Basic set of mods on a Noob LV

[sneed12]

I wanted to document the process of doing what I consider to be a basic package of mods to a Noobmariner, using only hand tools.

Here are my tools: a can of compressed air, a screwdriver, a pair of tweezers, a tube of glue, a tube of silicone gasket lube, a caseback opening sticky ball and a set of drill bits. Other than the glue and lube, most of us probably have all of this stuff lying around already. You can replace the caseback opening ball with any rubber ball, or a pair of rubber gloves, or a ball of duct tape, or whatever. The only thing not shown here is a package of assorted grit sandpaper.

The point of showing the tools is to show that you can get started with this hobby pretty inexpensively.

I'm going to remove the rehaut engraving from this watch, re-press the crystal, grease all the gaskets, trim the CG's and replace the bezel insert and pearl. You can do all of this without removing the hands or dial, so all of this really is beginner-level stuff. The only hairy thing is removing the stem from the movement.

To start, unscrew the caseback and remove the movement clamps. I like to drop them into the caseback, using it as a dish. Carefully remove the stem (there are tutorials for doing this, depending on what movement you have in your watch).

Turn the case over carefully and the movement should drop out into your hand. Since we're not doing anything else with it, I'm just going to put it out of the way and cover it with a shot glass.

Here we get a look at the case and rehaut engraving. The Noobmariner rehaut engraving is quite distinctive, and it's misaligned--on the gen each letter lines up with a minute mark, and since ROLEX has 5 letters the engravings end at :25 and :35, but on the noob the spacing is off so it goes a couple of minutes past. I should have taken more "before" pics so I could show you, but I forgot.

Now we take the crystal out. You should be able to pop it out by pushing on it from the back with your thumbs. I've seen all kinds of improvised crystal presses, including one made out of a wine bottle (cover the mouth with a cloth, put the watch over and push down). Anything you can make work is fine, as long as you don't HIT the crystal sharply with anything like a hammer. You will break it! Once the crystal is out, you can carefully pry out the bezel insert, it's held in with double-sided tape (or not carefully if you're just planning to toss it).

Time to remove the rehaut engraving. You have to be careful here, you want to remove stuff from the surface without changing the overall shape of the rehaut. It is very easy to screw this up if you use power tools, which is why I like to use just my fingers and sandpaper

I start with 220 grit, then 400, then 600, then a scotchbrite pad to give it that brushed finish. It can take a long time, and is pretty boring, so I watched a movie. It would go faster if I started with a coarser sandpaper, but I don't like to rush this step.

Here you can see that the engravings are fainter but still there. You need to check in many different kinds of light to see if they're all the way gone, the damn things are deeper than you would think they are.

Getting closer...

Basically there

Next up are the CG's. Here's a side view of the Noob case, showing the crown/tube position.

The crown and tube are too low, due to the thickness/stem height of the 2836 movement as compared to the gen 3035. The hole for the crown to go into is made by some sort of round milling bit drilling into the side of the case, as you can see by the round profile here, and by definition the tube has to go into the center of it. So if you imagine the geometry, the reason why the CG's have the wrong shape from above is because the circle of the hole that the crown goes into intersects the top of the CG wrong. The blue circle in the bottom pic is roughly where the hole would be drilled for a gen height tube; we need to remove the material that's inside the blue circle above the tube here.

Here's what it looks like from above:

I took a piece of 150 grit sandpaper and carefully sanded the inside edges of the CGs. This goes much faster with a Dremel and a cutting wheel, but the first time you should really use sandpaper (or a file if you have one).

Here is a test-fitting, it's not quite right and not quite even on either side

Now they're close to done.

After finishing the CGs, the next step is to WASH THE CASE THOROUGHLY WITH SOAP AND WATER, then dry carefully. All that grinding and cutting gives you fine metal dust that you do not want inside your watch movements. I also remove the glue residue from the bezel using acetone.

Next step is the fitting of the bezel insert. The jewelryoutlet insert is popular for the LV, it's closer in color than the stock rep one, but it does not have a very good pearl. The solution is to use a JO insert with a Watchmaterial pearl. The WM pearl has a sapphire cover above the luminous material just like a gen Rolex pearl, but it's not quite as bright, a bit yellow, and annoyingly expensive (only $10, but shipping is $7 even if you only buy one, so buy in bulk). While it's not perfect it's definitely the best available aftermarket peark.

It's also, annoyingly, wider at the base than most pearls, which means you have to open up the hole in the insert. The insert is aluminum and it's very soft, so I just use a drill bit and my fingers. Take a 3/32 drill bit and twist it gently into the hole. Be careful, it's easy to bend the insert doing this.

