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[Custom Made] Rolex MK1 "Kissing 40" FAT FONT Bezel Insert Project

slay

Renowned Member
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28/3/09
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I wanted to present you with a little pet project that I've been working on this past year and get some of your thoughts and feedback :)

It should be obvious to any vintage Rolex lover that the stock bezel inserts on all Cartel Vintage Rolex watches are outright hideous. I was also never happy with any of the alternatives offered by Phong, Yuki & the rest - their fonts are inaccurate, they are lacking serifs, and both numbers and tick-marks are way too perfect and too straight for a Vintage Rolex Insert. I think many of you have heard about the saying "If you want something done right, do it yourself". So that's what I did! I have a particular fondness to Fat Font and "Kissing 40" Inserts and the bezel insert was that important to me - anyone who ever went from a bad to a good insert will know how much the bezel insert changes the face of the watch.

It took me over a year with many revisions and a lot of trial and error to make a bezel insert that is (in my opinion) the closest thing to a real Fat Font insert on the market.


Background on Fat Font Bezel Inserts:

To give you a bit of context on what makes Fat Font inserts unique and special: You may have read about "Fat Font" and "Kissing 40" and even "Kissing 50" Bezel Inserts and Genuine Inserts with those features often come with a $2k+ price tag. The reason why such inserts are both rare and so sought after has something to do with how they were produced and when they were produced. The printing pads used by Rolex to make bezel inserts wore out over time and this wear and tear resulted in numbers that started to be less and less perfect. Numbers and tick-marks started to bleed out on the edges and into each other, resulting in features such as the "Kissing 40". Today such imperfect inserts would be discarded, but back in the days, Rolex did not care much for perfection and consistency, which meant that bezel insert produced close to end-of-life of these printing pads made their way onto watches.


In making these MK1 "Kissing 40" Fat Font Bezel Inserts, my main goals were:


Production technique: Mimic the worn-out printing pads that were used to add the non-conductive paint for the numbers on the insert before they were anodized. "Fat Font" and Kissing 40 were a result of wear and tear of those printing pads
I made custom molds for both the aluminium bezel itself & for the Font of the numbers / tick-marks.

Font & Serifs: Used a Genuine MK1 Font and kept fine details, such as Serifs, as accurately as possible
Including for example "odd" serifs on the base of the number 2
No two big or small tick-marks are exactly the same and they are not perfectly rectangular either - each one of them was custom-drawn.

Size & Fit: These have the same inside/outside diameter and the same back-side profile as Genuine MK1 inserts.
Outside Diameter: ~36.55mm, Inside Diameter: ~30.3mm
They should snap-in to both Rep and Genuine Bezel Rings and don't have to be glued
The inserts have a thinner outer edge compared to most Replica/Cartel inserts, which means no more sanding necessary for the insert to sit properly (i.e. slightly recessed) in the bezel ring

Color: A color mixture was used during the anodization process that will fade to blue when exposed to oxidizing agents or bleach (and not red or purple). You can also make them tropical brown instead of faded-blue if you like.


As you can imagine, this wasn't easy: it took me over year of going through numerous sampling cycles and re-designs in order to get the result I wanted. Not to mention that I drove my manufacturing partner nearly insane and they would have stopped working with me if I hadn't visited them in-person twice and showered them with gifts ;)


I primarily made these for myself, but to give something back to the community and in order to recoup some of my investment, I'll be selling a few inserts to those of you who are big Vintage Rolex lovers like me. If this caught your interest, you can head over to myRWI Vendor Section (SVP - Vintage Watch Parts) with instructions on how to order etc.: https://forum.replica-watch.info/forum/supporting-vendors/svp-vintage-watch-parts


Pics:

Album Link: https://www.picr.me/album/x2Fo

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MrChink

Known Member
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12/3/18
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Wow that’s really nice. Well done m8!


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slay

Renowned Member
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28/3/09
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slay Stupendous work, the beauty would be to create a fuchsia insert for 1675?

I have some plans in the drawer for a Fat Font fuchsia 1675 (in addition to a few others, like 5517, Long-5), but getting the Color right on the Fuchsia's is a bit more difficult and requires a lot of trial and error during prototyping.
 
