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SS 316L vs. 316F vs. 904L- The final VERDICT- A technical study

brett sinclair

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26/4/12
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Very instructive ! Thank you. The rep world has some good specialists. I have to read your other threads ^^
 

ALE7575

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Very instructive ! Thank you. The rep world has some good specialists. I have to read your other threads ^^

Thanks brett
I'm glad you liked it

"I have to read your other threads"
I now understand why people says that the patience is very useful to this hobby...
LOL

Thanks again
ALE
 

Sora

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18/5/12
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a friend of mine had an encounter when he knocked his 104(H fac) against a gen rolex, and his h fac got dented.. he wonders if the replicas factories really do use 316L steel...
 

ALE7575

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a friend of mine had an encounter when he knocked his 104(H fac) against a gen rolex, and his h fac got dented.. he wonders if the replicas factories really do use 316L steel...

I wonder if you have well read my thread... LOL
Because I have several times said in it that all my gens Rolex were scratched all my Noob replicas, due to the 904L Rolex is harder than 316L or 316F of the replicas !!!
Therefore, your friend has experienced the same as myself
ALE
 

Sora

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scratch is understandable, but he said it got dented..
 

ALE7575

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scratch is understandable, but he said it got dented..

Hardness is hardness for sractching or for denting.
Anyway you can be sure that the SS of the Rolex is 904L, but concerning the chinese replica, as you can read in the thread, has not a reliability about QC, materials and so...
In a Rolex you are paying for all that, but in a replica unfortunately not.
This is the true and the reality.
Fortunately the replicas now are being more and more reliable. But you cannot assure the reliability 100%.
But all that is already discussed in the thread and it is perfectly possible that some replica is not made of SS 316L or 316F.
Many thanks Sora for your interesting info
ALE
 

g.willikers

Horology Curious
2/10/11
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Thanks for sharing ALE7575! I think this has to be one of my favorite threads ever. :)
 

Dabonecrusher

Horology Curious
18/7/12
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Thank you for your time and detail in this post. You have answered several questions that have been bothering me for years. Well done.
 

ALE7575

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Thank you for your time and detail in this post. You have answered several questions that have been bothering me for years. Well done.

Thanks Dabo
Glad to know I was useful
Regards
ALE
 

TimeWillTell

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eye opening for a non-tech person me! kudos to you Ale!! I afraid all the kind words said, and no more left for me to say lol..i'm glad to be here, learnt much more than at the gen forums..
 

ALE7575

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eye opening for a non-tech person me! kudos to you Ale!! I afraid all the kind words said, and no more left for me to say lol..i'm glad to be here, learnt much more than at the gen forums..

Many thanks Paneris

To buy a gen is really easy you need just money, because the gen is only one
To buy a replica is very difficult, usually there are a lot of versions, many of them scam or low grade, and you will need to know the matter.

To do that we need to be informed and share our knowledge
This is the reason of this forum

And the friendship, of course, we are a family

ALE

By your name I guess you are a Paneristi.
Please visit the PAM Section and read the PAM GUIDE:
"Reference PAM REVIEW-GUIDE" - Replica Search, Identification, Evaluation & Selection
http://forum.replica-watch.info/vb/showthread.php/reference-pam-review-107365?t=107365
 

armada26858

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18/11/12
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thanks, nice read... so what are the canal street ones made out of,, i always thought aluminum? they feel that way anyways
 

Capt. Obvious

Put Some Respect On My Name
5/5/13
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Thank you for taking the time to test, compare and share your findings.
This was very interesting.
 

drbollocko

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Agree, thanks for taking the time to put this together ALE, I read this before and read it again tonight. Some great info laid out in a nice and concise manner. Thanks for the effort.
 

ALE7575

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Very nicely done m8!

thanks, nice read... so what are the canal street ones made out of,, i always thought aluminum? they feel that way anyways

Thank you for taking the time to test, compare and share your findings.
This was very interesting.

Agree, thanks for taking the time to put this together ALE, I read this before and read it again tonight. Some great info laid out in a nice and concise manner. Thanks for the effort.

Thank friends
I really appreciaite your kind commnets
Glad to be useful

ALE
 

sub4me

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30/4/06
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ALE, I remember this post from day one and really liked all the information you gave to all of us.

I have always thought for years that the reps claimed 316L is BS, since we know the main objective for a rep is to make $$$ it would only make sense to use the lowest grade SS possible, which is what I believe they do. All these dealers claim the factories use 316L and we can even find some dealers claiming their watches use 904L, which of course is all BS. Thanks for your information and research and I would like to hear your thoughts on my post.
 

ALE7575

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Maybe some years ago and with some makers, of course

At this moment, at the level of quality of some replicas I think mainly makers like V6 Noob or H maker and now KW, are using most of times quality SS.

Mainly because a good SS can make more easy a good finsh. Since nowadays finish is very important you could compensate expensive SS with more easy, better and cheap finish.

Maybe the tolerances and standard are not exact and they are using the more cheap possible, but always good quality. Always talking about good replicas and good makers in general, of course

We will see in the future (I hope) certificates of the SS quality in replicas.
KW at this moment is saying that they can guarantee the SS quality of their watches as real SS Aisi 316L.
It is a starting way.

Anyway, if someone has a caseset and a Spectrophotometer of Atomic Absortion, it takes some minutes to know it.
Many years ago I worked with the support of one (a Perkin Elmer) producing metal alloys and it was awesome.

ALE