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Explorer 5500 Franken...


Geof3

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Been wandering around the site for a bit now and am astounded by some of the cool watches being created. When I started this little project, I did not know of this site or any others with discussion of building a watch from parts. Here we are!

A few years ago, I came across Yuki's site by happen-chance looking for hands for a gen 5513. Seeing at the time he did dials, parts etc. got me curious. I had always liked the 5500 due to its rarity and its size. Being 34mm it fits me quite well with a very flat 7.25" wrist. I purchased a case, and got lucky. I bought an actual and original 5500 case not knowing any better. Had the original crystal as well. I then ordered hands and a matte dial from yuki and held on to them for quite some time. I tried the first build with an Asian movement that just didn't work well. During that time yuki started to produce more dials and the gilt glossy dial caught my eye, and I ordered one after doing some research to see which was most correct. Well, the Asian mvmnt died and the project was put on hold, the parts sat for a couple of years. I decided to give it a go again and discovered movement spacers and other parts for our little projects, which brought me here.

My watch is now all gen with the exception of the redial (early yuki) hands (yuki) and the ETA 2824. The band is an early 78350 correct for this case. The case is a complete 5500 case. Crystal is a new gen replacement. The original crystal was crazed a bit and I did not trust the water resistance. Crown etc. all gen. The dial has a couple of blems and touch ups due to being in and out of the case many times. I don't have shots of the movement, I did not take any during the build. Generally, this build was fairly straight forward, with some creative filing of the movement ring and a few other minor mods, the movement fit, and lined up perfectly. So far so good. Running about 2-3 seconds fast per day.

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post-52960-0-16788000-1372971163_thumb.j

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