ARF silently released new 16610LN's and 16610LV's

[bowtiefanatc]

Certain parts are worthy upgrades, some are necessary, others make you feel good.

No one passing you by on the street or across a bar will call you out for being a rep.

We obsess about minute details under macros and sadly it takes away from enjoyment.

If I took some of these watches back to myself when I started this hobby I would be absolutely blown away.

 

[Xcalm]

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Actually it shows perfectly what the commoj issue is with the Crown / Crown Guards combination on the reps: it almost always looks like the CGs are „too short“ — i.e. they hardly reach half of the crown. With your gen, the proportions are still OK… the crown guards still reach to about the half of the crown.

seems like exchanging the Crown on the rep could be another measure worthwhile.

 

[Xcalm]

@bowtiefanatc I have to agree with you that it spoils the fun to keep looking at these details… but on the other hand everyone probably has his priorities. I for one will for sure not be able to NOT look at the crown/crownguards… someone lse might have another „obsession“…

 

[bowtiefanatc]

@bowtiefanatc I have to agree with you that it spoils the fun to keep looking at these details… but on the other hand everyone probably has his priorities. I for one will for sure not be able to NOT look at the crown/crownguards… someone lse might have another „obsession“…

Pick your battles

 

[bowtiefanatc]

Could be worse, could be Startime CGs which were even smaller. Or could be the Raffles 1675 case which have massive CGs that require a full sized girder to take down

 

[Xcalm]

Pick your battles

Or a modder… if I find one and if am willing to go through the hassle

 

[bowtiefanatc]

Or a modder… if I find one and if am willing to go through the hassle

It would be easy to countersink the tube a little. Then you’re in gen territory legitimately

 

[Singapore9]

I wonder how much case welding costs, if you're into the minutiae of CG length. To get a good, Viet case is extremely expensive, these days, so if welding could be done for a couple of hundred bucks or so; the ARF could still be an awful lot cheaper and every bit as good, with welding and case work... If that's a battle you want to fight, of course.

For reference... my ~2001 GEN 16610LN has no crown gap

 

[Art Vandelay]

Sat on the fence due to the old lume mismatch issues but thinking about picking up an ARF LV as a guilt free daily.

 

[Xcalm]

I wonder how much case welding costs, if you're into the minutiae of CG length. To get a good, Viet case is extremely expensive, these days, so if welding could be done for a couple of hundred bucks or so; the ARF could still be an awful lot cheaper and every bit as good, with welding and case work... If that's a battle you want to fight, of course.

For reference... my ~2001 GEN 16610LN has no crown gap

Sounds extreme... but thanks nonetheless

Not sure if I am "in the minutiae of CG length"... but it is rather a fact that you can see it on a lot of these reps that the CGs don't even reach half of the crown height. What the actual reason is, seems less clear. Having looked at some images agaion, I think that @mt666tm is right here with his suggestion that the main issue (beside the gap of course) seems a too large crown...

 

[mt666tm]

Another thing to mention in regard to the crown gap issue is to make sure you ask your TD to screw the crown down tight for the QC pics. If you look at the QC pics of my LV the crown is sticking way out showing a big gap, and when it arrived I set the time to put it on my winder to test it and when I screwed the crown down properly it was nearly flush and showing less gap than my gen.

 

[Singapore9]

Case welding isn't extreme or even difficult these days, it's just whether it is worth bothering, breaking a brand new watch back down, etc. and paying someone to do it. I am going to price it up for a Helenarou case (5513), which needs lugs fattening and some CG work... will report back here.

CGs are the biggest tell on these, at a glance. There aren't so many GEN watches floating round these days with CGs that short as the 'no polishing' brigade have been out in force for a long time now. I think Star Time started the short CG trend and a lot of the factories copied that 'style'. I just don't understand why it was never corrected, probably all of 60secs work in the CAD before the CAM.

 

[Xcalm]

I was even wondering how these factories get (structured) feedback… the TD I was writing with seemed not overly interested. Bot who if not these guys should provide the feedback? I mean on obvious things — faults that are just fault and that are not even a subject of period correctness.

 

[Yellowsubmarine]

Sat on the fence due to the old lume mismatch issues but thinking about picking up an ARF LV as a guilt free daily.

You could always get yourself an RAF if you don’t want the mismatched lume, or if you prefer the case shape, get the ARF and then separately grab an RAF dial from alibaba..

 

[Art Vandelay]

You could always get yourself an RAF if you don’t want the mismatched lume, or if you prefer the case shape, get the ARF and then separately grab an RAF dial from alibaba..

Aw shucks, I hope they'd have fixed the missmatch by now.

If RAF are selling dials and hands etc separate I might just slam everything together in a spare TC v6 case.

 

[mt666tm]

I was even wondering how these factories get (structured) feedback… the TD I was writing with seemed not overly interested. Bot who if not these guys should provide the feedback? I mean on obvious things — faults that are just fault and that are not even a subject of period correctness.

Factories are aware of the flaws we talk about but we are a minority customer base for them and while they do take some of this feedback and update flaws in newer versions they won't bother doing anything major unless there was enough demand from a large enough customer base or from competition among other factories that are also making better versions, and as there isn't really any competition for 5 digit subs we find ourselves in a take-it-or leave it scenario here.

I think it's normal for new rep collectors to obsess over the smallest of details, chase the lastest versions, mod their watches, etc, but the majority of rep buyers are not on these forums, they do not obsess or even notice the minutia of details that we do, and they wear these watches happily out of the box without a care in the world. After you've been in this game for long enough you realize that no one cares and the only person that would ever notice these flaws would be one of us.

And if you think this is bad wait until you get into 4 digit subs...

 

[purplehaze89]

Hey folks - I have an old ARF (the ones that came out pre-2021) but the WSO 16610lv clickspring I replaced it with doesn't really "latch" onto the grooves of the original ARF bezel and thus almost spins unidirectionally. Does anyone have any recommendations on clicksprings for ARF models?

Thank ya!

 

[bowtiefanatc]

WSO or Gen should work

 

[bowtiefanatc]

That’s strange that the WSO doesn’t fit. WSO even fits in my old BP 16600 and it fit in my old JF. Hmmmm

 

[purplehaze89]

That’s strange that the WSO doesn’t fit. WSO even fits in my old BP 16600 and it fit in my old JF. Hmmmm

Hmmm...could it be the bezel itself needs to be replaced? I don't see any damage to the grooves themselves. But yeah the WSO doesn't fit perfect.