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who was having problems with the loupe position


FxrAndy

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Well I've got one (see panerai153 thread on Red Sub 1680) and its true that the line up on my cartel crystal is not so great and Im told tha the Clark 127 that I am about to put in will not line up properly also......? HELP?

All words of wisdom and guidance gratefully received............. :thumbsupsmileyanim:

SDC13113.jpg

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Good thing i went to a t-19 then... does this mean that swapping dials wont work on the Puretime vintages because of datewindow location? Why would they screw this up? I was going to get some dial dots and swap an NDT white sub dial into my puretime 1680. Am i wasting my time attempting this???

dizz

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Andy, btocamelo tried to start a thread about this a week or so ago and got no response! I have made retention rings for, and installed Clark crystals to, probably 10 of the PT and Cartel watches and the dial's date window position always looked off to me but nobody ever said anything and I convinced myself that it was just "old eyes" playing tricks! I'm somewhat relieved to discover I was not imagining things. Also it appears that on some 2 digit dates the left-most date is almost cut off like the window is too narrow.

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Also it appears that on some 2 digit dates the left-most date is almost cut off like the window is too narrow.

That's correct. FxrAndy has (had??) access to silver date wheels which correct this. I have one here in front of me which needs installing.

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Also it appears that on some 2 digit dates the left-most date is almost cut off like the window is too narrow.

Certainly the case on the PT 1665 series, but not so much on the 1680.....but I will check again, when mine is back together? On the 1680 its as if the cyclop is a little to the right as you look at it. But again, its miniscule and not something that...........back to the anality of rep modding again, if not careful :whistling:

T19 option is interesting - I have a spare Clark T19 in the box, maybe I will try both, but I do like the top hat look of the 127.......

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The issue is on a Cartel 1655 that i have installed a 116 on the date mag is just a touch to the left as the cartel dils from the new vintage versions seam to have a date wheel overlay and date windo wthat is in between rolex and ETA, so it you have for example a 1680 with a gen or clarks 127 the loupe will be a touch to the left, if you fir a 125 it will be a touch to the right, the problem with a 1655 is that the 125 is 0.6mm to big to fit the case so will have to be glued and i am not too happy with that, the loup as it is is just a touch and only if you know it, i asked my quality control and the people that have met my 11 year old daughter will know that if some thing is wrong on the dial she will spot it and this fault had to be pointed out in the end to her.

I think if you fit the 125 to a 1680 the loupe will be too far right and if you try and NDT dial on a cartel vintage you will need an MBW overlay ans the cartel dials and date wheels seem to put the date window just a touch 1/2mm?? to the right

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My previous post on this:

Q: when dealing with acrylic crystals w/cyclops....does the numbering designate a purpose, like the position of the cyclops? Are all 25-xxx crystals the same diameter?

The reason I'm asking is I have 2 cartel 1680's, one with the REP and one with the Clark 127 crystal...on both, the cyclops looks slightly shifted to the right....so it is not completely centered over the DW opening.....not to mention the additional issue with the DW numbers "11" to "19" being sightly shifted towards the left in the window, other numbers line up pretty well....

so, is this a crystal issue? a dial/window issue? DW issue?.....can different model number crystal/cyclops solve the problem?

Does anyone have this issue with their cartel 1680's? :bangin:

And would a getting a different 25-xxx solve this issue? :g:

25-116

25-127

25-125

Finally.....with regards to the Clark 127 and the REP crystal, I'm not seeing any optical difference...only thing is the CC has that nice bevel along the top edge....but I'm still not getting the cyclops centered on either.

IMG_7063.jpg

IMG_7062.jpg

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"The reason I'm asking is I have 2 cartel 1680's, one with the REP and one with the Clark 127 crystal...on both, the cyclops looks slightly shifted to the right....so it is not completely centered over the DW opening.....not to mention the additional issue with the DW numbers "11" to "19" being sightly shifted towards the left in the window, other numbers line up pretty well....so, is this a crystal issue? a dial/window issue? DW issue?.....can different model number crystal/cyclops solve the problem?"

I doubt this is much help but genuine rolex date windows are centered approximately 9mm from the dial center and eta 2824 etc are about 10mm. Since aft/mkt crystals are usually made to genuine specs, the magnifier can be too far to the left on a lot of replicas.

