Exploding Crystal Experience

[rogerwine]

Perspex that indeed is very funny. I fly every week and I am always surprised at the differences at each airport in how they go about the security procedures. With this watch it is supposed to have a Sapphire Crystal with light AR. I have a Omega Blue cloth, made specially for cleaning AR coated crystals, that I use with each wearing of my fiddy, and I wear a 5X jewelers loop to inspect the surface. This watch had no chips or scratches or dings to the crystal. THere have been at least 12 reported failing crystals on this Pam, so I assume that a certain factory is using the inferior saffphire type lens instead of "real Saffphire" or seating them poorly or both.
Rogerwine

 

[vaccum]

Re: Peepshow

Thanks, your comment has made me decide to order a spare crystal from Davidsen, if in case the inevitable happens again. With the new resourses of Vacuum, I could have it done. I really love the Fiddy.
rogerwine

This was an experience! BTW did you received my email?

Cheers, vaccum

 

[MET-Rx]

yes I believe it's the INFAMOUS "synthised sapphire" aka Mineral Glass dome DLC coated with sapphire to represent a solid sapphire crystal.

I'm wondering if there were any Solid sapphire crytals made for these swiss 127 reps ( besides DS's ), or if all of the available sapphires are the exploding Sapphire covered mineral variety?

I have a 127 with the swiss fat arm s/n movmt w/ Sapphire, and it's still o.k. (knocking on wood)

Haven't flown with it yet! Sry to hear about your experience Roger.

 

[rogerwine]

POPcorn glass crunch

BTW, this was the 9th flight leg that I had worn this watch and I thought that I was pretty safe in wearing it.
Can you imagine if one of these things go off in a crowded Movie theatre and sprays little pieces of glass in everybodies popcorn box. Wow what a disaster!
rogerwine

 

[Perspex Tropic]

Maybe Just A Little Comforting Tougth For The Aquanauts and Astronauts Among Us,

Under Water Your 'Swiss" Fiddy Would Harmlesly Implode.[smilie=icon_compress.gif]

In Outerspace Tough, Your Fiddy would Again Explode, But who Cares so would You! :shock:

 

[Perspex Tropic]

Serious,
Would Be Good If Producers Would Learn about their Products Failures Or Possible enhancments From this Comunity.

Are There any dealers Amongst Us Who Can Feed them some Info?
I suspect these "Swiss" Watcmakers Seldom Eat Cheese Fondue, Or Climb The Alps to Pick Edelweiss,
In Otherwords Can Anyone Translate These Findings into Chinese Or Thai To Them!?

Their must be A Huge 'Chinatown' in Geneve?

 

[mr1973]

Wow!
Your Story sound So weird It must Be Real!

Just look At the results:

National Security Agency

Top Secret
Urgent Message USAM

To all US Airmarshals Patroling Domestic Flights in US Airspace, A new Device for Covert Terrorist Attacks has been Signaled. The Device Wich Replicates A Oversized Watch (47mm) Holding A Un-Identified Syntatic Explosive (USE) Wich The Assailant wears around the left or right wrist (Both methods have been observed) While seated next to his victim The Assailant will Fake to re-set The Time of his "Explosive Watch" But infact He triggers The USE Explosive-Charge by pulling on A hidden Lever (Simular to A US M-18 Hand Grenade) The Assailant will point The Device (With A "Crystal" That looks like A Washing-machine Door) In The Direction of his Target, The Charge Will make A "Poping" Sound (Simmular to A Silenced 9mm HK MP-5) And Spray the Victim with It's Syntatic Crystals Shrapnel. So in effect This device Is A "Wrist held Claymore mine"
One Of The Victims to this new Device Came off with A shock, The Explosive Set Off by The Terrorist Did Explode But It seems The Killing Zone is relative small, Or The Shrapnel Patern is too Wide She Was not Injured while the Shrapnel was all over her. (Read Uneffective If The distance to the Target is more then A Yard)
Signal.
Look For Caucasian Males 30-40 Years, Casual Dress, Sometimes Hidding the Device under A shirt Sleeve (Look for Big Bubble) But in most Cases The Assailant is Confident in The Replicated Watch Shape, And seems to Show Off his Device to the public around him!
The Device Is Easy to recognise beacuse of its Size, and Off-model Lever Device
Counter-Method;
1/ At All times Hold-Off the Wearer At least One Yard. Don't Use Close Combat Weapons!
2/ Use ATF Splinter Goggles, Or Sunglasses and FLack Jacket.
3/ Hold The Terrorist At Gun Point
4/ Force The Terrorist to Put Both Hands, Arms stretched On the Head-rest in front of him. If He Does not Obey Don't hessitate to shoot!
5/ Let One of the Aircrew With ATF Goggles And Flak Jacket Remove The Device. Because This is Heavely Strapped To the Terrorist Wrist It is adviced to Use A Sharp edged Knive, To Cut This 26x26x5mm Strap. The Heavy Buckle Is not easy To open And Can be used As A wapeon!

