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Sea-Dweller 16600 - franken project | case work

Spatiumtemporis

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Hi guys,

UPDATE: I've finished the build ... for now and i've decided to edit the 1st post and make this a proper build thread.

I've postponed this project for too long now. It's time to get this build done.

I'll try to keep this thread more focused on pics rather than words.

Parts used for the project :

- BP 3135 case
- JF 16610 bracelet
- 2 x BP 16600 bracelets
- 2 x BP casebacks ( had to buy more than one casue one was better engraved than the other )
- Noob V9 crown
- gen bezel NOS
- gen insert NOS
- gen dial NOS
- gen crystal NEW
- gen dw NEW
- gen hands NEW
- sa3135

I'd like to start this by saying this build was a complete pain in the ass to pull off.
And as much as i love it now once done i've hated its along the way.
I was so pissed off by the amont of work needed to put this together I almost quit the project altogether 2 times.
Barely any part fitted ootb so making this look ...well ... almost gen was a freaking nightmare.

1st thing on the list was the case. 2 things needed addresing.
One was the gen crystal fitment and the 2nd was or actually were the wrong looking crownguards.

Original crowngurads of the bp case were pointing downwards ( like on the miyota bp sub for ex.) rather than upwards like on most gen cases i've seen :

334e5b7a7a0a348753e78f7a1403e5d3.jpg

Here is another pic with an even worse case of limp d1ck cgs :) from FiliGelli (hope you don't mind me sharing this... and calling your cgs limp d1ck hehe):

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I HAD to get that fixed:

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I've made a thread a while ago before the crash about me modding the bp case.
I was a pretty satisfied with the result back then ( the pics above ), but looking at the TC crownguards made me give the case another shot .

While having a better shape seen from the sides, from above the lovely edge and flat surfaces of the crowngurds, the gen and tc case both have, have faded away during the grinding and buffing process leaving a wavy surface instead :

I had to get that fixed as well :

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Much better i'd say :)
Here is a comparison of the stock BP , gen and my work :


cgscomp.jpg


I am pretty satisfied with the result.

NEXT : fitting the gen crystal

Crystal was mounted using a custom teflon gasket made by mascob1 . Thanks man !

gaskets.png


It needed some shaving for it to properly fit but it did the job.
mascob1 probably could have made the gasket a straight fit if he had the case as a model.
Next time i'll do this propely... lol there'll never be a next time cause i'm not going through this pain again :)

Now because i had to slim the gasket a bit using an improvised lathe made out of a dremmel and a cutting knife the shape wasn't perfectly uniform across the circumference, so water tightness was an issue.

I had no other choice ( besides asking mascob for another gasket ) but to use a transparent sealent that is salt water and uv resistant. I've applied it using a seringe with a very fine needle attached filling the crystal's groove. I've also applied some on the case's stock crystal holding edge .

Now this may not seem the best solution out there but it did the job great and it's invisible to the eye. The crystal required a pretty good amount of force to go in place so i know it's firmly fixed and not going anywhere and that was before appling the sealent. I didn't had any device to properly test the water resistence but the empiric test i've made tells me this will take a swim without any problem.

IMG_20180913_205456.jpg


The crystal height must be spot on as well cause the gen 16600 measures 14.78 mm in thickness and mine after screwing in the caseback tightly measures 14.9 mm . So over all a pretty close match. I could achieve the perfect thickness by shaving a bit of the caseback on a lathe but honesty a 0.12 mm diff is not noticeable to the human eye for sure .

The next hurdle was fitting the gen bezel :

I really didn't think this would be an issue but after comparing and measuring the gen and the rep bezels things became pretty obvious.
The gen's bezel inside diameter is smaller than the rep so 2 solutions came to mind. I either mod the case or the gen bezel .
I went for modding the case even if this was harder because i didn't want to mess with the gen bezel as it is more expensive and way harder to find.

IMG_20180915_135137.jpg


The pic above shows what i've had to mod for the gen bezel to go in.
The red line shows how it used to look before.
Blue line is how it looks now and the orange line show what i should have actually done in the 1st place but as i don't have a small enaugh lathe to do this myself i'll postpone this for a future time.
The bezel sits firmly in place but because of the high friction between the parts it's almost impossible to turn. This doesn't bother me that much cause a i hate a missaligned insert anyway :) .

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Next step - fitting the gen DW, dial and hands to the sa3135 movement :

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I didn't take any pics of the hand pressing cause i was to focused not scratch them or the dial and ruin the NEW build look .

And just when i though all my troubles regarding the case were over i proceded in mounting the movement into the case.
To my horrific surprise the movement was way smaller in diameter than the case and it couldn't be centered ! WTF !!! this case was fitted with a sa3135 from the first place! so what's going on ? i've asked myself.

Well ... BP made a larger dial to fit the case and because the movement was held by the dial's feet it could be centered but me using a gen dial ( smaller in diameter ) meant that this thing was not possible anymore . Bummer !

I had to come up with an ingenious ideea and used the stock BP crystal gasket as a custom spacer for the movement. The stock gasket's thickness was spot on for the job ! lucky me !

IMG_20180915_191315.jpg


The gasket sits in place firmly and it's barely visible.

