of the bakelite- bezeled reference 6542, that speaks to me the most. It has been a grail watch for a long time, so sometimes You just have to walk that extra mile to get it. First introduced in 1959, this is the pcg, gilt 1675. Nicknamed the “El Corniño” by collectors for its horn-like appearance (from El Corno in Spanish meaning the horn or the Bull´s horn, with the diminutive added “Little Horn” like Little Bighorn, Custer´s Last Stand) it features a curved profile that points towards the crown. The Corniño lasted only from 1959 to 1965/1966, making it a rarity in today’s market, while the 1675 would be produced for 21 years until 1980, a testament to its real world functionality and timeless design. The combination of blue, red and gold against the black, discontinued, Yuki gilt dial works amazingly well. RA´s caseset reshaping is just fantastic. The drilled lugholes add to the flair and with the beautifully, naturally faded gen Pepsi-insert/gen GMT bezel assembly/gen plexi/gen crown, it looks truly as if it aged magnificently. If I was a one watch guy this would be it. I´ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Plexiglass with cyclops and black hole effect 5.3mm twinlock crown Aged, yellowed dwo Small, red GMT hour hand GMT bezel assembly (necessary on the 1655) faded, semi-ghost Pepsi insert Drilled lugholes, gen-spec lugbars Gold (gilt) dial imprints, no hyphen between OYSTER PERPETUAL, even earlier issues of the 1675 had the rare OCC (OFFICIAL CERTIFIED CHRONOMETER) lettering, while this 1962 issue reads SUPERLATIVE CHRONOMETER OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED, the SWISS <T25 instead of SWISS only makes it looking like an early argentinian issue Calibre 1565 (stamped 1560 with added GMT function); this had to be replaced by a 2836-2 with GMT function, contrary to gen the GMT hand can be set independently being more functional Correct handstack for the 1675 Flat caseback 7836 stamped folded bracelet with 358 end links (this would belong to a 1969 GMT 1675 from my research). On the hunt for a 62510 Jubilee, the 62510H/550 would fit as well. For all those wondering: Is it worth it? Yes, just do it, You will be amazed. It´s not for the faint-hearted, nor for those in a hurry, it´s very rewarding once You´ve got it. Someway it took me 2 years to get here. Thanks all for reading and thanks to past and present members for reviews, hints and tips, pictures and the history of it:)

My goal was to build a 5513 that aged like it's seen the world. It's not about beating-up a watch, but making it believable that it is 50+ years old. I guess I'd call it "giving the watch it's character". It's the little details that make the difference on your wrist! I absolutely love the way the dial, hands & case turned out on this one. The dial in particular is absolutely gorgeous and the way the GILT Rolex letters reflect the light alter certain angles is unmatched by any cheap printed dial. There's a reason why a GILT dial alone on a gen Rolex adds about 30.000$ to it's price. Doing these build properly takes a lot of time, I often start work on a watch and then abandon it for weeks until I have an eureka moment about something I could do to get the look that I want on the dial, hands, case, and so on. I also lost count on how many hand-sets, bezel inserts and dials I wasted due to experimenting (so don't feel bad if you ended up damaging parts while trying something new :)). What I used: CASE: 5513 from Sead BEZEL: Phong Fat Font Insert BRACELET: Yuki 7206 Folded Bracelet MOVEMENT: Replaced w/ a low-beat 2813 DIAL: Tropical GILT dial from Vietnam HANDS: Clark's GILT Mercedes Hands CRYSTAL: Michael Young (CWP) Tropic 19 CROWN/TUBE: Athaya 700 What I did: CASE: The stock case was too round for my taste and the stock lugs slightly too thick, so I completely reshaped the case from all sides and angles (including the lugs from top, bottom & side). I re-defined & polished the bevels/chamfers several times to make them look like they would look on a watch that has been polished (but not extremely over-polished) the years. Crown guards were trimmed on the inside and re-shaped from the outside. After getting the case in the correct shape, I aged it & polished it several times over and over to give it character. Last but not least, I drilled the tube hold, tapped new threads and drilled a cut a countersink to install the 700 tube properly (without the countersink, the tube and as a result the crown will stick out too far and look hideous). DIAL: I aged the lume of the gilt dial & gave it a nice patina as I'd expect it on a watch that has gone so tropical. I also aged the dial itself a little to give it some patina that goes well with the tropical turned brown color - not full-blown radium dust like I did on another build recently (since this represents a tritium watch), but a little to make it believable that there was some radioactive substance, sun-light and other corroding factors present. HANDS: I used several steps involving different mixtures made of various minerals & chemicals and even soft-drinks to get this look that resembled old gilt tritium hands. BRACELET: The 7206 bracelet from Yuki looked like it was brand new, especially the inside of the bracelet (which was brushed) bugged me, since I own a few genuine folded rolex bracelets and a bracelet this old shouldn't be brushed on the inside anymore - even if has been restored at some point. I aged & polished the inside of the Yuki bracelet to mimic the look of my well-taken-care-off gen folded bracelets. BEZEL: It's a phong fat font insert that was aged, browned, re-coated and pressure-fit into the the bezel ring. - Note about my Vintage Builds: I often receive PMs from members asking me if I could build a specific watch for them, but I declined all of these requests for the reason I mentioned earlier - doing these vintage builds properly takes time and passion for the work. I don't think you can do this on a "contract basis". I end up selling many of my watches, but even if I start building something with the intention of selling it later-on, I build each one of them as if I'd build them for myself. So if you like some of the watches I build so much that you want one, I appreciate the trust and I'm definitely flattered, but I'd ask you to not PM me and ask me to build a specific watch for you. I'll put up whatever I decide to sell in the Sales Section. Eye-candy:

