- 17/7/12
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Hi fellas 
Last night I couldn't really fall asleep, so I decided to tinker a bit on my watches and I want to share the results with you. The watch is a 60 usd Alibaba beater with 6497-2 OPXI clone (hence the Panerai section) and see thru case back. It is such a nice watch, that it somehow became my favourite watch from my collection.
I also have a PAM111 and the non gen like train wheel finish catches my eye from time to time when looking through the case back.
While lying in bed last night I thought about why not just disassemble the cheap daily beater and try to achieve what Marlin does on the OPXI clones to make them look gen like, as both the beater and my PAM111 share the same movement. A couple seconds later I jumped out of bed, grabbed the watch and went to my workbech. I disassembled the movement and made small fixtures from wood for my dremel in order to clamp tight the three wheels (works perfectly). I lightly touched them up with 1000 grid sand paper and found out why they turn from a rich "brass-gold" color to a brighter "brass-silver" color, what has been described and discussed in other threads. Gen Panerai train wheels have a beautiful red-ish gold color to them, while modified rep train wheels look brighter/ less golden, but more on that later.
While having everything disassembled a relume is not a bad idea, since the lume on this watch sucked especially. It is what we would refer to as low grade rep lume - initial brightness is bad and fades after seconds. Nothing to be proud of.
I received G15E from noctilumina a couple of days ago and wanted to try it out anyways, so let's do it! I can tell you right now it is the best performing pigment in any situation I have, but judge by yourself:
This photo was taken a minute after I charged all of them fully and as you can see, G15E slightly outperforms G15F, but only by a margin. I was disappointed by the G15UF pigment, as it really is a low performer.
What's also to note, is that B17F falls nothing short of BG W9. They only differ in daylight color - BG W9 is ever so slightly whiter, they're otherwise identical to me for a 1:5 cost ratio. Well done noctilumina!
Let's get back to the train wheels. After sanding the first two wheels it looks like this.
Horrible, right? All over patches of gold and silver. Haha, this is not how they look like with naked eyes. They actually look really nice with the naked eye, but it's clear now I need to invest in some gold plating equipment. I brushed the third wheel with as much caution and as short as I could. It looks somewhat better, but still patchy.
From another angle:
While it looks bad in the pics, it's actually quite nice in real life. Trust me.
See? Looks better when reassembled and cleaned.
I'll dig my head into gold plating now though, as it would bother me on my Pam.
I am quite in love with this watch.
The front:
Oh - right! Does she lume after the treatment?
Hell yeah she does! Yet another torch in my collection.
G15E is an awesome pigment and not as difficult to apply as some say. My recommendation is to use UV glue as a binder. I use something called "Gel du Soleil" mixed with a special UV thinner called "Gelös" if I recall correctly. These components mixed together are well worth their money if you want to achieve good results.
I hope you enjoyed the little journey, even though it is only distantly related to Panerais
Last night I couldn't really fall asleep, so I decided to tinker a bit on my watches and I want to share the results with you. The watch is a 60 usd Alibaba beater with 6497-2 OPXI clone (hence the Panerai section) and see thru case back. It is such a nice watch, that it somehow became my favourite watch from my collection.
I also have a PAM111 and the non gen like train wheel finish catches my eye from time to time when looking through the case back.
While lying in bed last night I thought about why not just disassemble the cheap daily beater and try to achieve what Marlin does on the OPXI clones to make them look gen like, as both the beater and my PAM111 share the same movement. A couple seconds later I jumped out of bed, grabbed the watch and went to my workbech. I disassembled the movement and made small fixtures from wood for my dremel in order to clamp tight the three wheels (works perfectly). I lightly touched them up with 1000 grid sand paper and found out why they turn from a rich "brass-gold" color to a brighter "brass-silver" color, what has been described and discussed in other threads. Gen Panerai train wheels have a beautiful red-ish gold color to them, while modified rep train wheels look brighter/ less golden, but more on that later.
While having everything disassembled a relume is not a bad idea, since the lume on this watch sucked especially. It is what we would refer to as low grade rep lume - initial brightness is bad and fades after seconds. Nothing to be proud of.
I received G15E from noctilumina a couple of days ago and wanted to try it out anyways, so let's do it! I can tell you right now it is the best performing pigment in any situation I have, but judge by yourself:
This photo was taken a minute after I charged all of them fully and as you can see, G15E slightly outperforms G15F, but only by a margin. I was disappointed by the G15UF pigment, as it really is a low performer.
What's also to note, is that B17F falls nothing short of BG W9. They only differ in daylight color - BG W9 is ever so slightly whiter, they're otherwise identical to me for a 1:5 cost ratio. Well done noctilumina!
Let's get back to the train wheels. After sanding the first two wheels it looks like this.
Horrible, right? All over patches of gold and silver. Haha, this is not how they look like with naked eyes. They actually look really nice with the naked eye, but it's clear now I need to invest in some gold plating equipment. I brushed the third wheel with as much caution and as short as I could. It looks somewhat better, but still patchy.
From another angle:
While it looks bad in the pics, it's actually quite nice in real life. Trust me.
See? Looks better when reassembled and cleaned.
I'll dig my head into gold plating now though, as it would bother me on my Pam.
I am quite in love with this watch.
The front:
Oh - right! Does she lume after the treatment?
Hell yeah she does! Yet another torch in my collection.
G15E is an awesome pigment and not as difficult to apply as some say. My recommendation is to use UV glue as a binder. I use something called "Gel du Soleil" mixed with a special UV thinner called "Gelös" if I recall correctly. These components mixed together are well worth their money if you want to achieve good results.
I hope you enjoyed the little journey, even though it is only distantly related to Panerais
