tr4driver Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 (edited) Long story regarding the pearl in my SSD... Anyway, after two different attempts and epoxy coating and then Dremeling it back off (and part of the pearl material in thr process), I've finally gotten a result that I can live with. Not perfect - There's a small air bubble in the expoxy that shows up just to the left of center in the pearl in the attached picture), but you have to really stare at it from the right angle and lighting condition to even see it. So, what do you experts think? Edited August 2, 2008 by dluddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sconehead Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Looks good, if you look long enough on the bay and bide your time you can pick up a second-hand gen insert. The last one I only cost me $15 plus shipping, I've paid up to $50 though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornerstone Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Pah - call that a pear? This is a pear.... Okay, okay - cheap gag You did ask how your 'pear' looked.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tr4driver Posted August 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Pah - call that a pear? This is a pear.... Okay, okay - cheap gag You did ask how your 'pear' looked.... Yeah... Sometimes when I get in a hurry and think faster than I type I forget letters. I couldn't find a way to edit the title of the post though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornerstone Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 I was only teasing anyway. Back to tr4driver's SSD pearl... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dluddy Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Yeah... Sometimes when I get in a hurry and think faster than I type I forget letters. I couldn't find a way to edit the title of the post though. Edited to say "peral" and not "pear" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fauxlex Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 I'm no expert, but that looks great to me. I want to do something similar to mine. How hard was it working with the epoxy? is that what they use to coat the originals? Do you have any suggestions or tips to make the job any easier? I've seen the tutorial on replacing the pearl with watchmakers pearl, but I think the clear coating really gives the bezel that gen look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tr4driver Posted August 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 I'm no expert, but that looks great to me. I want to do something similar to mine. How hard was it working with the epoxy? is that what they use to coat the originals? Do you have any suggestions or tips to make the job any easier? I've seen the tutorial on replacing the pearl with watchmakers pearl, but I think the clear coating really gives the bezel that gen look. Well, I'm certainly no expert either. Considering the mangled condition of my pearl, I thought it turned out nicely. This particular pearl started out life as the stock pearl that comes on the 1:1 Sea Dweller from Trustytime. In it's stock condition, it looks pretty good, but I managed to get some "Oops" goo-gone type remover on it, and it turned it into a dull white glob. I then took a Dremel tool to it with a soft felt-type polishing disk to it and essentially ground the pearl down as much as I could... to something hard. At this point it was just this flat dull looking white material that was essentially flush with the outer case. I then put a small drop of 5-minute epoxy on it using a toothpick, but after it hardened, I realized that I had probably put too much on it... so I got the Dremel back out. The Dremel made short work of the epoxy coating, and I thought maybe I should try some clear coat spray paint instead. So, I sprayed the clear coat spary paint on a sheet of paper so that I created a nice pool of it, and then used a pin to apply the clear paint. It didn't really dry evenly and just made the pearl look flat and shiny. So... Dremel round three. Again I took the pearl down flat (even with the pearl case) and got the 5-minute expoxy back out. This time I used a pin and put as little as I could on the pearl. After it hardened, I thought I was satisfied with the pearl until I started scouring the internet and this forum for pictures of other pearls. Mine didn't seem to have any "depth" to it, so I carefully added a bit more epoxy so that it has a slight dome above the pearl holder. A lot of trial and error. But I did discover that a little epoxy can do wonders to a mangled pearl! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterw2 Posted August 3, 2008 Report Share Posted August 3, 2008 The pearl looks great IMHO. For what its worth, I bought an SSD v2 from another member of RWG who also did the epoxy pearl mod on it. There were two things that bugged me, it had too much of a "dome" appearance and, of course, had no lume. So based on what some other fellows had done, I ordered the #315-16660 replacement insert from Watchmaterial. It arrived yesterday and it took about 15 minutes to pop in this morning -- and it looks great. I popped off the bezel with the short blade of a swiss army knife at the 4 o'clock position and worked off the old bezel by pushing from the back side all around the diameter. I discovered the old bezel was attached via something like double stick tape, most of which remained on the old bezel and left a clean, non-sticky surface on the bezel itself. (As others have noted, the replacement bezel is a 1:1 perfect fit -- it sits slightly recessed into the bezel). So I placed a few tiny and careful drops of crazy glue all around the bezel, and set the new insert into it being careful to align the pearl with one of the "ridges" of the bezel. Experts on RWG may know more, but I tried looking at photos of gens to determine whether the pearl always aligns with the top of ridge or the valley, but was unable to fully conclude any consistency. All I know for sure was that the original insert was not aligned to anything. I am now one happy camper thanks to the wealth of SSD pearl and bezel insert info traded here. Thanks all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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