My dial is here! - 6204 content

[ubiquitous]

Killer dial, B! How much longer before we get to see a finished piece?

[Nanuq]

I'm savoring this one... I thought I'd completed the collection, thanks to your delicate touch with the 6536, but no. 

I'm taking my time, as this is very likely the last one I put together.  All the (good) boxes are checked now. 

[Sogeha]

On 21 January 2016 at 5:19 PM, Nanuq said:

I'm savoring this one... I thought I'd completed the collection, thanks to your delicate touch with the 6536, but no. 

I'm taking my time, as this is very likely the last one I put together.  All the (good) boxes are checked now. 

Like many who get into Rolex, I am travelling back in time. I became obsessed with 1680's, then 5513's then 6538 which I am currently researching and slowly collecting parts for. This weekend, my obsession has turned to 6204 and in particular white dials. Are you planning on using the A260 movement or fitting an ETA? What case did you start with please? 

[Mendota Explorer]

Beautiful. I can't wait to see this take shape. Would love to see progress pics and the parts used before they all come together.

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[Nanuq]

The (hopefully) final piece of the puzzle materialized, now comes the fitting and massaging to make all the parts work together.

 

 

 

 

[Bart Cordell]

WOW ! I’m speechless.

 

[JoeyB]

You found the straight hour hand! Is it from Frei's as I once suggested? Is the hour hand a 13mm? Mine were silver. I lightly sanded my hands down to the bare brass thinking that an ocean going watch would be so equipped. You're gonna love it. I love mine!

[Nanuq]

Yes indeedy, it's 13mm.  I'm not digging the glossy gold color, so they'll get sanded a little.  This is the look I'm after, these are the hands on my 6538:

 

 

[JoeyB]

I used 1500 grit sandpaper, dry. That left very slight sanding marks. I secured the hole using a toothpick, and gently sanded in one direction away from the pinion hole, one swipe at a time. I did it that way because I had tried just sanding back and forth and ruined the hand on the backstroke catching on the paper. If it can be done wrong, I did it! But I learned.  

[JoeyB]

Do you still have that 6mm Brevet crown? By the way, JMB does a great job engraving the case if you need it.

 

 

 

 

[Nanuq]

Yep the Brevet crown is already installed.

That case engraving looks great!

[Sogeha]

Looking forward to this one. There is another member building one of these at the moment by the way.

[DVNE]

Updates?

[Nanuq]

 

Test fit - complete

 

Case - check

Movement - check

Movement ring - check

Nasty Chipped Dial - check

Stem - check

Crown - check

Hands - check

 

 

[dieselpower]

It's OK I suppose  if you like that sort of thing .

 

Now, if I trained really hard you reckon I could swim to Alaska, sneak into ,nooks pad, tea leaf the thing, swim back to UK and be asleep before the trouble and strife notices? Worth a try methinks  

 

Nice one Nook ;-)

 

 

[Nanuq]

Sorry DP, my canine patrols have their own accounts here at RWG and they've already expanded their precautions, even before I read this. I saw them planting more Claymores and stringing more razor wire this morning, a little further out, and I thought "what are those clowns up to now?!"

Sorry mate, I'd be right chuffed to have you show up on the shores of Chez Nanuq!

[dieselpower]

That leaves me only one option.... I'll have to tunnel my way in 

 

[Nanuq]

The canine patrols anticipated that too when they sited the Watch Repository. Behold titanium embedded into solid granite far up above the house.

 

 

 

I wish they'd tell me the door code. I can hear them in there swimming in the champagne fountain! I hate that... it makes the bubbly taste funny.

 

[cheld]

Did we ever find out who supplied that nasty chipped dial? 

[Nanuq]

Nasty Chipped Dial is vintage Viet Nam, circa decades ago. Pretty neat, it's VN before VN was a "thing".

It's in the final stages of fitting and assembly, I hope to get word some day soon that it's complete.

[JSebWC]

bumping this up to see if this ever got finished...

[Nanuq]

Sorry JSebWC ... I've been hacking up hairballs since DP had my Dobermans in the champagne fountain.     That's not pleasant at all.  I can finally say that this one is complete.  Sorry for leaving this topic hanging! 

 

I had to make some tough decisions and each one was no going back.  Do I use an A260 movement?  Are parts available?  Do I intend to USE this watch, or sit it on a shelf?  I never wear my 6536 anymore because the autowind train is about shot, and there's no more parts out there.  I want to wear this one instead for the Small Crown itch, so that meant an ETA movement.  So we machined the case to make it fit.  No going back.  

