BP Seadweller.. Best SD available Period

[Rudy40]

KBH, Gets mighty close to the bezel teeth if I were to trim the inside of the bezel, I'm not saying it cant be done, but best practice is make the shaft fit the hole !

Rudy, The reason I use the lathe is because sanding a bezel insert never gives you a truly concentric finish, in reality sanding gives you a multi facetted circle which is not the best fit on this particular item

Got any builds going KBH ?

Yeah @ado i would say its a much better method than sanding for sure!...But what im asking is where on the back of the insert you start trimming...with the lathe?
In my experience sanding or trimming the insert in the wrong area just made things more frustrating and didn't make the insert fit right.. IE in return more sanding had to be done to make it fit!

 

[KBH]

KBH, Gets mighty close to the bezel teeth if I were to trim the inside of the bezel, I'm not saying it cant be done, but best practice is make the shaft fit the hole !


Got any builds going KBH ?

My only objection is you're cutting down an expensive shaft to put into a cheap hole. The gen insert is worth as much as the whole watch, if not more.
Besides, I would think that you're only talking about a few thousands of an inch.


My only little fun project lately was turning an old donor watch from eBay, into a nice fake/gen Presidential.

These scrap pieces plus an ETA 2834-2:



Into this:

 

[ado213]

Come on Rudy, I cant tell you everything !!. It is possible to get the insert to lie flatter,its a balance between the insert and the bezel. Take a bit of both!!. The only problem is then the xtal looks too high, which is part of the reason I changed it out.


Ive said this before and I'll say it again, we can look at as many gen SD's as we want, comment on them and make assumptions that sometimes are just not grounded. Until we have measurements, any comments are subjective. To make something visually acceptable is a non starter as everyone's vision is different !!

 

[mattt74]

Greg, i'm sure Sead will get another caseback for you. At least you can work on everything else and just put the replacement on when it comes.

Look how close the stock insert is compared to gen.. Thanks for the pics Rudy. I'm still blown away by the stock BP insert and pearl. Whoever made those pearls needs to produce them in mass.

Click spring isn't bad. I agree that bending the stock one for more tension made for a decent feel. The bezel has nice overall proportions and scalloping, I think some of you guys may be over thinking it a tad. The watch is really good out of the box, Some of these mods seem like they will yield diminished returns.

I'm sure Sead will help you too! My SD arrived with the 9 marker off and he sent me a new dial.
Shipping was everything but fast, but that's was because of the Chinese New Year!

 

[Rudy40]

Come on Rudy, I cant tell you everything !!. It is possible to get the insert to lie flatter,its a balance between the insert and the bezel. Take a bit of both!!. The only problem is then the xtal looks too high, which is part of the reason I changed it out.


Ive said this before and I'll say it again, we can look at as many gen SD's as we want, comment on them and make assumptions that sometimes are just not grounded. Until we have measurements, any comments are subjective. To make something visually acceptable is a non starter as everyone's vision is different !!

OOOh come on @ado your not playing fair!...lol!!
You can tell me? I'm not going to tell anyone?...Scouts honor!
So does the ST crystal look better?? Bevel height?

 

[Rudy40]

My only objection is you're cutting down an expensive shaft to put into a cheap hole. The gen insert is worth as much as the whole watch, if not more.
Besides, I would think that you're only talking about a few thousands of an inch.


My only little fun project lately was turning an old donor watch from eBay, into a nice fake/gen Presidential.

These scrap pieces plus an ETA 2834-2:



Into this:

I really like this build...Very clean looking build! Anytime you sick of it..Remember me?

 

[KBH]

Thanks Rudy. I've really been enjoying this one. All the benefits of a $30,000 watch with none of the liabilities of trying to pass off an overly expensive fake. I feel very comfortable wearing it.

 

[Rudy40]

Thanks Rudy. I've really been enjoying this one. All the benefits of a $30,000 watch with none of the liabilities of trying to pass off an overly expensive fake. I feel very comfortable wearing it.

Yeah i would feel comfortable wearing it to!

 

[ado213]

OOOh come on @ado your not playing fair!...lol!!
You can tell me? I'm not going to tell anyone?...Scouts honor!
So does the ST crystal look better?? Bevel height?

Rudy, difficult one to answer!. Firstly the ST xtal will not fit the SSD or BP SD without major modifications to the case. That is unless you want to glue it in?. I am told that the overall height of the case should be 14.6 mm. So I make the case with xtal in 14.6 thick and the xtal does look lower. But then my attention is drawn to the bezel insert and bezel teeth.

So off we go on another mission to rectify these problems. Bezel insert height is doable, chamfering the bezel is doable, but re-cutting the teeth on the bezel is a tricky one and I have not yet done this. It's a lot of investment in tooling to get this right, for little return. So I may leave this to one to one of our more energetic members. I have yet to see the WSO bezel in the flesh, so that may be the answer?

To clarify my position, I know very little about reps, models numbers, good points and bad points etc etc, I am not an expert. I just don't have the time to sit down and isolate these points off watches. What I am is an engineer who enjoys watchmaking. I rely on you guys to tell me what needs rectifying on a watch. You all have valid points, and most are different. it's very frustrating !!. For instance, let's go to SD xtal height, it's too high !!. ok what dimension is it from the top of the xtal to the top of the bezel insert??. If I had this my job is easy!!.

