- 10/12/23
- 214
- 220
- 43
-
Tired of adverts on RWI? - Subscribe by clicking HERE and PMing Trailboss for instructions and they will magically go away!
Comprehensive Guide to Clone Movements Found in Rolex Reps
- Thread starter dogwood
- Start date
This looks like a variation of the “time bomb” SA3186 movement. The way to tell is the rounded end of the best adjustor arm, and the fact that the reversing wheels aren’t painted purple all the way to the teeth. Now, the SA3186 is a bad choice for a GMT movement because the hour hand jumping spring was prone to breaking. However, the version you posted doesn’t have a GMT function (I think, I’m not too familiar with the Cellini line of watches). So this movement might be ok. It’s hard to say without taking it apart and seeing the dial side of the movement. Does the Cellini you’re looking at have any complications on the dial side? Date, week, moon phase, etc?These are the only images available, thanks.
- 10/12/23
- 214
- 220
- 43
It has a date dial at 3pm.
here is the link
Rolex - Cellini Date 39mm RG/LE White GMF Asia 3165 Mod | Theonewatches
Rolex - Cellini Date 39mm RG/LE White GMF Asia 3165 Mod
theonewatches.io
thanks for your interest and assistance.
@KJ2020 any idea what the dial side complications are like on the “SA3165” used in the GMF Cellini linked above. It looks like the movement is a variation on the time bomb SA3186, but the SA3165 doesn’t have a GMT function but instead has a date dial at 3 o’clock. I’m thinking maybe this is ok because it doesn’t have that weak hour jumping spring, but who knows how the date dial has been implemented.It has a date dial at 3pm.
here is the link
Rolex - Cellini Date 39mm RG/LE White GMF Asia 3165 Mod | Theonewatches
Rolex - Cellini Date 39mm RG/LE White GMF Asia 3165 Mod
thanks for your interest and assistance.
It looks like the SA3135 with a different engraved winding bridge.
- 10/12/23
- 214
- 220
- 43
Is this movement reliable?It looks like the SA3135 with a different engraved winding bridge.
- 10/12/23
- 214
- 220
- 43
This answer looks too technical for me, can you explain with an example, photos if possible? What are the keyless works?
The “keyless works” is the part of the watch that is mechanically linked to the stem and crown. Old watches and clocks were wound up using a key; when watch designs ditched the need for an external key to wind them, the parts and design for winding / setting a watch without a key was called the “keyless works”.
Almost every watch’s keyless works contains the following parts:
- Stem & crown
- Winding pinion
- Sliding pinion
- Yoke
- Yoke spring
- Setting lever
- Setting lever spring
- A collection on intermediate wheels and pinions to get the energy from winding to the mainspring; and the motion of setting to the cannon pinion.
- The parts of the keyless works are made to looser tolerances so there’s more slop between the parts.
- The metal used in rep movements (especially for the winding and sliding pinions) tends to be softer and less hard wearing than on gens. This softer metal wears down and results in loose meshing between gear / pinion teeth.
Thank you for the detailed expansion. I think rep movement factories such as Dandong have reached a level that they can easily address these issues and make their movements feel more like gens. Not sure could be their difficulties? Maybe they will need to use PM in their movements parts and therefore put a pressure on the price, or is it their manufacturing equipments, process and QC procedures?
As a rule of thumb, the bill of materials (aka the cost of the parts used) for a hardware product is less than half of the wholesale price of the product. The wholesale price of a product is typically around half of its retail price. So if a VS3235 movement costs around $200 retail, then it’s wholesale price is probably around $100, which implies the cost to produce all the parts that go into a vs3235 movement is under $50.
Now let’s compare that to the costs on a gen Rolex 3235 movement. The cheapest Rolex with a 3235 movement (an entry level datejust) is around $6500, which implies a wholesale cost of $3250. So that implies a bill of materials for the entire watch of around $1600. Obviously that $1600 includes the case, bracelet, dial, hands, box, papers, etc. so let’s say for argument’s sake that the movement represents about half of the cost (it’s not 90% and it’s not 10%, so 50% is reasonable for what we’re doing here). So that implies that the cost to produce the parts of a gen Rolex 3235 movement is around $800.
So we’re talking about a 16X difference in the cost to produce rep parts vs gen parts. (And again, that’s a rough number, but it’s not 100x and it’s not 2X)… that cost difference is why gen movements feel different. That 16X cost difference is spread out everywhere from the quality of the stock metal alloys, to the sharpness of the carbide tool on the CNC machine, to how frequently the bearings are inspected and replaced on the lathes and mills that are used to produce the parts.
Gen parts represent a quality level achievable when “no expense shall be spared”. The quality of rep movement parts is what you get when “a highly competitive price vs. performance point must be achieved”.
We get what we pay for in reps. And this is why there are barrels of digital ink that are spilled in the threads on this forum arguing about which parts are best to replace when building a franken. There are members of this community who seek to further optimize the price vs. performance of reps to get closer to gen along whatever axis is important for them — power reserve, keyless works feel, chronograph hand stutter, positional time keeping stability — by strategically replacing components of a rep movement with gen parts.
This is a hobby in which tinkerers and modders rejoice.
Updated to include info about the VS3235 to VS3230 phantom date correction position mod for VSF Oyster Perpetuals and VSF 41mm no-date submariners.
forum.replica-watch.info
NEW RELEASE: VSF 3235 -> 3230 Phantom Date Fix Mod
Hello RepFam! If you own a VSF Oyster Perpetual or a VSF 41mm no-date Submariner, congratulations, you have the best possible movement in your rep. However, when VSF made these reps, they didn't get Dandong to modify the VS3235 into a VS3230... that means that there's a phantom date correction...
forum.replica-watch.info
Learning alot. Thanks for the write up. Have a Daytona coming and have a Milgauss rep from 4 years ago. Anyone know where there is information regarding the reps of Milgauss movements?
Do you know what factory your milgauss rep is from? If it’s from several years ago it probably has a lower tier 3130 clone or an eta clone movement inside.
Updated with information about the AR+F "4131" movement (a customization of the DD4130), and information about the skeletonized version of the DD4130 used by SONIC Factory.
What is your opinion on the new movements and the discontinuation of the DD4130? My understanding is that the DD4130 is superior to the SH4130 and therefore I'm assuming the new updated version will be too (but that doesn't matter since Dandong isn't making a 4131 yet). Are the new updated Shanghai movements used in the new clones better than their predecessors?
At this point it’s a big unknown for me. I haven’t serviced an SH4130 so I can’t compare it to a DD4130.
The information we have about the SH4131 is from pictures of the new AR+F 126500 Daytonas. Those pictures show an SH4131 which is mechanically different from the SH4130 — that is, the SH4131 is not just a SH4130 with different engraving.
Time will tell. I hope we’ll see a DD4131 in the not too distant future.
Having worked on many DD and SH movements, I prefer the DD version since they tend to have nicer finishing which makes servicing outcomes better.