highoeyazmuhudee Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 i thought id post a comparison of two popular aftermarket hand choices... why? because i could while these pictures provide some insight its still far from seeing them in 3-D space for a more accurate comparison im comparing a set of Clarks : Gen : Yuki hands the clarks and yukis are for ETA and are a popular choice for replacement aftermarket hands, these gen hands here are tritium and for a 5513 -1520 calibre. im keeping them under glass since the lume appears brittle and i dont want it potentially crumbling today. that being said; the sizes in the picture are slightly larger than if they were on an equal plane with the gen hands, the aftermarket hands are maybe sitting 0.5mm above the gen hands in 3D space the clarks hour hand is almost perfect except for the little notch between the cannon ring and the rectangle bridge lume. Clarks is the only aftermarket hour hand able to get the size of the round merceds part correct with gen. now if only they fixed that metal notch. Yukis: the mercedes part is too small a circle and the pointer part of it is too long. Winner: it s a toss up between which of these two hands to use. Clarks: while i like the correct width of the minute hand on the clarks, the extra length towards the bottom of the hand really hurts its chances of me using it. it breaks from traditional shape of a rolex minute hand IMO. Yuki's minute hand has the most correct shape of the two, but the width of the minute hand is slightly more narrow than the gen. Winner: i would go with yukis hand in this situation, while it is more narrow thats harder to spot in a set with narrow hands compared with Clarks Clarks second hand is *almost* perfect, its only flaw is that it is ~1mm too long, very simple solution, snip it with scissors. DONE, its prefect. Yukis second hand is not only too long, but its luminous dot on the end is not where it should be at all, even installed on a watch not being next to a gen second hand it always looked odd to me. and now you can see why. Winner: Clarks with a very simple mod, its perfect. CONCLUSION: so there you have it, you might have to buy a couple sets of aftermarket hands and combine them to make a halfway decent set of hands depending what rep hands you have lying around and how they measure up. Clarks can easily win this with a couple of changes. So Gary if youre listening, make two changes and youve got the best set of aftermarket hands out there What set would i use? I Would probably do a combination of the Yuki hour hand and minute hand with a Clarks modded second hand. if you use a clarks hour hand and pair it with a yuki minute it might look disporportionate because of the variance in width between the two (clarks being gen width, yukis not) but yukis second hand is definetly the weakest point of the set and should not be used, clarks to the rescue. *If anyone else has a pair of hands worth sharing let me know, ive tried a few others like WSO, and watchbandman, they are more or less the same as Yukis with the incorrect width and pointy 'arrow', but i do look forward to explanding this article with other hands worth comparing. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zeleni kukuruz Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Great man, thank you very much for this info! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelizer Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Nice and very useful comparison! Thanks for taking the time mate! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woof* Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 That's the best comparison of gen/aftermarket hands I have seen High, a real education for me. Thanks for posting these pics and info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klocklind1 Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Thanks a lot for that comparision I think that the WM9 is one of the better ones as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curlflash Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Nice topic, thanks ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackR Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 thanks, H...very helpful...in building my 5513 gilt, i had to piece together this information...great to have it in one spot... i went with all clarks...mostly because of the hour hand...with this hour hand, i think you have to then go with the fatter minute hand of clarks over yuki...to me, the yuki "pointy" hour hand is very noticeable...less noticeable is the bottom piece on the minute hand...so that's why i went with all clarks...nice to learn that the second hand nears a milimeter snip - didn't know that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serafino Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Very helpful and, for me, timely. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjjoyce1 Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Nice side by side! With the thinness of the material you are working with, I'm tempted to buy a set of clarks hands and attempt to open up the bottom of these slots by hand and then relume. With patience, I bet it wouldn't be hard. Hmmm I sense a new project coming on. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dluddy Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Great comparison post. Thanks for sharing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Scope Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Thanks for posting. Very good info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valty Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Very good information here ! Thank you very much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krpster Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Great info and nice to see first...hand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolexaddict Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 as I work on gens since a few months, I have compared gen hands on a GMT16750 and a Expl.16570 with various aftermarket hands, Gen Rolex hands are very thick compared with reps, the only seller who has the good one is Clark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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