I recently picked up a new Navitimer tricompax (thanks GK) as a base for modding. I've been told by a rep dealer that there were 3 'factories' producing Navitimers, and I believe that
this is the latest and possibly only version available.
It has a different case from my v1's. Taller strap lugs (incorrect compared to gen), sliderule better than v2, dial better than v1 & possibly v2. It has high beat a7750 decorated and also has the signed rotor. The sapphire crystal has the most AR I've seen on any standard Navi rep. However, it has a terrible hue to it, making the subdials and sliderule look beige. So bad that I felt it was unwearable as is.
I had seen this bad AR on another rep sometime ago. Today I decided to open up this new watch and take a look.
L to R: v1- no/very light AR; v3- single AR; v1 with Taka AR
Look how beige the v3 looks. It is worse in natural light.
Here we see the difference against a white background. The v3 has a beige crystal!!
I swapped the v1 crystal for the v3, so that it is wearable in the meantime while I send the other to Uwe for double AR treatment.
I was also bothered by the infamous sunken date. I remembered that I had a spare ETA 7750 dw @6 lying around. I decided to have a go at the raised DW mod as perfected by
the modders on these forums.
First, i snapped off the teeth using fine pliers. Then smoothed off the inside with a round file. The DW thickness is 0.5mm.
Then I used - wait for it... fishing line to raise the DW!
It just happens to be 0.3mm thick - which was perfect to make the assembly 0.8mm overall.
I glued the line to the underside edge of the DW. This took a while using a sharpened toothpick, being very careful not to let excess superglue run or stick to my fingers.
I then marked out the plate to indicate the original DW numerals to align the new DW later
This was carefully glued to the outer edge of original DW. The mechanism was tested and dial added. I put tiny pieces of sellotape under the dial near the feet to slightly clear the dial from new DW. Refit dial and test. The DW mod took me about 1.5 hours to do.
Here is the non-AR crystal and raised DW! Admittedly, the date changeover isn't as smooth as i'd like; due to excess glue touching the transfer gears, but it does work nevertheless.
I'll fix it for good when I get the treated crystal. I'm much happier with the colour of dial and sliderule now.
...and a few quick & dirty shots of this work in progress