Malik321- Thank you for the very kind words! Really appreciate it! There is no doubt that these projects have been a challenge; plenty of difficulties and problems along the way, but they were also very fun, educational and the end result makes it all worthwhile.
If you are interested in such a project but without 90% of the headache, you can always find a watch from the 1940/1950 time frame and simply do a dial swap; most watches from this era are very similar in design, size and shape, and a dial swap would be a reversable change. You just wouldn't have the Patek movement, but behind a closed case back, no one would ever see that.
The other option would be to find a Patek pocketwatch from the same era and have it converted to a wristwatch with a new case. The downside here is that the watch would be larger than anything Patek would have made for the time in a standard gent's wristwatch; but the dial, hands and movement would be 100% Patek.
There are some sellers out there that have done such marriage watches; I am sure they would not be difficult to find if you want to skip the project process and go straight to a finished product.
jm_brc_7057- The process for fabricating the cases was likely difficult, but less so for me (probably more so for the person doing the actual fabrication
). I specified the diameter I wanted, the movement to be used as well as some movement measurements, dial diameter, and on the 130, I also specified the case height. I spent a lot of time finding examples of cases that I wanted to emulate and providing those images to illustrate what I wanted to achieve. Also spent a lot of time looking at any/all specifcations provided in auction lots from Antiquorum, Christies, Sotheby's etc. Interestingly, most 130's are 33mm in size, with very few being 35mm (which is what I opted to go with for mine). The rest was up to the case maker.
If you notice, both of my 570's have the same case. Somewhere along the way I picked up a watchmaker's guide on Patek calibers from the 40's, 50's and 60's which was priceless; not only does it have a listing of parts and their respective part numbers, but it also contains the measurements and specs of each movement. It provided enough info to be confident that the 27SC and 12-120 shared the same dimensions and so I just had two of that 570 case made (which worked out perfect). I'll need to see if I can find it. I put a lot of this stuff away, and now I have no idea where a lot of this stuff is :/