So Rudy, why don't you start a "hit list" poll on the SD and see what narks people the most, I'll do my best to then pick them off one by one.

 

[Rudy40]

Ok guys you heard the man!
Let's give the man the specs he needs... And valid issues
That are tells on the watch!
For me it's ...
Bezel teeth
Crystal hight!
If I could get those two issues resolved ,,,I feel I would have the perfect SD rep!
The rest I could live with!
Which I could live with those two things! But wouldn't it be awesome to have them fixed!


Sent from my Rolex thinking brain!

 

[Smpfan]

Guys you should think about another fact. Look at all the SD's which were builded over the years! They are varying considering bezel teeth depth and chunkyness of the crown guards. So you may want to do a research on the web and you will find out that some gens DO look like your rep! Newer models seem to have a tinier bezel and CG's.
Another point which varies is the recessement of the SEL's between the lug ends. Older 16660 are significantly more recessed than newer models and so on.

I reworked the teeth of an old SSD bezel with a needle file and repolished them because they were too tiny. It is doable but very difficult. As Ado told you need a lot of mashining to do this in a professionell way.

Cheers

Andi

 

[KBH]

Smpfan has a good point. The older gen SD's are now around 15 years old. Rolex has always had variations from time to time on most models. Then you figure 2 or 3 case polishings over the years and you'll find many inconsistencies in the same model. Trying to find an "exact" definition of any Rolex is an exercise in futility. But it also makes getting an acceptable replica easier to achieve.

 

[rupert37]

Guys you should think about another fact. Look at all the SD's which were builded over the years! They are varying considering bezel teeth depth and chunkyness of the crown guards. So you may want to do a research on the web and you will find out that some gens DO look like your rep! Newer models seem to have a tinier bezel and CG's.
Another point which varies is the recessement of the SEL's between the lug ends. Older 16660 are significantly more recessed than newer models and so on.

I reworked the teeth of an old SSD bezel with a needle file and repolished them because they were too tiny. It is doable but very difficult. As Ado told you need a lot of mashining to do this in a professionell way.

Cheers

Andi

Smpfan, at the beginning I tought exactly the same thing. Just a few months ago we were talking about the shape of the long "f" of ft on the ceramic 116600 dials. Everyone was pointing it as a instant tell and the we realized that Rolex actually built different dials with different "f" shapes .
But (talking about the bezel ring) I don't think this is the case; the scallops are so small and shallow that it's actually difficult to impress enough grip to turn the bezel.
I mean, it's not just an aesthetic problem, it's also a usability problem: Honestly I can't believe that Rolex built bezel rings so approximative, especially for a diver watch.

Have a look at this shot I took comparing the BPSD and a old Noob 114060; the 114060 bezel is sharper, there's less space between the scallops so it's easier to turn the bezel.
The scallops are also deeper and (but that's just my point of view) better looking.

 

[benjji]

Smpfan, can you post pics of the bezel reworked , plsss ??

 

[KBH]

Something that I've noticed and wish there was someone here is the States with Ado's capabilities that could confirm and possibly fix is the rehaut on the original SSD. For years the complaint was the rehaut was a little "wokky". I tried to figure out some way to change the degree of bevel on it but never could figure it out without a lathe.

Well, after putting the two cases together I realized it's not the degree of bevel, they seem to be identical. It's the depth of the rehaut. If the case could be modified to a thinner rehaut as it is in the BPSD, a whole lot of perfectly good SSD's could be brought up to the same, if not better, standard of the BPSD. I still think the old SSD is a better built watch, from the crystal to the crown guards to the gen like working He valve. Even the crown and tube are better quality than the BP. Quality wise, the BP factory has never compared to the Noob factory builds. They've just got a little closer to gen specs on a few of their latest offerings.

 

[benjji]

however, I found detailed photos of Z series' bezel .. it' is very similar to bp ..

gen on top vs bp

 

[klase]

my Bpsd is otw. but just know that 9 and 6 markers crooked
is there a way to correct crooked marker than replacing the marker with TCdial?
because if I did not misread, to put tcdial can not directly attach, there must be raised about 1mm in order to fit.

 

[Smpfan]

@benjii: this work is still in progress. I'm modifiying an old SSD. Bezel teeth and bezel chamfer is modified. I also bored the watch out on a lathe and manufactured a non wokky seperate rehaut. Using a gen spec WSO xtal with generic gasket. Watch is ready to take full gen xtal.

Pics:

Cheers

Andi

 

[Jordan27]

Looking good! But that 1 o'clock lug hole is so close to the edge?? That would drive me crazy on an otherwise insanely nice case!

keep us posted!

 

[Smpfan]

I will do a thread about this project when it's finnisched.

Jordan, you cannot choose the position of the lugholes. They are fixed by the inner holes which are mashined by manufacturer of the case. You have to meet them EXACTLY from the outside. Otherwise you will ruin the case because no springbar will fit anymore.


Cheers

Andi