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slay

Renowned Member
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28/3/09
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Not really ;) Anodizing requires very specific types of paints, and the hard part is mixing these paints in the right concentration to get exactly a certain color. The protective coating afterwards will also affect how the color looks in person. The person mixing the colors will need to have a sample to compare the prototype results to in order to adjust the mixture until the result looks the same. I imagine mixing the Fuchsia color will be particularly difficult!
 

Mendota

Put Some Respect On My Name
16/10/08
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MN
These are so unbelievably nice and would look awesome on my Puretime red 1680. Thanks for producing these! If not exposed to oxidizing agents, would repeated sun exposure have any effect on the rate of color fading? For instance, leaving it out in direct sunlight to sit all day, every day for a month or two months?

I'll have to measure the ID and OD of my existing insert. It has a great vintage PIP, so that should be easy to transplant onto this new insert.
 

Fastman119

Active Member
10/1/19
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I have some plans in the drawer for a Fat Font fuchsia 1675 (in addition to a few others, like 5517, Long-5), but getting the Color right on the Fuchsia's is a bit more difficult and requires a lot of trial and error during prototyping.

I'd be first in line to buy a Fat Font fuchsia insert, just saying ;)
 

jimcon11

Known Member
25/6/17
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These are so unbelievably nice and would look awesome on my Puretime red 1680. Thanks for producing these! If not exposed to oxidizing agents, would repeated sun exposure have any effect on the rate of color fading? For instance, leaving it out in direct sunlight to sit all day, every day for a month or two months?

I'll have to measure the ID and OD of my existing insert. It has a great vintage PIP, so that should be easy to transplant onto this new insert.

Leave anything in the sun long enough and you will fade it. But I actually tried this with one of slay's inserts for a couple weeks, and didn't notice any change. I got impatient and put it in my watch:D

I've tried bleaching a few different inserts and I wouldn't recommend bleaching this one. The color came off the inner edge faster than everywhere else, which is not a realistic look. I recommend letting this one age naturally. Most of the gen MKI inserts I've seen did not fade the way the later MKIIIs do.
 
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Mendota

Put Some Respect On My Name
16/10/08
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MN
Leave anything in the sun long enough and you will fade it. But I actually tried this with one of slay's inserts for a couple weeks, and didn't notice any change. I got impatient and put it in my watch:D

I've tried bleaching a few different inserts and I wouldn't recommend bleaching this one. The color came off the inner edge faster than everywhere else, which is not a realistic look. I recommend letting this one age naturally. Most of the gen MKI inserts I've seen did not fade the way the later MKIIIs do.
Haha, thanks for the insights. I agree. I'd hate to artificially mess around with something killer like this and ruin it.

This 1680 is 7 years old. I wear it almost daily in the summer. The lighting here sucks, but if you can see, my hour markers have faded to a lighter cream color just from natural sun exposure. When the watch was new, the markers had more of a darker, mustard color to them. They need to be textured, however, but that is a project for another day. The insert is still like new after 7 years of sun. I think a new Slay insert with my vintage pip would rock!
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Mr Seamaster

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27/4/12
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I gave the insert some wet sandpaper 1000 to get the clearcoat/ shining off. Now I have to wear it, wear it and again wear it. Should fade, loose color from alone after some time.
 

Mendota

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16/10/08
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Mr Seamaster Nice T19 on your red 1680! This is exactly what I want to do with mine. Which T19 did you use? I tried a Clark on mine but it cracked almost immediately. Your insert looks fantastic, too. Nice and subtle.
 

Mr Seamaster

Renowned Member
27/4/12
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Mr Seamaster Nice T19 on your red 1680! This is exactly what I want to do with mine. Which T19 did you use? I tried a Clark on mine but it cracked almost immediately. Your insert looks fantastic, too. Nice and subtle.

Thanks!
It is indeed a clarks T19. Base is a cartel. Bezel assembly was slightly shaped on the inside of the retainer that it don’t sits that tight. Assembly is complete Vietnam.