I recently acquired a rose gold RM010, continuing to peruse my obsession with Richard Mille, but also I'd had an idea for modding the dial that I was keen to try out.
The watch arrived a few days ago and overall I'm really impressed with it.
But no time to enjoy it, I bought it with a mod in mind, so it's time to get cracking.
Here's the plan (which is still evolving as I write this)! The biggest let down of this watch for me, having owned one in steel previously, is the dial. It just doesn't quite do a good enough job of representing the gen.
Here's the gen...
Yeah I know it's beautiful isn't it!? And here's the rep...
So let's zoom in on the problem area.
Gen...
Rep...
You can see the issue. But I did notice that they had made some attempt to replicate the dial components, specifically the areas highlighted here...
Gen...
And you can see the corresponding parts here on the rep...
See what I mean? It looks like a punched metal plate, or maybe plastic, but it's gloss black which is noting like the gen. So I'm hoping this part can be separated from the rest of the dial components, and painted to look a little more like the gen!
At this stage I'm hoping the white scale running around the edge of the dial is printed on the same crystal layer as the numerals, and not on the part I want to paint, otherwise it could be a very short lived plan.
So, let's get her open and have a look at what's what!
I had imagined I could just remove the caseback and remove the moment from behind without completely taking it apart, but it transpires that the strap screws actually secure right through the case and into the caseback, which isn't the case on other RM reps I've opened, so off comes the strap, bezel and caseback.
Et voilá, one undressed RM010
Then the crown comes out with a press of the crown release button...
Hands off...
Now I can take the movement out... right?
Wrong!
It looks as though the four screws in the corners hold the movement in place from the back, so whipped them off...
And fully expected the movement and its holder to come falling out, but nope...
Just sat there and wouldn't budge. So god knows if the screws are just for aesthetics or not, but the movement must come out somehow. I didn't want to give it too much force so decided to head back to the dial side and see if I could take it apart from the front to get to the part I need to work on.
The collar with the hour markers levered off ok with the help of tweezers and a small screwdriver. It's secured with a couple of sticky pads (dial dots?!)....
But the actual dial itself was a little trickier. I must admit it didn't occur to me that it might be screwed into to the movement with dial feet, but it prised off in the end, and there were a couple of small locator feet but they didn't look substantial enough to be screwed in to.
And there she goes. This is where I'd hoped the crystal (it's actually just clear plastic) and the decorated plate would just be located together with little pins or something and would fall apart. But no, that's a fully glued dial sandwich.
Back to gently prising with tweezers and screwdriver, and eventually managed to separate the two...
So here is the offending article.
It's really light and I kinda thought it might even be plastic which would be disappointing as it would be harder to prep and more delicate so likely to snap or break. But I bravely laid out some professional finishing paper and got to work sanding off the horrible high gloss black finish.
First peek and I can see bare metal peeking through, that's good news...
Once finished it's into a jar of cleaning solution to make sure it's nice a clean ready for painting...
And for now that's it, she's ready for painting. The cleaning revealed a really nice golden colour, so I'm guessing it's brass?!
Next up will be a trip to my spray booth (otherwise known as my back garden).
You've heard of 50 shades of grey, well this is 3 shades of grey, lol!
Will update this thread when I get around to doing the spraying. There will be quite a bit of masking up the different areas to do so could be fiddly!
Hope you enjoyed!!
DC
The watch arrived a few days ago and overall I'm really impressed with it.
But no time to enjoy it, I bought it with a mod in mind, so it's time to get cracking.
Here's the plan (which is still evolving as I write this)! The biggest let down of this watch for me, having owned one in steel previously, is the dial. It just doesn't quite do a good enough job of representing the gen.
Here's the gen...
Yeah I know it's beautiful isn't it!? And here's the rep...
So let's zoom in on the problem area.
Gen...
Rep...
You can see the issue. But I did notice that they had made some attempt to replicate the dial components, specifically the areas highlighted here...
Gen...
And you can see the corresponding parts here on the rep...
See what I mean? It looks like a punched metal plate, or maybe plastic, but it's gloss black which is noting like the gen. So I'm hoping this part can be separated from the rest of the dial components, and painted to look a little more like the gen!
At this stage I'm hoping the white scale running around the edge of the dial is printed on the same crystal layer as the numerals, and not on the part I want to paint, otherwise it could be a very short lived plan.
So, let's get her open and have a look at what's what!
I had imagined I could just remove the caseback and remove the moment from behind without completely taking it apart, but it transpires that the strap screws actually secure right through the case and into the caseback, which isn't the case on other RM reps I've opened, so off comes the strap, bezel and caseback.
Et voilá, one undressed RM010
Then the crown comes out with a press of the crown release button...
Hands off...
Now I can take the movement out... right?
Wrong!
It looks as though the four screws in the corners hold the movement in place from the back, so whipped them off...
And fully expected the movement and its holder to come falling out, but nope...
Just sat there and wouldn't budge. So god knows if the screws are just for aesthetics or not, but the movement must come out somehow. I didn't want to give it too much force so decided to head back to the dial side and see if I could take it apart from the front to get to the part I need to work on.
The collar with the hour markers levered off ok with the help of tweezers and a small screwdriver. It's secured with a couple of sticky pads (dial dots?!)....
But the actual dial itself was a little trickier. I must admit it didn't occur to me that it might be screwed into to the movement with dial feet, but it prised off in the end, and there were a couple of small locator feet but they didn't look substantial enough to be screwed in to.
And there she goes. This is where I'd hoped the crystal (it's actually just clear plastic) and the decorated plate would just be located together with little pins or something and would fall apart. But no, that's a fully glued dial sandwich.
Back to gently prising with tweezers and screwdriver, and eventually managed to separate the two...
So here is the offending article.
It's really light and I kinda thought it might even be plastic which would be disappointing as it would be harder to prep and more delicate so likely to snap or break. But I bravely laid out some professional finishing paper and got to work sanding off the horrible high gloss black finish.
First peek and I can see bare metal peeking through, that's good news...
Once finished it's into a jar of cleaning solution to make sure it's nice a clean ready for painting...
And for now that's it, she's ready for painting. The cleaning revealed a really nice golden colour, so I'm guessing it's brass?!
Next up will be a trip to my spray booth (otherwise known as my back garden).
You've heard of 50 shades of grey, well this is 3 shades of grey, lol!
Will update this thread when I get around to doing the spraying. There will be quite a bit of masking up the different areas to do so could be fiddly!
Hope you enjoyed!!
DC
i hope it turn out nice.