THE BRACELET :

The bracelet alone was harder to pull of than most of my previous builds. Since a gen bracelet was very expensive and very used anyway for my taste and TC SD one is no longer available i had no choice but to build my own.

The BP regardless of how many i've seen is just a joke .
The trapezoidal links are not evenly cut and the polished sides surfaces are wavy and cheap looking.
The clasp isn't even worth mentioning. Most of the BP clasps i've seen are hardly closing properly without some modding.
And the look .. oh boy .. cheap shitty rep.
The folded link is nasty looking as well.

The JF 5 digit sub bracelet on the other hand looks and feels much better but it can't be used on a SD build because of the brushed sides and incorrect SELS .
The JF clasp is solid and good looking as well but it has the 93250 code rather than the 93160 SD code.

So i had to use the links and clasp from the JF , mod them and the SELS and folding 93160 part from 2 BP bracelets. I had to order a 2nd BP SD bracelet because the 1st one had the 93150 code :( .

Things looked pretty good but i've decided to go with the gen clasp in the end . No loss however cause i'll probably use the rep modded clasp on a future build. It looks wayyy better than any SD stock rep clasp out there anyway.

The BP sels had to be modified as well cause the rounded part near the springbar holes was ... well.. not rounded at all. It had an edge.
Same went for the middle part. Instead of being rounded is was rectangular .

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UGLY BP CLASP :

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I had to grind the sides and repolish to give the clasp that flap nice surfaces again after bending it by mistake :) :

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Here is the finished 'product' :
It was brushed , polised and the edges were rounded as well .




































Regulating the movement :

Before:





After:



And finnaly after more than 6 months in the making!! i present to you the the franken PERIOD CORRECT 3135 16600 SD :








































I even went and got a gen period correct build for this :







Hope you've enjoyed this cause i sure didn't :))

Next build - sa4130 daytona on a ARF case with modded cgs of course haha.
 
Last edited:

FiliGelli

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That's an old bp with myota inside.
It has only gen insert.
I just ordered a new bezel from ebay and swapped the bezel click spring because the old one was shit..



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Spatiumtemporis

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I think we should make a petition for ARF to make a 16600 super rep with SH3135, gen construction and made out of 904l.
The 16600 was a milestone and still is one of the most amazing watches ever made to me.

That would be a great ideea indeed.

Bp sd is pretty much trash imo. The only thing that looks ok is the case, apart from the cgs of course.

So I'd love to see a gen spec case from ARF.

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Spatiumtemporis

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FiliGelli the gen insert is a must . Congrats.

I like how the sel sits recessed and not flush with the lugs like on my bpsd.

Can you share a pic of the backcase please ?

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FiliGelli

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FiliGelli the gen insert is a must . Congrats.

I like how the sel sits recessed and not flush with the lugs like on my bpsd.

Can you share a pic of the backcase please ?

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Off course!
I bought it because i was impressed about the sels...
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I posted some pics because i know that you are like a surgery for the case of the watch!


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Spatiumtemporis

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Off course!
I bought it because i was impressed about the sels...
14d17d18d1085b4e903d94c0f81de657.jpg

dfe668578f1ed831dabf9465fa6cf129.jpg

35f3492d4dd6cac03b0eb0a3142667bc.jpg

849ee76eb9e6531384ab3b0705b353e8.jpg

3c5bfb95b2ff8b1fb09c2cd387cf2e8c.jpg

I posted some pics because i know that you are like a surgery for the case of the watch!


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Thanks mate. was curious to see the backcase engravings . I know the older models had a closer font than these new ones have. It seems yours is the same as mine .

I love how the bracelet sits on yours . Is that a BP stock bracelet ? Sel doesn't have a hump as well... very nice .
 
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Spatiumtemporis

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More case work this evening. Wasn't satisfied with the wavy surfaces after my last attempt.

I want the case to have factory like flat plane surfaces :)



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If anyone is wondering what precision tool i've used, this is it :) :

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More to come...



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FiliGelli

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I like how you achive your target with what you have available.
That's the right spirit!


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FiliGelli

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Thanks mate. was curious to see the backcase engravings . I know the older models had a closer font than these new ones have. It seems yours is the same as mine .

I love how the bracelet sits on yours . Is that a BP stock bracelet ? Sel doesn't have a hump as well... very nice .

I don't know which model is but for sure it's a bp...i bought it from another user.
It's 4 years old and there is myota inside.
That's all i know about this watch.


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Nur-Uhr

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FiliGelli a real good looking BPSD 16600 with this perfect SEL's.
Looks good with this brushing, makes it very Gen looking. Did you do this brushing?
 

FiliGelli

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Nice work FiliGelli ! I am jelous of your sel :)

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Thanks buddy!
I bought it because i was stunned for the sels...i know that's hard to find a seadweller stock with good sels so i pulled the trigger on it.



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Spatiumtemporis

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Update :

Case is pretty much done. This is the best i could come up with . I had to improvise and make some 1000 / 1500 / 2000 grit paper wheels for the dremmel . Achieving perfect flat surfaces by hand is just not in the human nature i guess :)

Hope you guys enjoy the pics :

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And here is a simulation of the finished watch :

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The bezel is rep but the crown is gen.

Stay tuned for more.
Next step, fitting the gen crystal :facepalm: .
This is going to be a pain for sure.
 
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