At this point I have only installed the Yuki dial, hands and blue insert. The hands I aged with a light scuffing from 3000 grit sandpaper and espresso foam. I chose a dark blue insert from Yuki because the inspiration for this watch was a gen that's bezel faded to a light blue. Without knowing what the base color was for the aftermarket inserts, I decided to get this blue insert and fade it to see if it can work. I bleached it for about 30 min, buffed with 5000 grit sandpaper and then spread nearly dry espresso around it to offset the blue and add a little vintage grime. That's the main thing I would like to know you're opinion on. Does the blue look legitimately like a faded, once black insert or does it just look plain blue? I know the insert is a lighter shade then the reference picture but that was the point where I felt it started loosing that obvious blue look. Reference gen 5513 Gilt My MBW

Okay - Not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this as I'm not technically selling anything, just exploring the waters to see if there are any interested parties in taking over my build.. Back in the early summer when the Rolex Tempus Machina Ref 216A build popped up for about $25k (with only 50 being made) I got really excited. This homage to the original 6538 with a gilt dial, red triangle, and no-CG case looks AMAZING. ( www.tempus-machina.com ) I commissioned PBDad to build me a watch to be as close as possible to that creation. He was immediately excited and despite several others showing interest to him, to my knowledge, he's only building mine for now making it the only "rep" that will be out there of this amazing homage. He's been working on it since June 2015 and is likely going to be finished with it within the next 30-90 days. It will be using a BK Sub-C as a base, will feature the same case style as his HS01 Build (No CG, beautiful chamfers etc) and is having a custom one-off gilt dial made with appropriate red-depth rating, a custom one-off domed crystal, and a custom one-off bezel assembly (coin-teeth edge) to go with the custom ceramic insert with red triangle. He charged about $1400 for his HS01 so this is in line with that price given it requires a bit more work. All in all I was quoted $1500-1800 depending on how much these custom parts are going to run me. He's still finalizing the bezel assembly and the dial. I am into the build $900 at this point. I'm posting to see if anyone has interest in assuming my position in it as something has come up and I need to free up the funds. I'll gladly discount the amount I'm in from $900 to $800 to give someone a discount beyond the 7 months I've waited thus far. Someone is going to have an amazing creation this spring. If you have interest in discussing the above, reach out to me via PM and I can provide emails from PBDad showing you where it's at, and a paypal transaction copy to show the funds that have been sent to him thus far. Thanks~

Hello all! So very excited to be on my way to being a full-fledged member of the community by doing my first 5513 build. This is my first "franken" and first build, so I've taken some time to source the parts, talked to a LOT of members (thank you all) and hopefully sourced the right parts. I had a local member "TheMillerDave" help me with many things, including the movement and case, he's a terrific guy and a great resource. Many other members helped me source gen parts too, including Whoopy, Jerkstore, Cubeians, and I'm probably leaving someone out. What I've got here is Yuki (baked) 5513 2 liner underline, gilt with hands MillerDave PCG case and case-back. Probably will try to source gen case & back still from another friend genuine insert and bezel components genuine 1520 movement genuine twinlock 700 crown, rep tube rep plastic dome crystal, one period correct, one 1665 in case I like it better "BK" Rolex 78790 Bracelet, Clasp code AB9 until correct gen bracelet sourced genuine 2mm fat spring-bars I've found holding my loop up to the iPhone and taking pictures results in pretty good macro shots. I feel a little gilty about spending all this money, but hey, it's a hobby Be kind, it's my first try! More shots and macro-shots to come as build progresses but here's a few just to get us started

