This is my first "mod", and I'm putting it in scare quotes, because by modding standards, this is pretty light weight. Nonetheless, with a bit of reading on the forums I felt confident enough to give it a try since the white ring around the Noob Daytona crystal has been bugging me ever since I received my Clean Factory Panda. And I felt I'd document the process and comment on what was harder and what was easier than I expected.
Stuff that was easier than I thought it would be:
This was the bezel tool I bought. Well worth the money. It was super easy to use.
Watch in the tool with a plastic bag to protect everything from getting scratched.
The case once the bezel, crystal, and gasket were removed. I cleaned off the edges with a q-tip and some alcohol. Then I kept the case under a drinking glass to prevent any dust in the air of my workspace from settling on top of the dial.
This is what the OEM Noob V4 gasket looks like. It is very white and opaque.
Comparing the new gasket and the original noob one. I bought the gasket on AliExpress and got two for around $8 with free shipping. The correct size is 29.5mm x 0.55mm x 2.5mm. The gen gasket is only 2.3mm tall, and some people sand these aftermarket gaskets down to get the crystal to sit a little lower. I didn't bother since it was the colour, not the thickness that was bothering me.
The watch with everything pressed back into place. I didn't take any pics during the pressing process since I was getting a bit frustrated with how hard it was.
And finally a pic of the Noob beside the Clean Panda. Compared to the Clean Panda and the original pic above, I'm happy with the way there's no longer a white ring around the crystal.
From start to finish this took me a few hours. I'm sure I'd be quicker next time, but it was a fun way to spend a Sunday morning. And the process has given me a bit more confidence with what I can do with my reps. Thanks for reading. Hope this helps anyone else who's thinking of dabbling is this sort of stuff.
Stuff that was easier than I thought it would be:
- Getting the bezel / crystal / gasket off the watch. I was terrified that this would be impossible, but I bought a cheap bezel removal tool from Amazon and it turned out to be by far the easiest part of the job.
- Keeping the inside of the crystal clean from finger prints and dust. I started the job using finger cots, but was still shocked by how much of my hand oil somehow managed to get onto the crystal. I also made extensive use of a little air blower brush to get rid of the dust and lint that I kept finding on the bottom of the crystal when it came to re-assembly time.
- Aligning the markers on the bezel with the correct position on the dial was hard. I bought an extremely cheap bezel / crystal press, so I'm not really surprised this was hard (bad tools + inexperienced operator). Even so, I had to try 6 times before I managed to get the crystal + bezel pressed on correctly.
- Getting the crystal + bezel to press on evenly. As in making sure the crystal didn't sit higher on one side than the other after I pressed the bezel down. This was hard and I was never able to get the bezel to go down in nice even steps, it would always go down almost all the way on one side first and then I'd press again and the other side would go down. I was terrified that the bezel would shatter since ceramic really doesn't like being placed under tension stress. And twice when I did this, the crystal and gasket kind popped up on one side so it wasn't level. I didn't try to push the crystal down because I figured this would be asking for trouble, but rather removed everything again, and started over.
This was the bezel tool I bought. Well worth the money. It was super easy to use.
Watch in the tool with a plastic bag to protect everything from getting scratched.
The case once the bezel, crystal, and gasket were removed. I cleaned off the edges with a q-tip and some alcohol. Then I kept the case under a drinking glass to prevent any dust in the air of my workspace from settling on top of the dial.
This is what the OEM Noob V4 gasket looks like. It is very white and opaque.
Comparing the new gasket and the original noob one. I bought the gasket on AliExpress and got two for around $8 with free shipping. The correct size is 29.5mm x 0.55mm x 2.5mm. The gen gasket is only 2.3mm tall, and some people sand these aftermarket gaskets down to get the crystal to sit a little lower. I didn't bother since it was the colour, not the thickness that was bothering me.
The watch with everything pressed back into place. I didn't take any pics during the pressing process since I was getting a bit frustrated with how hard it was.
And finally a pic of the Noob beside the Clean Panda. Compared to the Clean Panda and the original pic above, I'm happy with the way there's no longer a white ring around the crystal.
From start to finish this took me a few hours. I'm sure I'd be quicker next time, but it was a fun way to spend a Sunday morning. And the process has given me a bit more confidence with what I can do with my reps. Thanks for reading. Hope this helps anyone else who's thinking of dabbling is this sort of stuff.
