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Quantum of Chronous


freddy333

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Holy smokes! Where did you find that lovely "square o" dial? Please tell me it has the glossy black text on top of the white rectangle?

Man oh man oh man... it's so close to perfect. It's only missing ONE thing.

........one of my genuine Superdome Tropic 39 crystals. :tu:

C'mon you know this piece is worth it. :D

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Nice post Freddy! Looking forward to seeing the film, but I don't think I'd ever be lucky enough to see a Rolex as nice as that in person!

Thank you. I hope the film lives up to all the hype.

Holy smokes! Where did you find that lovely "square o" dial? Please tell me it has the glossy black text on top of the white rectangle?

Can I assume that you likie Subbie?

Sadly, no glossy COMEX. :cry2:

The dial was a custom job that Natalie at NDTrading did for me a couple of years ago (back when they were struggling & such things were possible). I am pretty sure I detailed the story of this dial in 1 of my early Comex or Hev tutorials. If I remember correctly, she charged me $120 & then replaced their then current (really crummy) 5514 dial with this 1 after I gave it a thumbs-up. The dial is still listed on their website (of course, the price has gone up a bit).

My intention, at the time, was to use the dial in my original 10 year old Asian-powered 5514 rep when the movement died (which, back then, I thought would be any day). So, anyway, I put the dial on a shelf & waited for the POS movement to die (whoever said Asian POS movements are POS movements obviously never met this 1). But a strange thing happened..............the POS movement never died. In fact, the damned thing was still ticking away (within COSC specs) when I finally removed it from the case last month (which is where the 1520 now resides). Pretty amazing for a relatively cheap, 10+ year old rep that was my daily beater for many years.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on whether you are a half-full or half-empty glass of water type of guy), the only thing NDTrading did not get right (or bother to do, I am not sure which it was) was to print the COMEX lettering with black gloss paint. But, as you noted, the dial is so exquisitely well done that I decided to live with it & just try to deal with the COMEX lettering myself (this was actually their 3rd re-do attempt & was the only 1 of the 3 where they fixed what I told them to fix without messed up something else).

After striking out with Ziggy & a couple of other dial refinishers, I started to look for ways to ( :unsure: ) paint the lettering myself. Yes, me, the destroyer of every dial I have ever put paint to. But, after completely destroying a couple of test dials, I checked with my friendly, local artist supply store to see if there was some way to do this. They felt that it would be nearly impossible (even for an artist with a very steady hand) to apply black gloss paint into those tiny spaces without overlapping onto the surrounding white areas (I have trouble drawing my name with a crayon & they do not call me 'Shakes' for nothing). Instead, they suggested that I just paint a clear gloss over the COMEX lettering. The effect is like applying water to the surface of a dry flat marble material......the color darkens & appears glossy, which is exactly what is needed & any overlapping of clear onto the white areas would only be detectable with a loupe.

I did some tests with a few different paints & glazes, but either they looked like they were starting to damage (melt) the white paint or were too thick or too runny. So, in the end, I just decided to use the dial as-is until/unless I can work out a paint & application method that I had more confidence in.

Is the dial perfect? No. But it is good enough so that I almost posted a pic of my watch on TZ, because I thought it was a gen & I almost posted a pic of a gen here thinking it was my watch (and, sometimes, I am still not sure which is which). So that tells me my work here is done.

What do you think - is it real or is it Memorex?

5514.jpg

Man oh man oh man... it's so close to perfect. It's only missing ONE thing.

........one of my genuine Superdome Tropic 39 crystals. :tu:

C'mon you know this piece is worth it. :D

Sorry, but no sale here........at least, not this time. I have a gen superdome that I had originally intended to use for this watch, but I have a couple pics of gens that were recently fitted with these modern gen beveled-edge crystals that give the watch a distinctly jewel-like appearance when the light catches it just the right way (similar to the crystals I used on my 62xx Daytonas). I kind of like that look, so, for now at least, I plan to keep the beveled crystal.

This thread should be removed due to the gratuitous use of a Comex rep that is likely to upset the majority of members who do not posess such a fine timepiece. Disgraceful.

:whistling:

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