My Rolerai build finished (loadsa pix)

[irate03]

This has been 8 months in the making, not long by some standards on this forum I know, but the longest for me.

I've had some great help along the way, special mentions to Mel, mark_midlands, Elias and 951MAX.

The original inspiration came from the movement that I picked up late last year. I know it's not gen but it's a beautiful thing and I couldn't see it mounted in anything else.

The case is River's 6154 with a lot of reshaping. Because the stem was 0.9 and I couldn't find a replacement I decided to replace River's crown and tube with one from Athaya (his new bronze 8mm would look amazing here but he doesn't have it in 0.9mm) I drilled out the hole for the tube and wanted to raise the tube away from the case and solder it up like the old Rlx's , after many failed attempts mark stepped in and did an amazing job at soldering for me. Never one to let it be and despite Marks amazing job, I had already ordered the 'correct' solder and decided to add to what Mark had done and sand it back.

The dial is one of V's amazing Rol's that I have lightly aged, it is so stunning that I can't bring myself to go nuts with it.

The movement is still a little vague, as far as I can make out it's Swiss made and branded Nacar, and all I can find reference to is Turkish railroad pocket watches. I gave it a clean and filled the engraved text with red acrylic, it's the most accurate movement I've owned.

Hands are Adrians, I had a spare set of cali hands that I'd stripped off the blue and had been heat treating but I decided to 'borrow' a double pencil minute hand from another set and treat it the same, it's a combination of heat, then egg in a bag, then lumed with the good old stuff AKA cornholio, topped off with a faux CP

The strap I made along with Elias's nickel vintage knife edge brass buckle. I wanted it to have some vintage Rol feel the way it is stitched and it is soft as butter.

 

On to the pics, I just re-finished my 6152/1 with an LP dial and new hands so that's crept in to some of the shots too  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had some issues with the movement slowing, i think screwing the crown down may have worn away some solder that got on to the thread, I filed down the stem a fraction at a time and it seems to have worked. The crown is not pressing the stem against the movement now and when it's screwed down everything ticks along nicely.
Oh and I decided while it was off that I would 'bronze' the crown too.....just becuzzzz 
here are somenew pics.

[panadyne]

Nice work - it really is a nice piece all round.

[onealyan]

WoW ！！

 

Old School style ！I like it ！

[spankster23]

Very cool, looks great. That movement is very unique. When you say reshape, are you actually filing down metal, or just the crown modifications?

[penerai1950]

wow..what a classic built...