Originally posted May 31, 2015
Finally, after a long wait and a lot of work, I finalised my welded lugs project. First of all, a huge thank you goes to Elias who sent me a spare crown after I busted the one that came with the case: thanks my friend, you're one of a kind! :thumbup:
Of course nothing here could have been done without you guys from the forum, everything I did comes from the tutorials and informations you shared, thanks
For this project, and for the foreseeable future builds, I have not been looking for total accuracy to the gen. I am not an expert by any means, but the thing I reckon from the old Panerai history is that the variations were almost infinite, and this left me some room to build a watch that's credible without being bound to be accurate to a specific model.
I have experimented and learnt a lot with this case, trying to achieve a very aged and worn look without going too far and destroy it (that would have been too easy indeed for me! :lol.
Here's the list of work done by me:
- Back and front plexis have been very slightly tinted, then aged following Hixxy's tutorial.
- Case has been aged by me, caseback engravings have been filled trying to achieve a worn look.
- Movement ring has been aged with the egg trick.
- Hands have been very lightly brushed and aged with the egg trick as well. Lume has been darkened with tea + coffee. Faux CP has been added.
The dial has been produced by Ross and Bigwaved painted and lumed it. The result as you can see is stunning and sets the watch apart.
Movement is a 3602 cleaned and serviced by Belkin12. I didn't need to touch it, nontheless one of my next steps will be to learn to disassemble and service one of these movements. I only need to buy a few, since I tend to break a lot of stuff! :lol:
Strap is from Gunny, I won it at RWI's birthday raffle (cheers guys), no need to comment its quality and it matches the watch nicely imho.
The final result is stil not perfect, the crown needs a little more aging and the stem is still a bit too long. Also, the bezel is not fully screwed in as it tends to tilt the dial... I'll figure how to screw it tight
One thing I need to ask is this: I screwed the stem inside the crown very tight yet the crown sometimes "slips" freely and I have to pull it slightly to make it "click" in order to make it work (if this makes sense...). Is there anything I'm missing?
Anyway, I always write too much, here are the pics:
Hope you like the pics and the build, your feedback will be very welcome
River Welded Lugs - finally complete
Finally, after a long wait and a lot of work, I finalised my welded lugs project. First of all, a huge thank you goes to Elias who sent me a spare crown after I busted the one that came with the case: thanks my friend, you're one of a kind! :thumbup:
Of course nothing here could have been done without you guys from the forum, everything I did comes from the tutorials and informations you shared, thanks
For this project, and for the foreseeable future builds, I have not been looking for total accuracy to the gen. I am not an expert by any means, but the thing I reckon from the old Panerai history is that the variations were almost infinite, and this left me some room to build a watch that's credible without being bound to be accurate to a specific model.
I have experimented and learnt a lot with this case, trying to achieve a very aged and worn look without going too far and destroy it (that would have been too easy indeed for me! :lol
.Here's the list of work done by me:
- Back and front plexis have been very slightly tinted, then aged following Hixxy's tutorial.
- Case has been aged by me, caseback engravings have been filled trying to achieve a worn look.
- Movement ring has been aged with the egg trick.
- Hands have been very lightly brushed and aged with the egg trick as well. Lume has been darkened with tea + coffee. Faux CP has been added.
The dial has been produced by Ross and Bigwaved painted and lumed it. The result as you can see is stunning and sets the watch apart.
Movement is a 3602 cleaned and serviced by Belkin12. I didn't need to touch it, nontheless one of my next steps will be to learn to disassemble and service one of these movements. I only need to buy a few, since I tend to break a lot of stuff! :lol:
Strap is from Gunny, I won it at RWI's birthday raffle (cheers guys
), no need to comment its quality and it matches the watch nicely imho.The final result is stil not perfect, the crown needs a little more aging and the stem is still a bit too long. Also, the bezel is not fully screwed in as it tends to tilt the dial... I'll figure how to screw it tight
One thing I need to ask is this: I screwed the stem inside the crown very tight yet the crown sometimes "slips" freely and I have to pull it slightly to make it "click" in order to make it work (if this makes sense...). Is there anything I'm missing?
Anyway, I always write too much, here are the pics:
Hope you like the pics and the build, your feedback will be very welcome
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