panerai153 Posted August 10, 2013 Report Share Posted August 10, 2013 Have you ever bought a watch, a genuine I'm referring to, and over time, you start to think "There are just a couple of things wrong with this watch that if re worked, it would be a lot better"? Folks do it all the time, they replace Cyclops crystals on vintage subs with non Cyclops crystals, folks paint the second hand tip red or yellow, etc. So here is mine. I am a pretty big fan of a couple of small "boutique" watch companies, one being MKII, which is owned by Bill Yao in Pennsylvania. MKII produces some really outstanding homages to different Rolex models, as well as some non homage watches. Small production runs, long wait times and very popular. the second one is Ocean7, owned by Mitch Feigh. They are located in Florida, and have produced some very nice watches, probably their most noteworthy has been the LM-7 homage to the Omega Ploprof. again small runs, and nice watches. Most of the MKII's as well as the Ocean7's have been selling new for less than 1000.00 USD, although in the past year or two, some model have gone over that price point. About a year or so back, Ocean7 came out with a GMT with a lumed sapphire bezel insert, an ETA 2893-2 movement, at 42mm it sort of resembled at first glance a Rolex GMTII on steroids. I bought one, and have been pretty satisfied with it, however there were a couple of things that have bugged me from the day the FedEx truck dropped it off. One it has Sword hands, which I have never been particularly fond of, and the other is the crystal. It's slightly domed, but it sits very low and is actually below the rim of the bezel. I liked the lume, although the hands glowed much brighter than the rest of the lume. After wrestling with what to do, I got in touch with Mike (MD2020) and asked him what he could do. He needed to look at the watch before he could make any predictions, so I sent it up to him. After taking it apart, he and I decided that the hand swap to Mercedes hands would be easy. He also recommended painting the entire GMT hand red, rather than just having a red point. Unfortunately, the crystal proved to be a daunting problem. We were never able to find a Sapphire crystal thick enough to significantly alter the crystal placement. We could have substituted a deeper domed acrylic crystal, but that would have required gluing the crystal in place, and Mike couldn't guarantee that it would be water tight with that arrangement. I decided after several months of searching that the crystal change was not going to happen, so we gave up on that. I would still love to find a really thick domed crystal, but they are probably not made in the size that would fit this watch. It would require a crystal of at least 3.5-4.0 mm to give it enough height to be above the bezel insert. I would expect that anything that thick in a sapphire crystal would be pretty pricy as well. So here are the before and after photos of the frankengen LM-5 Before: The lume on the hands glows much brighter than the numbers and insert From this angle you can see how deep the crystal sits below the bezel After: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike on a bike Posted August 10, 2013 Report Share Posted August 10, 2013 Definitely like the all red GMT hand on the sword/Mercedes swap I am a plunger fan so might have went there, love the bezel. I see your problem with crystal hopefully a replacement in size w/height will pop up. All in all a cracken piece!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cc33 Posted August 10, 2013 Report Share Posted August 10, 2013 Great job, I agree the all red gmt hand is perfect, I liked the original sword hands but the Mercedes hands are cool. The insert is very rounded, I think a flatter insert would correct the crystal problem. Like a blancpain insert, if yours was flat like this the crystal would sit flush or may even be slightly above it.. Food for thought Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cc33 Posted August 10, 2013 Report Share Posted August 10, 2013 This one is a lot flatter if it's the same diameter And bottom: Michael Young's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panerai153 Posted August 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2013 Not sure any if those inserts would fit, this watch is considerable bigger than the Rolex GMT's. I believe it's 42mm.i've got a couple of inserts that fit my 6542, I'll look at them tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure they are too small. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpz5142 Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 Looks good, I like the hand swap for sure. Not much of a sword hands guy myself either.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpz5142 Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 Just thought of something that might be of use as far as inserts go.... A while back joeyB made some nice Pepsi inserts out of lexan, maybe he could make one to fit the Ocean7 but was less domed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NaviChief Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 I was searching google for that watch and low and behold it brought me back to RWG! I really like this model, and plan to pick one up once more trickle to the used market. Congrats on yours! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cc33 Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 Not sure any if those inserts would fit, this watch is considerable bigger than the Rolex GMT's. I believe it's 42mm.i've got a couple of inserts that fit my 6542, I'll look at them tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure they are too small. Oh ok I thought it may have been around the same size. I know Daz has lots of experience flattening and working the dsn blancpain inserts, maybe he can take the one you have and flatten it somehow Either way it looks great, was just a thought fix your crystal height issue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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