Vintage Radiomir Panerai 2533
Tr0y dial and tall bezel
Tr0y dial and tall bezel
Finally, after a very long wait and a lot of work, I am able to present to you this build, freely inspired by the reference 2533 produced between 1935 and 1939.
It is the first prototype which came right before the release of the more widely known reference 3646, which shares the same case and construction.
This is not a direct homage to the gen reference, which used heat blued hands and a thin case with low bezel, rather my interpretation of that watch tweaked with some details of my liking.
The case I chose is the most recent release from NW, the tall bezel 3646.
As per its name, it's a case with a rather tall bezel, but the midcase is pretty thick too and needed a lot of filing and sanding to be modeled into the correct shape. Crown tube hole was drilled, threaded and soldered to accept a smaller Athaya crown.
Given the age of this reference and the relatively clean dial, I tried to contrast this watch with a particularly elaborate patina with lots of scratches, dots, raw soldering spots and a series of other details I had so much fun reproducing. I tried to push what I usually do to a 3646 case a little further and the final result is, I'd say, decent.
A little note about the dial is due: this is one of the dials produced by Tr0y on HF, the project started back in 2015 and has seen the whole community joined in an effort to reach perfection with these dials. There was a lot of CAD drawings, CNC specialists have been contracted and there was a lot of studying in order to achieve the correct depth of incision and the precise shape of numbers and indices (esp. on the 3646 dials).
The result is quite appealing to the eye, dial cut outs are super sharp, plexi fitting is very tight (Bigwaved knows something about this...
) and the RP engraving is extremely thin and defined. If I have to find something to criticize about this dial is it is excessively precise
There was a post from maybe Nightwatch stating a dial produced using so much modern and precise technology would not have looked "right" compared to something produced with 1930's technology and somehow there is truth in this statement.
That said, the work done by Bigwaved assembling and luming the dial is impeccable as always, besides the anodized finish gives this dial a very unique and pleasant look.
Now, talking about hands, I used tall tube brass hands from Nw in this build, aged by me. It's important to inform anyone who's preparing a build with a 2mm dial thinking of using these hands that there is very little clearance for hands. As you can see I could use them only thanks to H3 CP+HW set installed on the swiss 6497 and nonetheless the hands are very close to each other. Withouth the H3 CP+HW set it would have been impossible to use them.
Finally, I'm pleased to write about the strap I choose here. It's a strap I bought from zsirstudio on HF. I watched this chinese guy making straps for the whole year, getting better and better with each strap. In the last months of the year I bough three straps from him, all are very well made, good stitching. great leather, great patina and great smell. Bravo!
And that's all for the moment. There's other stuff I'm working on though, see you soon!
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