Quick and Dirty: FGD pre-V hands review

[babola]

First of all guys, let me thank Simon for another great product from the infamous 'FGD factory' !

I promised him I'll post few words once his pre-V set makes its way Downunder-Kiwiland, and while I haven't had a chance to install them yet on my pre-A 040/Ti, here are some pics and commentary I thought the community would find beneficial.

Also, I've slightly changed the color of the lume strips as the original color was crisp white...and I apologize I haven't included the 'pre' pictures. More about this one on one of the photos below.

BTW, I haven't done any Photoshoping on any of the photos, firstly as I didn't have time to play with white balance offset etc, and secondly I wanted to show the hands in their natural appearance.

The FGD pre-V hands in their full glory (slightly airbrushed to darken the crisp white lume):

This is one of the photos of a genuine 5218-201/A that shows the original hands in macro, comparing the rep/gen photos shows how close to 1:1 FGD pre-V hands are:

...and another photo of a gen pre-V:

Few more pictures to show FGD hands texture, shape and overall appearance:

Not many would notice, but there are some minor differences between the minute and hour hands. The lume strip is only slightly wider on the hour hand, and the angle of the arrow tip is slightly wider on the hour hand, making it looking slightly blunt. This again, isn't something that most of us would catch by the naked eye. I only know this because Simon and I noticed it on the blown-up prototype blueprint, that's all. While the extra thickness of the hour hand is I believe correct, the cut off tips are incorrect, but again...not something most of us would catch without being blown up on photos.

This photo shows the original white lume on the back of the minute hand vs airbrushed 'tritium' lume on the hour hand. It appears the hands maker missed Simon's instruction about the correct aged lume color, and went with straight C1.

The small second hand is as 1:1 as you get these days. The frame is thinner as per gen T-hands specs, finish is semi-gloss, and the whole look and feel is very gen-like. Again, this one has been airbrushed in aged T-lume by me:

This photo shows the lume strip width differences on both minute and hour hands (or does it? :-)) It's actually hard to notice...so what is your guess which is hour and which minute hand?

These pre-V hands should actually fit many of our projects, including pre-V, pre-A as well as A-series watches. They all seem to come with same type of hands, wider and longer lume strip, extending well into the tip of the hands.

I have included below some photos of gen pre-V, pre-A and A-series models...

pre-V 201/A:

pre-V 203/A:

pre-A 001:

A-series 001:

Some suggestions for the next run, if I may:

The photo below shows the different hand tip angle on hour and minute FGD pre-V hands, with minute hand having the arrow cutout tip with slightly sharper angle compared to hour hand. The genuine have the same angle on both the hour and minute hand tip, at least this is what I believe. Not a biggie, but also an easy thing to 'fix'.

Another insignificant detail is that the tips of the hands are slightly cut off, the genuine pre-V hands appear to be sharp at the tip...but I could be wrong and it could be the photos I've seen...not 100% sure on this one. Feel free to add your thoughts and comments on this:

Lastly, the lume should be slightly darker or creamier white, more like ivory, instead of pure white C1 the maker used this time. Again, this should be an easy fix, and the second run of the hands could address all this little (and shall I say unimportant) bits, and make them even closer to 1:1 to gens, if that's even possible as these hands are probably the best and closest Panerai rep hands any aftermarket maker made so far, IMO

All in all - a wonderful product Simon, keep up the good work, mate!

cheers,

babola

[siesta181]

Nice review mate.... and much thanks to FGD for taking this on.

The dull or blunt hands is only noticeable when pictures of it are blown up. Doubt you can see when its installed on the watch. Also, the black hands and the black dial will camouflage this minor detail. Of course there's room for improvement for the nex run.... So when is it?

Cheers

S181

[babola]

Yup, as I stated above not a a biggie at all, some people will care about the little details more than others, though.

My aim was to provide a brief review to a wide range of RWG audience, some more OCD and 'technical' in observations while the others not obsessing small things at all.

[Merlin]

great review, thanks. at least my cut off isn't that noticeable, think I can live with it

maybe I'll do something with the plain white...

[esco]

Excellent review, I was wondering about the crisp whiteness, but I'm so happy at the quality of the hands it doesn't bother me to have them tinted or even relumed. These Pre-V style hands are excellent straight out of the box!

[tanya]

Awesome review brother

Can't wiat to get them on my The Zigmeister masterpiece!

[esco]

@ babola, can you show us how you tinted your hands? You mentioned airbrushing, did you just lightly coat the top layer or the underside? I'm guessing the top layer, but how did you do the seconds hand and maintain the white paint so cleanly?

What other methods are available for us to try in order to "tint" these hands to a slightly off-white aged look? Of course, a relume would be best

[babola]

@ babola, can you show us how you tinted your hands? You mentioned airbrushing, did you just lightly coat the top layer or the underside? I'm guessing the top layer, but how did you do the seconds hand and maintain the white paint so cleanly?

What other methods are available for us to try in order to "tint" these hands to a slightly off-white aged look? Of course, a relume would be best

The method is a MAJOR hit-and-miss, one-way street...this was a risky thing to do as I had only about 50-60% success in the past, stuffing up many hands and test dials in the process. I decided to take my chances this time, and it worked. The second hand was wiped straight away after the coating, the lume is porous so couldn't be wiped off accidentally, anyway.

I'm a fiddler and a modder and I guess I just got lucky this time...but with these hands I'd advise to leave them the way they are because the risk of stuffing them up outweighs the benefits by far.

cheers,

babola

[w0lf]

A job well done, as always, Babola

[esco]

Thanks for the info babola... I had an inkling that it would be something that would result in a questionable ending (one way street). In any case you did an excellent job on your hands, I'm sure previous experience has paid off greatly.

Can't wait to get mine installed!

[fishgodeep]

Thanks Babola for an excellent review !!!

I agree on the comments regarding the lume colour and truncated tips , I have asked that these be corrected on the next run

It was a actually a toss up between lumed or un-lumed but as there was so little difference in cost I figured at least with lume they are ready to wear and re-luming is always an option.

Thanks to everyone who suports these projects with your time and money!!!

Cheers

FGD

[babola]

Thanks Babola for an excellent review !!!

The pleasure was all mine, mate...that was at least I could do after you've done all the hard stuff and made us all a little happier, once again I bought a better digicam in the meantime which should fix the issues I've been having with macro photography in the past as evident in my photos posted above

Can't wait to see the hands from your second run

[w0lf]

When is the 2nd run coming? I just managed to score me 2 pair of the 1st run