Hi guys, The 1016 is a special model for me. Have owned a couple of cheap reps earlier, but decided to put in some funds. Would like to share with you some pictures: And why have a pretty movement if you're not gonna show it off? ...and for all you puritans - caseback is still left, no worries Well, as most of you saw from the case profile and lugs, this is a 1601 based franken. Full parts list: *1966 Gilt 1016 Explorer dial (this type was used 64-66, before that chapter ring and after non-gilt) *Tritium hands (allegedly from a 1964 gilt 5513 sub) *Tropic 22 superdome crystal *JMB custom made bezel (thanks mate!) *Rolex 1601 case, non-drilled lugs *Rolex 1570 non-hacking movement (recently serviced, date parts removed) - correct for a 1965+ build (before that 1560) *Display caseback from Custom Watch Concepts (and a 1966 1016 caseback just for show - doesn't fit the case!) *Yuki 7206 bracelet, fixed endlinks squeezed in Must take this opportunity to thank others who have gone this path (alligoat and most of all ubi!) for the inspiration - for me the gilt 1016 dial together with the slender 160x case is the perfect combination, heck like it even better than the gen 1016 case! Thanks also goes out to lhooq for helping me along the way and Domi for assembling this. Might consider drilling out the lugs (if I can find anyone with the guts to do it lol!) and upgrading the bracelet and endlinks - but honestly this feels good as it is and I wear it all the time right now. Thank you for looking, and please do comment with suggestions, questions or thoughts - as always much appreciated! Yes, even things like "are you sure that superdome is gen?" is good to hear in the long run... ​

As I go through my parts bin and look at what I have, versus what I need for my different Fall projects, I realized that the case I have does not work with the 5512 dial I planned for the 5512 McQueen build. This forced me to sell a few items and sort of start from scratch. The DW Submariner case I have has a dial opening too big for the gen 26mm 5512/5513 dials, but would work for a vintage 5512 dial(26.5-27mm) or even a 1680 Sub. Now, I like the simplicity of the no date Subs and would love to build a decent 5512. I have a great 2846 movement for it and decent gilt styled hands, as well as a t19 crystal that just looks like the t16, so the question is, can this Ingod dial work for a PCG 5512, or would it be too old and thus only work on a square crown guard Sub? Image courtesy of ingod44's website

I just built this franken 5513. My plan is to use all gen parts eventually. I'm liking the gilt though, so it may be a while before I get bored with it The build list is: Gen 5513 midcase Gen 24-700 crown and 24-7000 tube Ingod gilt dial Yuki case back ST vintage bezel assembly, pearl removed from insert ST t-19 crystal DG 4813 movement Rafflestime #2 movement ring, modded 21j hands, "gilded" Gnomon NATO I settled on an Ingod gilt dial for the franken stage. It's not as correct as some put there, but the Ingod is relatively inexpensive, and more than adequate as a temporary solution. I had an old cartel 1675 case back that fit the gen midcase well, by there was no room for a gasket. Luckily, I found this Yuki from dbane... I used a DG4813 movement. It fits perfectly--the stem hole lines up smack in the center of the case tube, but I had to sand down a Rafflestime #2 ring pretty far to get it to center the movement properly in the case: I rubbed some 21j hands down with 1500 grit paper to produce a gilt effect, then baked them enough to get a decent color match to the dial markers. I popped the ugly base pearl out of the insert and tried to fit an acrylic I have, but the acrylic was too big. So that still needs to be done. But here is the semi-finished product: I still need to find a bezel assembly, a case back, hands, and a movement. But, these will help when I decide to go full-gen:

Does one exist? I would love to have a chapter ring gilt dial on my Explorer, but when I checked last, they were no more than a figment of imagination. Has someone found/created a decent dial?

I think I've finally got together the money for a decent MBW case, gilt dial 5512/13. Unfortunately, the only one I've ever seen for sale was sold before I could afford it. I suppose the best way now, is to get a modded MBW 5512/13 and have the dial installed myself. First of all, if anyone has a gilt 5512 or 5513, let's see some pics! I don't see enough of them around, and I need some incentive to do this. Also, I was wondering if the Ingod dials fit in any MBW cases properly, or if I'd need to have the case bored out somehow. I've heard of people filing down dials too? Is that do-able? Of course the feet would need to be clipped to glue the dial onto a 2836 movement, but that's not a big deal. So is the dial installation generally easy? Or will it be expensive or difficult for me to get done?