My vintage acrylic crystal replicas (all came from 'Paul') have the date window offset same a genuine but I have a couple modern submariner replicas with the date window offset farther to the right than genuine...also have a few with the magnifier same as genuine so you never know what you might get.

One good thing about modern replicas is that you can remove the magnifier and put it in the right spot but with vintage replicas, sometimes you are out of luck.

I guess there is a lot to be said in favor of no date vintage replicas...and vintage SD. :animal_rooster:

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I wonder if there are any magnifiers that could be glued onto, say, a T19 type plexi to get it in the correct spot for the PT/Cartel DW location?

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Since Clark's is supposedly made to Genuine specs.....then...if one were to use a Gen or closer to Gen dial (Phong, Yuki, NDT, ingod44)...shave off the feet so the dial can go on a 2846 or 2836 movement....then a proper datewheel overlay would be needed to line up the date window (like fxrandy use to source)

Would all of this come together to a lined up DW & Cyclops?

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Well this is all just plain rediculous if you ask me. I didnt try fitting a 127 onto my PT sub so I cant comment on the positioning. The crystal that came with it didnt seem all that bad, but i wanted to do a t19 anyways. If i was planning on keeping the cyclops i probably wouldnt have swapped it out... As for the date window, it doesnt sound like a gen spec dial is going to line up properly. The PT dial datewindow is WAY too small. it needs to be filed out to make it wider because as stated above, the opening is too small and covers the left side of the numbers. Even with the t-19 installed, I cant stand how it covers the numbers on the double digits.

Im going to pull off my dial tonight and try to file it a bit to open it up to the same size and ratio as my gen sub dial... A little black touch up paint on the edges and some matt clear spray and it should be good to go. I'll post pics after its done. It will be a 100% improvement if it works...

Wish me luck

Dizz

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Since Clark's is supposedly made to Genuine specs.....then...if one were to use a Gen or closer to Gen dial (Phong, Yuki, NDT, ingod44)...shave off the feet so the dial can go on a 2846 or 2836 movement....then a proper datewheel overlay would be needed to line up the date window (like fxrandy use to source)

Would all of this come together to a lined up DW & Cyclops?

yep

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Im going to pull off my dial tonight and try to file it a bit to open it up to the same size and ratio as my gen sub dial... A little black touch up paint on the edges and some matt clear spray and it should be good to go. I'll post pics after its done. It will be a 100% improvement if it works...

Wish me luck

Dizz

Dizzy - GOOD LUCK mate - waiting to hear and see the result. Mine is stripped on the bench now and I may just find the courage to follow you, IF it works! :drinks:

Good luck and remember.....this is worthless without pictures :thumbsupsmileyanim:

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Well i am not sure about the PT, are they different from the Cartel ones, the the qualitys are:-

they are cheep

accesable

slow beat movement.

Similar (not same) to gen construction

The down falls as far as i see are

The date wheel/dial position

the standard crystal has next to no magnification

the lug holes are in the wrong position to the gen

I would still rather start with an MBW case from what i have seen

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Well here it is...

Pulled the dial off

used very small square file to slowly open the window

touched up filed edges with black paint, worked the 5min markers a bit and sprayed dial with matt clearcoat.

Its not "perfect" but dont forget this pic is supersized. At normal size with the naked eye, it looks pretty damn good compared to before. The opening is aprox 75% larger than before. I dont have a before pic but you guys will instantly see what i mean. I removed material mostly from the inside edge and some from the bottom to expose more of the font.

This is a pic from the website showing how the datewindow is too small and almost covers the font on the left side of the window.

post-6336-027680900 1286573717.jpg

Here is my Puretime dial after mods

post-6336-037261900 1286573623.jpg

Looks 100x better. :thumbsupsmileyanim:

It really needed the matt clearcoat to add some texture to the plastic looking finish. This watch just keeps getting better and better. Its actually more fun doing all this work instead of buying an MBW. Swapping a dial is easy, but modding the datewindow and refinishing it adds a sense of pride to the build. I guess if you wanted to get really fancy, you could even bevel the edges of the window to make it perfect, but i didnt want to run the risk of my touchup paint not matching and making a mess of it.

cheers

dizz

[edit - oh and YES the gen/aftermarket dial fit perfect and datewindow aligned. I used the NDtrading dial as an example while i removed material. I suspect all the cyclops alignment issues are caused from the too small and right justified datewindow]

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