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My Franken HBB Black Magic


Guru1

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In February 2008 I bought my first HBB, a Tuiga SS high end version. About 1 month later I got a Tuiga RG watch for my birthday and at that time I really fell in love with the HBB's. Both watches came from Precious Time. After that I always looked at the Black magic and one day a French member from RWI put his watch on for sale, it was new and too big for him, so I bought it immediately, it was also the high end version, at that time the price was 1069 USD for that watch. This watch was PVD case with ceramic bezel and steel backside. I always liked this watch a lot and I decided in August of this year to start a Franken project with the Black Magic. Now since this year the Black Magic was available as an all ceramic watch and I wanted to use that model for the Franken. It was easy to sell my Black Magic to a colleague at work and my friend Taka sold me a brand new all ceramic watch which he got from Hont. My son hand carried this watch from Singapore to Germany end of September and that was the base for the Franken. I asked Taka to relume the hands and he did a great job. He also started to build some HBB crystals with good AR and these crystals became ready about 4 weeks ago. After changing the crystal it was time to implant a Gen movement and to change the ugly fake rotor. I knew the movement change was done 3 or 4 times already, 2 times by The Zigmeister and another time by Loosetime from RG. So I told my friend Domenico about my project and he said, no problem, I have done this already on several Pam 250 watches, which have the same layout.

I felt scary because I read that The Zigmeister posted how difficult this swap is.

At the end I trusted Domenico. So I drove to Switzerland, bought a couple of valjoux 7750 and send the watch to Domenico. I sent the watch last Friday, I got it back yesterday. 4 days incl shipping, I was a lucky guy. The result , I got a watch which feels like a Gen, when you wind it up you feel a difference to the A7750. Using the chronos feels different and when you set the time, the hands do not have too much play, just Gen feeling. Still sunken date wheel, but so is the Gen.

Modds done:

base HBB Black Magic all Ceramic

Gen rubber strap

relumed hands

AR HBB crystal from Taka

Gen Valyoux 7750 movement with black screws

modded HBB rotor like Gen

One thing is missing, the engraved H on one off the movement bridges.

This is an esay fix, I think Francesco has still some for sale.

About the movement swap, I am not a watchmaker but Domenico is and he does wonderful work for us rep collectors. He said the most challenging part of this swap is the length of the stem for the sec hand gear at 9 and the minute hand connection.

I only can give you one advise if you are in EU and you need to find someone working on your replica, use Domenico, great guy. PM me if you need details.

Now lots of pics about the swap and the watch, enjoy...........

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now the watch

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and finally on the wrist

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I love that everybody has the same digital caliper. ^_^ I got mine from neweggmall.com for dirt cheap on a special.

That HBB is sweet. Can't wait to get my crystal back from Chief with some proper AR. I'm tempted to try to lume the hands while it's apart. I have proper rc tritec, but I don't know what composition is used on the gens. I'm so jealous of your rotor and movement.

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  • 2 months later...

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