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Grimlock's Rolli FGD A Series 002 Build


Grimlocktime

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I'm posting this everywhere because Rolli and FGD have done an amazing job. Do yourself a favor and pick up one of these dials.

When I heard FGD and Rolli were working on a new dial project, I was immediately curious. After I saw the pics, I was sold.

The dial is an A series 002 or 009 depending on whether you decide to go stainless or PVD. But this isn't your typical dial. Not only is it extremely accurate, but it is SWISS MADE in every sense. It is made from milled solid brass, which is then beadblasted and anodized to produce the gen sheen. They then had it lumed with authentic Swiss Tritec tritium colored super lume. The thing that attracted me to this dial is the fact that it does not seek to copy a Gen. Instead Rolli and FGD have replicated a gen by recreating not only the look, but the manufacturing process and the materials of a gen Panerai dial. WOW

I will let the pictures speak for themselves...

Used brass clock parts indeed;)

0A3192F8-63E4-4C65-A978-9BDCA73D5E0F-347

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Deep indices filled with Tritium colored Tritec lume

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Time to get building. The decorations on this Swiss 6497 is close to A Series, but not exact...ill live with close enough.

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Flattened and polished CP

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I tried it out in an 009 build, but the H Factory case is just too black.

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Decided that the stainless 002 build was the way to go until I can get a proper PVD case

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Looks great on the Paci's olive shark made from left over original Pre-V hides.

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Amazing Gen sheen from anodized beadblasted brass.

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I've heard you guys like lume?;)

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Gen reference photo

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Pretty damn close to gen if you ask me

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More builds coming! Including a Franken sub!

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Grim:  Find an old H-fact 005 case-set, they make for a passable 6502 case.  You want that slightly curvy lug as seen in the pic below.

 

Noob 111J on top, H-fact 005 on the bottom.  You want the lug profile of the bottom 005 case-set for a 6502.

 

A859ADB9-2CCC-49CD-BA47-0517EDEC3745-305

 

  

A42450FB-B264-41AA-B1E4-B4B89FFCE50F-305

 

If you polish the corners of the lugs around the lughole with a dremel and some polish, you'll get even closer to the softer edges of the 6502.

 

 

Even better, get a Kuvarsit v1 DLC case (which is actually PVD'd)

FC2D517D-C4EC-490F-8F77-6A8288580062-121

 

(BTW - I learned this from reading W0lf's posts - Thank you sir :) )

Edited by mir36
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  • 3 weeks later...

I agree it is special!

Rolli I have a question...how does one develop the vast numbers of contacts and relationships necessary to build a swiss made dial with authentic Tritec lume? It was no doubt easy and occurred overnight;)

I have decided to keep the watch as an 002 I have an H factory case (looks like V1? please see above) waiting for me to do the swap. This dial is great, I have no regrets about investing in your project

On a heroic18 historic...great strap

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DSN makes a pretty decent A series caseback as well. With a little polishing on the outside lip, it would look even better

16CB9C46-3077-48B0-9346-7D1C1E439C34-299

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dear grimlocktime,

 

compliment for your decision to keep it as 002a pam.

 

top model and looks amazing.

 

at the moment i have still the 009a with old school case.

 

but i love it with an tantalium color strap in preV shape made by ciampi / italy

( former original strapmaker for panerai )

 

to your question, why we have no triium filled by rc tritec.

 

1.)  rc tritec was all the time the main developer of the tritium material.

 

2.)  the tritium material was mixed with color pigment material in for of powder C3.

 

3.) a special non light resistent varnish was used to mix the tritium.

 

4.) only companies with a special tritium coating room and a large extraction units

and employees with white special security clothing and face mask had the permission

to worked with tritium.

 

after a european law about the use of the radioactive material , also tritium,

so all the companied which worked with tritium with the dial and hands coating,

and suddenly they had no more the permission to work with tritium.

and so till 2007 all companies had to dispose to eliminate all their rest material of tritium.

to this time rc tritec had still tritium available, and also was ordered to dispose of all in stock.