 

Do I want it to look pristine?  Sharp chamfers and untouched dial?  Well the case is not bright 904 stainless, it's another alloy and darker than most.  So it looks well loved and well worn with engrained old grime.  That means every other part needs to give the same aged impression.  My 6536 has never flooded but the dial is OLD and chipped and gnarly looking.  How that happens is probably UV ageing and tritium.  I had my choice of the Tonny perfect glossy gilt dial, or the original ancient chipped dished dial.  I went with the old chipped dial because it looks right in the case.  Then the hands.  They are nearly perfect in dimension, but way WAY too shiny and gold and perfect.  So they took a lot of ageing.  I wish we'd done a little more to ease over the edges of the hands so they look hand stamped instead of machine made.  It's a subtle detail I'll have to address at some point.  The bezel flat ROCKS, the rehaut is two pieces carefully put together by unknown hands decades ago, to give a neck for the crystal and a sloped inner edge for the dial.  It's spectacularly well done, and almost impossible to see.  The case is also slightly curved on the sides.  Did those come from decades of polishing?  Or should they be flatter?  When I did my Snowflake I had the case polished to DEATH to make it all curved and sexy.  There's no reason a 6204 can't have suffered the same treatment over its 65 year life.

 

So old case, old chipped dial, old aged hands, old worn filthy bezel, what's left?  The original insert is the vintage funky pointy-four piece with weird fonts, and looks EXACTLY like gen.  It might be, for all I know.  Someone sanded its outer perimeter to make it fit the bezel and took it slightly too far here and there.  There's no going back from that.  Maybe I can paint the sanded edge black to make it less noticeable?  A little 3M goo holds it in place.  The crystal feels like a tropic-18 very thin and delicate.  It's no beastly thing like a T17 or T19.  Do I like that?  I have no frame of reference to decide.  So it stays.

 

In the end the case, engravings, bezel, insert, dial, hands, crystal and beat up Brevet+ crown all agree they are ancient and tired.  That's exactly what I was going for.  They're 95% correct, I just need to fine tune the finished piece to get everything perfect.  But it came out far, far better than I'd hoped for.  It will live on a leather strap because all the folded rivet bracelets are too bright and their steel doesn't match the case.  That's fine with me, a gentleman 65 years ago would likely have worn this on leather anyway.

 

And now to the pictures! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JSebWC]

Well done brother. It looks the part and is now an inspiration for my future build when Athaya complete their case sets. Fantastic work. Wear it well.


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[automatico]

Nuq

That is one super fine watch.

 

I have shied away from a number of popular reprep projects...V72 Daytonas, 6204/6538 types and a few others for the simple reason that I had the chance to buy genuine examples of them for a song in the past...a 6204 from a watch trader in the late 1980s for a few hundred bucks and a 6202 Turnograph for a few hundred.  Passed on them.  Bought a dam# tutone 'round end' BB instead.  Had the chance to buy a 62xx Daytona for $1500 and passed on it because it was all apart.  I actually owned an original 6538 with 'tropical' dial and sold it  Way  Too  Soon.  All this has left me with a bitter taste in my big mouth so I never went after replicas of those models.  Had a toot Monte Carlo way back when and awaaay it went too but I never cared much for them.  I have this thing about tooters.

All I have is a few old 16xx DJ etc.  Most of them stuck from being stored so long.

 

So...I went after 5512/13/1680 reeplickas in a big way.  Way too big looking back. 

Put 'em together.  Take 'em apart (to 'improve' them).  Yeah sure.  They're all still apart except for two or three, one being a cartel '5513' that is not worth much more than a bottle of brew. 

Bought a gallon of Paul's 'vintage' watches.  A half gallon of DW cases.  A few ounces of Yuki/IG44/Fong cases.  All still in boxes.  Naked and empty.  No gutz and No nutz.

 

 

Q  So what is all the BS above about?

A  Athaya's soon to be 6204 case is calling me very faintly...

 

Btw...

If you ever want to trade the 6204, I'll swap you one eXmark walk behind mower (with a self steering sulky), a pair of two cycle Lawn Boys (one pusher, one self propelled), a couple Echo weed eaters (one small, one HD), and a 'Little Wonder' long reach hedge trimmer for it.

...or 20 gallons of weed/grass killer and the cartel '5513'.  Your choice. 

 

[Nanuq]

Thanks Auto, that's high praise coming from you.  I know what you mean about that sour taste in your mouth, but in my experience it's about other collectibles.  Every morning I kick myself for some of them.  Some are worth a kick in the evening too.  Ask me about Eric Clapton's guitar some time.

 

My gens are getting pretty long in the tooth, I still want to wear them, but can't justify daily use.  So the vintage builds take their place.  The 6204 will fill in for days when I want a Small Crown, the Red Sub will fill in for the Nastymariner (still alive and gasping for breath) and the Big Gonzo 6538 is for when I want a vintage Rolex for a swim in the ocean.  Just to stick my thumb in the eye of collectors.  After all, these are TOOL watches, all of them.  If I flood an ETA movement?  No biggie... wash out the salt, clean the dial, stick in a new movement and go again.

 

PS: those Lawn boys are the BOSS if you can make them rev high enough.   I had one with a magnesium alloy deck, puke green, I painted the wheels purple and put shark teeth across the front.  We lived on an island where it rained all the time, I called it the Lawn Shark.  I cut an opening in the top for grass to blow out, and used half a garbage can lid for the "flapper".  Holy crap.