leatherback Posted March 6, 2007 Report Share Posted March 6, 2007 The only rep I own (until mw TW best gets here) is and IWC Inge. When I got it, although a very impressive fake, really didn't blow sunshine up my skirt as it doesn't sit right on my skinny wrist, so I immediately went to work trying to improve it so it will grow me. I was lucky enough to find a "geniune replaced crystal" in an eBay store. And in conmunication found he had a "geniune replaced crown" that I purchased too. As he said, both items have a flaw or two which is why they were replaced, but are impossible to get. My parts arrived from Isreal yesterday afternoon, amazingly quick I might add. Crystal I will preface by saying the crystal that arrived is exactly the same dimensions as the current crystal. But it has a spectacular blue AR coating on both sides. Yes, if you look VERY VERY closely and in a perfect reflection you can see what seems to be the out line of a water spot but is actually a minute scratch in one side. But if you are not looking for a flaw you won't see it. Any way, the gasket that came with the crystal is just a bit thinner than the fake one and darker material. The size difference is not noticable until you press in the crystal. If you use the new gasket the crystal just basically drops in with minimal fingure pressure. But if you use the current gasket as I did, I had to use one of those "soft clamps" with rubber covered jaws intended for wood working to smash that thing in there. Question 1: finally - Is there any problem with using the current gasket with the "gen" crystal. It fits, but am I better off using the "gen" gasket and cementing it in? You cannot see any difference when the crystal is mounted. Crown. Question 2: The "gen" crown screws in to the current tube. But not smoothly. It feels a bit tight, not rough but more like the crown and tube have a slightly different thread pitch. Will this smooth out over time? Should I just keep unscrewing and rescrewing the crown over and over until it smooths out? Then blow out what ever metal dust as a result? The crown that arrived is 100% nicer than the current crown. Where as the current crown has a finish of very fine machine marks, this crown is finished between the "lugs" with the same tiny, sandblasted like finish identical to the finish inside the IWC Probus insignia on the top of the crown. The top of lugs are then smooth polished. This looks SO good and correct and looks like it belongs on the watch. But in pics of the gen it looks like it should be polished between the lugs and brushed on top. Is it possible that is this the gen crown FOR A ingenieur but NOT THIS ingenieur? side question. Is it bad that I loctited the eta stem into the crown? Tube. Question 3: How can I tell if the tube is too short to be sealing properly? I cant tell whether or not the crown is bottoming out on the case and not making a tight seal with oring out of the old crown. I think the tube may be pressed so is it possible to pull it out a bit and then loctite it into place? Thanks. And does anyone have any tricks to tell whether or not parts are genuine IWC? I know the seller has the whole "WE sell only geniune parts, no monkeying aroud" slogan on their auctions but does that really mean anything? one observation - I have got to get some watch tools. Using a wide open pair of needle nose pliers to open a watch is just asking for problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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