advice needed on franken rail dial 1665 project

[fitch]

Hi guys,

I would like to ask for your help on the following matter;

I'm planning to build a 1665 rail dial with the following specs:

- Phong midcase + caseback

- Bigcrown superdome

- gen 702 crown 7020 tube (not 100% sure about this; depends on the price)

- gen 1570 movt

- gen 93150 bracelet with 585 (if I can get them) end links

- ingod 1665 rail dial

- gen tritium hands

- gen faded fat font insert

As you can imagine this project is going to set me back in terms of $$$ so I'm also looking at alternatives that would hopefulle be more costefficient without giving in to the end-result, so...

The questions I have are these;

- would a gen bezel fit on the Phong retaining ring?

- would a gen bezel be a worthy upgrade over the Phong bezel? (and have the 1665 bezels changes over the years?)

- does anybody know the quality of the Phong 93150?

- does anybody know how good the crown is from Phong?

- does somebody know if 500usd is a 'normal' price for gen nos tritium hands...?

- does anybody have another suggestion for hands?

- does anybody have another suggestions...?

Look forward reading your replies!

kind regards,

fitch

[Dizzy]

Sounds like a cool project. Heres my advice.

Gen bezel should fit

No i personally wouldnt bother spending the money on a gen bezel.

Use the money saved on the bezel to buy a gen 93150, or at least a gen clasp and 585 end links to fit on a rep hollow link bracelet.

Use a gen crown

If you are using an ingod dial, why spend $$$$ on orig tritium hands? Get some good gen or aftermarket hands and vintagize them accordingly.

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM

cheers

dizz

[fitch]

Thanks dizz,

I did some research the last few days and decided to go into another direction; the costs if I would only work with gen parts (also a gen dial instead of the ingod) were adding up to such an extent that I couldn't justify it for myself.

I'll keep you posted on the alternative route that I'm taking

[FxrAndy]

A rail dial should have a 703 crown or so a little birdy called nanug told me

[woof*]

No matter how you do this, it's an expensive watch to build.

If I had it to do all over I might buy an already built one (like the one for sale in our watches section) and adjust the watch to my personal specs. If you want a rep to really be convincing and functional like the gen, your going to spend the money $

[panerai153]

I sort of have mixed feelings about these builds. i built one a year or so ago, and it's very nice, but cost a ton! So what I would suggest would be this. if you want to go first class, what you have planned is a really good approach, but expensive. the other approach which would be a lot less expensive would be to find a good old MBW "polex" case and go from there. Use a 2846 slow beat ETA, nice dial, genuine crown/tube, genuine insert/pearl, genuine or good aftermarket T39 superdome. You might not have an example of a 1665 that is as nice as the "full blown" build, but you will also have about 2-2.5K in your pocket. It all boils down to how dedicated you are to building the perfect 1665 and how much money you are willing to spend. What I always think about with these builds is: No matter how much you spend, and no matter how close it is to the genuine, it's still a replica. Another consideration, should you ever decide to sell, the low end build will be a lot easier to sell. As you can see from some of the high end builds that end up on the sales forum, the number of buyers for a 3+k replica are pretty few and far between.