Budget 16800 Project

[southcoast68]

Hi all

Had the opportunity to put together a fun little project using some parts I had sitting around. I had an ETA 2836 hanging around and thought of doing a Tudor Sub project with it. But when searching for a dial on Ebay, I came across and managed to secure a rather cool looking gen Submariner tritium dial a la 16800, so my plans changed into building a project with this dial instead. I am all about having the most fun while spending as little as I can, so I figured it would be cool to build a 16800 with this genuine dial, ETA movement and standard issue rep parts. A little while after getting the dial, a used Sub rep came up for sale on another board for $75, and its case had lug holes, bingo! A folded end link oyster bracelet I had (rep part) was brought out of storage, a set of Tudor mercedes hands from Borel was purchased and I had all the parts for the build.

The parts list;

1. ETA 2836

2. Genuine Submariner tritium dial

3. Mercedes hands for Tudor Submariner

4. MBW/MBK date wheel overlay

5. Movement enlargement ring (nylon)

6. Rep oyster bracelet

7. Complete case from used rep Submariner

In test fitting all these parts together, I was expecting to have to do some modding to get everything to fit, guess what, I got lucky. The enlargement ring, which was made to fit the movement anyway, was also a perfect fit to the case. The end links from the bracelet fit between the case lugs perfectly, the dial (which I was most concerned about) fit the case great with the minute markers just up against the rehaut. I do not know of the original source of this rep case, but it does have lug holes (which do have an anomily, I'll explain later), a nicely constructed bezel, a bezel insert that does sit just below the top of the bezel, a crystal that does not have any etched coronet at 6:00 (perfect) and rises just a bit over the top of the bezel, and has some wear marks of a used watch that goes nicely with the faded gen dial.

The MBW/MBK date wheel is a perfect match since it is white, has round top 3's and open 6's and 9's

The markers on the dial have yellowed with age, so I aged the hands by soaking them in coffee for a few days. This gave them just enough tint to match the dial nicely (sorry for the blurry pic).

Remember me mentioning the lug holes, well they are drilled at an angle! The inside of the lug has the hole lower than on the outside of the lug , well because of this, I decided not to drill for larger spring bars to avoid making the holes too big and destroying the case. I also opted not to install a gen crown and tube, why, well gen crowns and tubes cost money and this is supposed to be a budget project and there was nothing wrong with the rep crown and tube, don't fix what is not broken.

The enlargement ring, Borel part number A/8330, was a perfect fit for this case, case clamps were used to secure movement into case.

Its all together now and working fine, of course there is always one bugger in every project, and for this one, it was the date wheel. I thought I had this sucker perfectly aligned throughout the month, but I did not, and did not notice it until it was all cased up, but I think I will keep it this way since I have seen many well used gens with their date wheel slightly shifted. The following pics are the finished project.

I did a little work to the inside of the crown guards, not much, just enough to make them a little slimer.

The case back screws on nicely, nicer than many reps do and has the "gelena shitinerand" stamping on the inside.

Notice how the flip lock on the clasp does not have the two engraved "lines" in it aligning with the links, and has a rather well done coronet stamping, well that is a rep bracelet and it came that way, no modifications.

The rep pearl looked like a zit, so I removed it and did not replace it with another one, giving it a more used look.

I have seen up close a few 16800 Subs, and this project does resemble what I remember, slightly slimmer case, hands and hour markers faded to a tan like color, white date wheel and that characteristic bright ring aroung the edge of the bezel when held at an angle against the light.

I love the look of the faded dial, it is matte with a nice cocoa color to it, I think I will call her "Swiss Miss"

Thats it, its not a totally "proper" Sub made with 1:1 style case construction, gen crown and tube, gen bezel and bracelet parts, but the movement, dial and hands can always be switched to a better case in the future. For now, I get my 16800 on my wrist for less than $350 or so.

So whats next, a Panerai project featuring this;

and one of these;

Stay tuned..........

Thanks for looking

Cheers

[Intrigued]

What a great post; a fantastic project with a really great outcome, written-up in detail - it is posts like these that inspire the newbies amongst us to get involved with projects of our own - brilliant.

I can't wait for that pocketwatch movement in Panerai case project!

Thanks,

Andy

[Stephane]

That is a stunning project SC!

It came out very well.

I specialy like the "no pearl" effect

Congrats and all the best

Stephane

[TeeJay]

That's an absolutely fantastic project, kudos indeed I'll look forwards to seeing how the PAM project plays out

[alligoat]

Great job, SC! I'm thinking it's an MBW case, of course, with the gelena shiterand on the case back, but in addition, the fact that you can get a gen dial in there. Usually the gen dial is too small for the CN cases.

A watchmaterial pearl would be an easy $10 investment- maybe just enlarge the hole slightly with an x-acto knife and put in a drop of glue. But the no pearl look does give it the battle worn look.

[RWG Technical]

Great post and nice to see how everything falls into place now and then.

Well done, can't wait to see the next project. It looks similar to what I have been working on for a while by buying up old pocket watch movements and modifying them to fit the pam cases...

Thanks for this.

[ubiquitous]

Very well done! Don't see too many 16800's being done, so this is a nice change from the usual 1680/16610 duo

Good stuff! And the watch turned out great!

[southcoast68]

Thank you all for your kind words, I needed the boost, lately I have had more problems getting things to work on projects with hands that don't fit, to cheap ass Chinese parts breaking, hearing encouragement from you folks really means the world to me. The Panerai project hopes to be a good one provided I can get the right hands, a good dial and crown guard screws (the ones that came with that case are no where near the right size, and the holes in the case have thier screw threads a little stripped ).

Cheers

[stilty]

Nice Job! That looks great!

The 2834-2 enlargment ring from borel is nice too! Good to see it did not need to be modified for the rep case, just a straight drop in. I used to use them for my projects, but they need too much work to fit in a gen case.

I really like the look of that dial!