 

one of the last tritium pam was in 2007 the submersible 243. and in the same or following year came the L-dial version 243.

 

 

to your questiom, of your i discussed about the tritium posibility to get in our dials.

but they have nothing and it may no longer handled.

 

that's why we decided to developed a real looking tritium simulated triple power super luminova high grade-a material and rc tritec made on my sample material a spectrac analysis,

and produced only for me special tritium simulated materials in highest form of super luminova,

also a non matched color for the hand was developed by me and also produced for me by rc tritec. we have it with an own customer number and it is not buyable for other customers.

 

rc tritec make all our indices filling work in cluding the hands with the special dosing maching with the special handpiece stylograph.  the stylograph is a special rc tritec development

and was built by a austria company.

 

for example:  in the case that tritium would be still available, then only in the color C3,

 

and the question, when came the yellowed patina effect, this is written in heaven.

 

and we decided to make a tritium simulation with an amazing burn-out patina effect,

let us say…. a burn-out efect after 10 or 15 years,

and if you look on your watch, you see always the wow effect direct, and don't need the patience to get it in maybe 10 years.

 

and an additional effect is, it has the necessary luminosity, 

 

so i am sure you will have much joy with your 002a pam.

 

all the best

 

and regards

 

rolli

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Nice project mate and great build....

 

There was never a big difference between the 6500 case and the 6502 case indeed some early Cartier cases managed to find their way in to the later series just like some PreV cases got into the PreA series...

 

Apart from the obvious differences mentioned in trying to reshape the current cases back to a 6502 look the main area of difference in the 6502 and 6500 was the lugs and their shape as they joined to the case itself....

 

It used to be a running comment on Risti about a guy who shall remain nameless who would challenge at GTGs to tell the difference between the 6502 and 6500 case blind folded...most guys could never work out how he did it... but once you see the difference or know where it is.... it is in fact easier to tell by touch rather than by sight especially if on the wrist..

 

To me what that goes to prove and is basically my point ..is that there is little chance when you have made the main changes that one could tell on the wrist and in fact only an expert could in the hand and others only with a gen next to it...

 

The cases on PreV and the majority of later early ones were hand finished and so small variations can be quite reasonable to expect..indeed most of the later ones were also finished by hand but in the case of the PreVs and early series cases it was more necessary as the quality and use of less than suitable cases meant it was needed...Cartier at the time and indeed OP Pre Cartier..suffered many issues with the cases and the suppliers and many were discarded then because of time and cost issues but were later reused when ideally they would not have been... It is the same with PVD finishes... These do vary... from PreV finish to the PreA and later PVD finish... again because of quality issues, supplier going belly up even different coaters etc etc so again you cannot be exact about PVD finish and look across all Models they do vary... the early PVD models from Cartier were actually blacker than the earlier PreV PVD models... and also poorer qulaity hence why you can see some very black shiny finished gens with signs of really bad wear..mainly because the hardness was poorer and the finish wore quickly and damaged easily..

 

In addition when considering the shape of cases in early series PAMs ... you can also see gens that have been overpolished and the shape has been changed to detract from the normally accepted differences... it is logical when you think about it as the age of these watches and the popularity of them in use has meant that many had to be refurbished at some time or another and the quality of that refurbishment was not always as good as you would expect or hope and during the polishing stage before the final colur the polishing was over cut and took more away from those details..it is the same with some CGs and levers and pins etc...some may be surprised just how easy it is to remove the steel itself when polsihing and completely change its shape... just a misused sisal wheel and some grey cutting compound could wear any metal shape to nothing.. ;)

 

So if you take that into account as well as the cases being hand finished... nothing can be exact and indeed this makes the case difficult to call out on the wrist... so once that is within the parameters of what is acceptable...then you are left with the dial and hands and crsytal..

