Gen-style 16710 with CHS, reliability update

[sneed12]

I have been pretty good about posting all of my content to RepGeek and to this forum, until a few months ago (started a new job) and my last few threads have been on Repgeek only. Oops! Oh well.

In any case--a few months ago I rebuilt my gen-style 16710 (Noob Explorer II case with TW bezel+retaining ring, old pics of this watch in http://www.rwg.cc/topic/140570-comparative-review-bk-transformer-and-noob-gmtexplorer-hybrid/) using one of the new CHS movements. Couple of build pics:

To recap the specs, the original midcase and bracelet belonged to a Noobfactory Explorer II (the long-out-of-production one). It's currently wearing a TW best Submariner bezel assembly, which fits perfectly. Dial is a Noob GMT dial lumed by Vac.

The CHS hands are a mishmash--I have a set of ICHS hands lumed by vac that match the dial, but from that set I am using the seconds hand only. The minute hand is from a set of Clarks ETA Mercedes hands. The GMT hand is the factory rep hand. The hour hand is from a set of Clarks gen-spec hands for a 3185, so the new CHS movement will take a gen or gen-spec hour hand (which is GOOD, because the rep hour hand was lost in shipment, and otherwise I'd be SOL).

Movement is wearing a BK DWO, which needs to be raised a hair or it will rub on the new CHS adjusting gears.

As with all CHS movements based on the ETA 28xx, the date flip is geared to the "GMT" hand. I chose to install the GMT hand so that the date flips at midnight, the hour hand tracks the GMT hand and I use the bezel to track the second time zone. It's annoying, but it's the only way to do it that doesn't require you to take the watch apart and reset the hands if you travel to another time zone, or during the 3 weeks that the US/Europe offset changes due to the offset Daylight Savings Time that started a few years ago.

Reliability update: for a month this watch has been the single most frustrating watch I have ever worked on. It would stop for no reason every 3-12 hours. I must have taken the damn thing apart two dozen times, and I thought I tried everything. Finally, the thing that seemed to work the best was not installing the movement clamps--it would usually run for a day without movement clamps.

It took a couple of days for the reason to sink in, but once I realized what it was it only took me about half and hour to fix. The dial spacer that ships with the CHS movement is TOO SHORT. It's a brass ring, much thicker and heavier than the standard one or the nylon one you sometimes see with GMT reps, but it's still not quite tall enough. I flipped it upside down (so that the lip that's supposed to be under the dial sits on the movement instead) which gains me an extra half a millimeter or so of room under the dial. Miraculously, I still had space to install the hands (although the hour hand now rides about the width of a sheet of paper above the dial AND the extra-tall movement fit in the case without any stem height problems at all.

I've worn it every other day for two weeks. It has run about +1 second in that time, hasn't stopped once. Runs like a champ (knock on wood).

[sneed12]

ETA: Looks like I did post the original thread here as well, so some content and pics are duplicated.

[justlounging]

very nice update mate...and an innovative way to gain just a little more clearance..

[grejyedi]

From your description it looks like the hour hand is not idependently adjustable?

Out of curisosity where would we get a CHS movement like yours?

[panerai153]

Looks really nice. I'm trying to understand the way the hands are working,Ffrom what you said, nothing is adjustable. It has the hand stack of the newer GMT models (genuine) that have the adjustable hour hand, but functions like the older 1675's and 16750's that have the tracking GMT hand but non adjstable, correct? Works just like my genuine 16750 in that you have to use the bezel for the second time zone.

[sneed12]

The hour hand is independently adjustable in 1 hour increments, but it only turns one way (the gen adjusts both ways).

The date flip is not geared to the hour hand, which is why I chose to set the hands the way they are.

[Tiyal]

How's this working out so far? looks great! Like the hard work involved