The evolution of my Rolex GMTs

[sneed12]

The watches that really got me started in this hobby were the Rolex GMT Masters. I think a large part of what's kept me interested is the fact that, in so many ways, the reps of these watches are pretty bad.

Group shot:

I've been through 4 or 5 GMT IIc's worth of parts watches. Bracelet, case, movement, bezel insert--I matched the best of what's out there into this watch.

I found an earlier example of the ceramic bezel insert with the slightly wider numbers in another watch. The flaw that these had was the paint was too dark, so today I sprayed it with Duplicolor platinum. It came out reasonably well, but I'm thinking of stripping all of the paint and starting from scratch.

The case is from an a21j GMT IIc that Stan sells. I don't know why but his a21j new-style Sub and GMT cases all seem to have much better aligned rehaut engraving than the ETA offerings out there. It's a hair too dark, but look how well the rehaut engraving lines up at 9.

Bracelet has a clasp with reasonably deep engraving, not the really light laser etching you usually see on rep GMT IIc clasps. I'm debating whether or not to do the black paint thing to it.

The single really big tell is still the AR'ed cyclops on the gen. Lots of people have tried lots of things to duplicate this effect, I'm still not sure what I'm going to end up doing. It's the last thing that really bugs me on this watch. The movement is a jumping-GMT-hand 2836; I pulled the GMT bits off of a clone 2836 and transplanted them to a Swiss 2836 I pulled out of an old watch. Works like a charm.

My recently acquired Noob/BK Explorer II is perfect, as you'd expect a BK watch to be--except for the misaligned rehaut engraving. I'm debating whether to polish it off myself or send it back to BK and let him do it--strongly leaning towards letting BK do it though .

I just finished putting together my 1665 McQueen Explorer, as well. Finally got a proper acrylic crystal and bracelet with hollow links. It has two problems, the datewheel font sucks and the bracelet isn't worn or softened the way the case is. We'll see how long I can live with the datewheel thing. It still has an independently adjustable GMT hand too (which it shouldn't) so sometime soon I might open her up, remove the GMT hand adjustment wheel and install a datewheel overlay. This one's running some flavor of a21j, though (looks like a Shanghai B from the back) and they can be dodgy to work on, so maybe I'll just live with the flaws.

Finally, the watch that got me started on all of this, my 16710. Funny how just a few months ago I thought this watch was complete. As I get more familiar with these watches, I find that the very slight wokkiness of the case bugs the heck out of me. I need to find a case with a better rehaut, or I've been thinking of trying to turn the rehaut down a bit on this case--but I'd be doing it by hand, I don't have a lathe or milling machine or anything like that. Might be too ambitious of a project to tackle. Also, now that I know jumping GMT hand 2836s exist I need to find another one to gut for parts to put here.

Just thinking out loud, I guess. Reps are never complete, I guess that's why I like this hobby.

[Dizzy]

The single really big tell is still the AR'ed cyclops on the gen.

Do what Freddy did... put a gen Rolex crystal onto your GMTII. thats the ONLY way you are going to replicate the Rolex effect. The gen doesnt just have the cyclops AR coated, but also the crystal (but ONLY under the cyclops). I dont know why they just didnt AR coat the whole underside of the crystal but who knows.

[sneed12]

I was under the impression that the gen crystal won't fit a Noob case...?

[Collin24]

Is this crystal any good for the rolex GMT II?

My link

Thanks,

Catalin

[sneed12]

Thanks for the heads up. For thirty-some-odd bucks can't hurt to try...

EDIT: Less than 20 bucks in CONUS. I guess by early next week I might have some new pics to put up.

[imp1254]

Looking forward to see if it fits. I have a noobfactory gmt on the way to me and will change the glass if this one fits. Let us know.