Now we drop it on the bezel to see how it fits. It's hard to tell from this pic, but it's a hair too wide in outside diameter (which is good, better than too small) so we're going to sand the outside. Do this very slowly, checking for fit often, and you can probably get the bezel insert to snap in without glue. I just take the bezel insert edge and run it over sandpaper while rotating it

You also want to sand the bottom of the bezel insert, so that it will sit lower in the bezel. Sit it flat on the sandpaper and sand the bottom, making sure it stays even.

When people talk about recessed inserts that's what they're talking about:

This is about as far as you can sand a bezel insert before you start running into problems (edges curling, etc)

OK, now it's time to start reassembling things. This is a bit tricky. The first thing that has to go back in is the movement, but BE CAREFUL because when we turn the watch over, it's not going to be protected by the crystal. It's easy to scratch the dial by mistake right about now.

recase the movement

and turn it over

We need the movement in now, because otherwise we will not know where the cyclops should go. We need to know the position of the datewheel to center the cyclops over it.

I'm going to put a tiny bit of grease on the crystal gasket. I do so by putting a glob on my finger

and running it over the gasket, then wiping the gasket off. You just want a tiny amount, especially in the front (where any excess will squidge out under the crystal and be visible; you can be a bit less exact on the caseback gasket).

gasket installed. It's a press-in type, not like the gen which would be held on by a retaining ring built into the bezel.

This is your last chance to make sure there's nothing on the dial, so use your compressed air and blow it off. Then clean the crystal carefully, wipe it with a lint free cloth on the inside, and blow off the inside as well. There's dust there even if you can't see it.

Now put the crystal on the watch, being careful to center the cyclops over the date window

And press the crystal in. I have a press, but for the purposes of this tuto I used the edge of a table

and pressed down with my hand. Worked fine.

Now I put a couple of dots of glue for the bezel insert, I use GS Hypo cement here

and install the bezel insert which we've already precisely fitted. I want to make sure the bezel insert lines up with the 12 o'clock mark on the dial.

close up of the pearl:

and of the dial

and it's done!

Total time investment, maybe 5 hours, but 2.5 of that was spent slowing sanding the rehaut while watching Jet Li kill people. Also, I went slower because I was taking pics, and the CGs took me an hour with sandpaper but usually only take 10 min with a Dremel. So I think 2-4 hours is probably reasonable for this, maybe a bit more the first time.

The point of this was to show, I suppose, how good of a value a Noobmariner is--with a few very basic mods you can have a heck of a watch. This particular watch has a Swiss ETA, but you can buy a clone for under $200 new, sometimes a lot less than that. A few hours time invested and you have a really quite good rep. Is it as good as one of the super-rep Submariners? No, it's not. The rehaut is still too shallow, even though the shape is pretty good. Lume is a weak spot on many Noobs. The low crown position is something that can't be fixed. I have a BK/TW best with WM9 hands and dial, and it's a better watch than this one, no question.

However--it was also more than 3x as much. Value-wise, the Noob is pretty darn hard to beat. The only other rep I can think of that's as good of a buy is the 5th gen PO with DG4813.

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Edited June 12, 2011 by sneed12

[woof*]

Very good tutorial sneed!

Thanks for taking the time to do this. It will be very helpful to many people!

[chiman12]

Awesome tute S! Excellent easy mods to make your noob look better.

[tshoot]

Fantastic writeup! Some really great info here.

[crossbones]

so when can I send you my noob for a sneed treatment?

[rosnik]

Nice!

thank you

[alligoat]

Nice job sneed! This is excellent reading for noobs who want to improve their noobmariner. It's hard to believe the noobmariner has been out for 5 years and it's still going strong.

[TeeJay]

That's a fantastic write up, thanks for taking the time and sharing

[StormTooper4]

A Top Quality post and work

[Migge]

Sticky!

Thanks for investing the time and sharing.

Mike

[JimmyGee]

Top Class sneed12. Thank you for sharing your fascinating write up. Great for a Noob like me.

[VesperMatt]

Oh, this might be the writeup that pushes me into a cheap noob as a knock around watch! Excellent write up and much thanks.

[PeTe-L]

As a noob (not the factory ;-), I really appreciate the step-by-step instructions and photos. This is a great tutorial. Thanks!

[Smqsub]

Yes this is definitely the tutorial that will push me into the modding abyss ))))))

[tomhorn]

excellent write-up ... tempted to try it myself just for fun, even though I have the WM9 version ...