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AR Coating from K2222 revisited


Pugwash

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So, after having been lent K2222's Ingenieur, I decided it would be a good idea to get a couple of my own watches done. I sent Jakub the crystals and waited the required amount of time, and the crystals made it back to me.

This means I can perform an objective review of watches I know very well. Both these watches are worn from time to time and both of them looked like they could really do with the AR on their sapphires.

What can I say? Amazing work! Both watches feel more real, especially the black-dialled 187. Once again, the crystal disappears at most angles. Just catching it out of the corner of my eye, I can tell it's ARed to oblivion. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to set up my light tent as the effect would be even more visible with well-lit photos. These photos don't do the watches justice.

Click the picture for a larger (1280x960) version:

187-05-640.jpg

Click the picture for a larger (1280x800) version:

chrono-avenger-07-640.jpg

The only hard part about getting AR done is choosing which watches to get done next and waiting. The rest is easy. Can I live without my PO for a while? How about my Fortis? I wonder what a Seiko Monster with AR would be like? Getting decent AR makes an average rep look costly.

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+1...but it's very tempting.

I don't know if Chieftang does (Chiefy? Do you have a guy?) but K2222 can remove and reinstall the crystal. You can just send him the watch and he gets his watchmaker to remove and refit the crystal for something like $20 extra.

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I don't know if Chieftang does (Chiefy? Do you have a guy?) but K2222 can remove and reinstall the crystal. You can just send him the watch and he gets his watchmaker to remove and refit the crystal for something like $20 extra.

A fair percentage of members simply send their watches to The Zigmeister (Canada) or Vacuum (USA). They then remove the crystals and send them to me for coating, and I return to them for reinstallation. Often times they'll have dials and hands lumed at the same time, so it works out well. I have the tools and a crystal press, but generally not the time, so at this point I'm still not offering crystal removal services... And I'll never be offering lume services. ;)

As part of your review, Pug, could you talk about the visible tooling marks on the optical surface? I have seen a pic of a k2222 crystal that shows a mark of about 0.5mm which extends about 180 degrees around one edge of the crystal. In this case it was installed such that it extended from 5 o'clock to 11 o'clock. These marks are always difficult to photograph but are visible at some angles, so a written description would be fine.

Thanks!

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Chieftang You mean 0,05mm right?

I was told half a millimeter around 50% of the crystal (on a circular crystal), and was sent a picture. 0,5mm sounds about right based on what I saw and being visible to the naked eye. They're difficult to photograph, though. I had the same difficulty back when my coating process left tooling marks. So what's the scoop? Is there variance from crystal to crystal? Why would one crystal have visible marks and others (according to Pug) have none?

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