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Another 1016 build - Lots of Pictures


irate03

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After two Pam homage builds that I am very happy with, I decided to try to build something smaller for my wife. She likes small watches but has never had a mechanical watch so I hope the weight is not an issue.

DAY 1 - today my explorer 1016 Tiffany arrived from Silix, it came with a bracelet, the quality looked ok but i'm not an expert in bracelets, it is irrelevant anyway as I am going to use a leather strap or leather nato. I'm still very unsure what to use as my wife has small wrists and I want the leather to be very soft but I have a very limited budget. In the past for my Pam builds I've bought cheaper straps and aged and softened them myself which has worked out very well.

The strap size is 20mm and I think the size for a plexi will be about 30mm but i'm guessing at the moment. The lugs are not drilled through, not sure if I can ignore that little details at the moment.

Here are some images of the case before I take it apart.

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My first attempt at luming the indices. pre-mixed lume straight on. I'm thinking I could add another layer but maybe with some matt varnish added to the lume, what do you think ? some of the reference shots i've found have lume that looks quite fluffy like this.

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So here's the new vintage aged dial.

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I lightly sanded the hands as i do with my Pam homage hands, gently at 600 grit then softly at 1500 grit. dabbed with coffee, left to dry then touched up with a mix of waterbased paint., I also added a drop of extra lume to the seconds hand to give it a raised finish, then gave it the coffee treatment again.

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Here are some more close up's with a proper camera this time.

It's way to small for me but i'm falling in love with this watch !!! :shh:

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The engraving is off, apparently it was made in SWITZERLADN

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I was scared about killing the keyless but had to press VERY!!!! hard to get the stem to release.

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The dial is quite nice as is, but I wanted to give it the full vintage treatment

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Play putty to cover the bezel plexi and crown tube and..........

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in to the box of hard sharp pointy things you go.....

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so while I wait I took a crappy iphone lume shot

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It's done, the plexi arrived from Cousins today. it was a 30.3 high dome armoured, remove the armour ring so the inside recess fits on to the case, I think the stock plexi is a fraction thicker at the bottom as the bezel pushes firmly on where as with the new plexi it just sits on, so I used G-S Hypo cement both on the plexi and under the bezel, it's nice and solid now, I'm still waiting for a Clark Tropic 22, it may or may not fit. But for now i'm happy

AND MY WIFE LOVES IT !!!!!! RESULT.

here are some lovely pictures.

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Nice job on the aging. Also, nice strap. What strap is that?

1016's are the new black...

Thanks for the great comments guys, this is the first Rolex i've done, I have been building vintage Pam's up till now.

The strap is a budget one I bought off ebay because I wanted to get a vintage Nato but didn't think my wife would wear it, I didn't want to use the bracelet that came with the watch because it would have been too heavy for her. So I went with this and just vintagised it a bit and had to shorten it as it was very long for her small wrist.

http://www.ebay.co.u...984.m1497.l2649

Edited by irate03
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after reading quite a few 1016 threads now, i'm a bit gutted about the lack of lug holes, but this watch came complete for about $80 and i've seen reps with holes for a lot more so I guess for a serious budget build I will have to live with it until I find someone with the right drilling equipment.

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