 

Early crystals were also slightly variable so you have the same flexibility in looks as you do with cases... within reason... I am not just referring to AR but also the shape and way the crystal sits in the bezel..these did vary and so did distortion at angles as well...

 

And so you are left with the dial and hands... of course you have a correct sized height (model and series depending) CP flattened and polsihed and the hands which were steel not brass like the PreVs..( you can alwasy tell gen PreV hands because you can see the brass colour around the CP where the hands sit..in some cases it can look like corrosion but its a trick of the eye... there were also other slight differences in thickness/the black coating/shape generally but what really sperated PreV hands from Early series hands was the lume...

 

The hands lume on PreA into A and A/B transitionals was the lume had a slight greeny hue to them so could easily be seen from say a gen PreV hand lume as these were whiter... hand shape did vary because of the same issues as above... using up old stock, changes in supplier etc etc... but basically you would get PreV style or cartier style hands but all with that greeny hue to the lume...

 

The best way to describe it is if you think of how an SL slightly charged but in daylight goes slightly green then thats the same you would see on a PreA etc hands without any charge.

 

You can actually see some Ls and LM models with MN hands because the original plan to produce a new range of Sly models at the time of the take over was scrapped but a lot of those parts were still used where they could be...so again you may see hands from those scrapped models... origianlly 350 of the originall 1000 watch issue.. as you see on the millesimation on the 6500 cases... though that many were never produced...

 

The dials themselves varied for many reasons like above... Cartier and Vendome using old PreV dials with dial type removed and replaced with cartier type but cutouts remained the same on many but as new dials were produced the cutouts became thinner and slightly varied in shape indeed several dial types looked completely different... so you factor in changes and uses of dials at that time and then add in how lume was applied.... they were not all doen at same time and were hand applied by individuals who would mix up the lume as needed...so you would get variations in the quality of the lume and its application and in the look of teh lume... some might be mixed drier others wetter (ie more or less varnish)...this would mean that the sausage lume might fall or stand in the cutout of the dial and indeed can mean that where the markers change in direction the lumer might be accurate or messy and the edges would be thicker and more rounded where the marker should actually be sharp and defined... there were also many other factors that are historically recorded that also underline the fact that many and any variables are possible in these dials and there are no rules in judging one ...within reason.. :)

 

This leads to the point that nothing is black and white.... you can still see Ristis who really know PAMs since it all started and were even involved themselves in OP finding themselves backtracking on previous statements because something 'different' has popped out of the woodwork so to speak...and is gen...

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On another point if you can lume yourself it is still possible to buy Tritium lume....

 

 

I sourced some a few years back from a military surplus stock ... :)

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Encyclopedic knowledge Pete ....thanks a lot for sharing :)

 

It's always been my understanding that the pre-cartier Panerai we're made and finished by hand in small batches. They had limited resources and funding so they kind of muddled  through and "made do" in some instances.

 

Everything you've stated above explains quite eloquently some of the reasons why we see so many differences in photographs of the same models/ year.

That lack of consistency and control would go against the Swiss Watchmaking ethos , but IS the charm that makes these simple 6497 based watches so sought after by purists.

 

On these 002A dials Rolli and I did consider tritium but beyond sourcing old exit signs from Ebay and harvesting the paint we couldn't find a way to obtain enough for 20 dials (and more for future). Then there is the problem of finding someone would could accurately apply the tritium lume and to ensure the right colour quite a lot of experimentation would have had to be done mixing with other pigments or medium. 

 

That's what you've got to love about this hobby , always something new to discover and the challenge to reproduce that comes with it !

 

All the best 

 

FGD

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Thank you S but compared to you mate its a breif passing knowledge...

 

And  what makes me enjoy them so much is that what makes a PAM, any PAM but especially the more historical PAMs.... is that there is no perfect PAMs not even gen ones.. ;)

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