There have been no Claims, For The Frequent Attacks.
Possible We are dealling with A Small Ilegal Nostalgic Cult, By the name; "1950"

PRICELESS post mate :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Reminds me of Fight Club somehow

 

[VtommyRboy6]

Crazy story Roger, glad to hear everything ended up fine.

Perspex - I started reading your post and for a minute I thought it was legit...great writing, it was very entertaining to read.

Cheers
Tommy

 

[watchlover]

This is scary... I had the same experience but to temperature differences....

Putting cold water on heated pyrex... the thing just *exploded* into pieces

I know how it must feel. The explosion itself surprised me soo much because the sound was LOUD and the I was 6 inches away from the exploding bowl.. ugh

I'm not going to buy glass/pyrex bowls again

 

[Perspex Tropic]

READ CAREFULLY BEFORE EMPLOYING THE 217/127 IN CLOSED SPACES

1/ UNSTRAP FROM WRIST HOLD THE 217/127 IN THROWING HAND
2/ WITH THE OTHER HAND PULL CG LEVER TO OPEN POSSITION
3/ INSTANTLY THROW THE DEVICE AT LEAST 15 METERS OR AROUND A CORNER
4/ COVER EARS AND EYES
5/ AFTER DETONATION THE TARGET OPONENT/S ARE STUNNED DEAFENED AND BLINDED FOR 5 SECONDS

WARNING IF DEVICE DOES NOT DETONATE DO NOT ENTER THE SPACE!
CALL YOUR DISTIBUTOR OR DEALER

 

[ragerover]

Plastic Plexi or Perspex Domes Wont Burst or Pop out.
This is the reason why these are the best materials for Pilots Watches. The Author Of this post Learned this the Hard way.
Scrathces You Say?... Indeed But Scratches on the Dome Shaped Canopy Of A Fighter Aircraft Are Far more Dangerous To the Pilots Survival in A dogfight, Then Scratches that Give His Watch A Vintage Look.

BTW
Now Your know Why Some Fighter Pilots Sport Goggles In their Closed Canopy....To protect Their Eyes against Bursting Rep Crystals 8)

Actually, thats sort of wrong...Plexi/perspex will pop out...but shouldn't break into fragments. Which is one reason the Speedmaster was chosen by NASA. I've read some of the original NASA test info on the speedmaster (posted a while back on Timezone). Unlike some of the other watches that were tested, the only thing that happened to the Speedmaster (after being subjected to things like boling water then ulta-freezing conditions) was the plastic poping out.

But it poped in on piece (and the watch was still functioning!)

Plastic will scratch. If not deep, sctraches can be buffed out.

Plastic/perspex in general can flex a bit. Which is why the chances of it poping out is sort of on the low side. You can crack it (try playing with a sheet of it the next time you're Home Depot LOL) but in general, plastic will just crack in half or pop out completely. You won't be showering the poor women next to you with little fragments!

To crack it, you would really have to hit it. And even then, it would crack in half or a few big chunks. Not a shower of tiny fragments.

Other than the fact that its easily scratched (and Im a bit clumsy, I have a tendancy for my watch to often hit the door frame when I walk out of a room) perspex/plastic is actually a very good material for "watch crystals." I also prefer the look it gives over "glass."

Untill recently, plastic was the only material that was able to be used (atleast cheaply) for a "high dome" effect. Now that the price of saphire production has gone down, large domes like the Fiddy can be made for a much lower cost.

My $0.02 on the exploding Fiddys:
1) Like others said, crystal may not have been seated properly. Then when stressed, it finally gave way.
2) Uneven tolerances. If the center is intact in one chunk after the entire crystal fragmented, I'm thinking the glass was thinner in certain areas (mainly on the sides of the dome). Not being a constant thickness, the force of the stress was uneven. Any physicists reading this? Physics & Math is not my forte

There was a very good article in one of the watch magazines about 2 years ago on the subject of different materials used for the "crystal." If you give me a month (I'm away at school) I'd be hapy to scan the article and post it somewhere.

As far as pilots wearing a pull down visor or goggles while they fly, that has nothing to do with watches. Has to do with sun glair and UV rays. Can't wear glasses while u fly, as they can/will get pulled off if you try a high-G maneuver. (my friend was in the military (Iraq), roommate was in Coast Guard, my GF's friend's BF is a pilot)

 

[Perspex Tropic]

Interesting theories!
But I was Refering to 1930's and WWII area, The area the Original Panerai watches where used.
The Pilot Goggles........No Serious If You do try to explain A Joke It becomes even Lamer Then It probaly was already!

After all the Tests and theorys Plexi Pilotwatch Crystals seems to be Sort of right!?

Ofcourse something will happen to any Crystal If stressed to extremes in tests. That is the idea behind testing A product to find out its limits.
Will be A very uninteresting Test result If they come out with something like "Uhh...nothing happened"

By the way I am quite the WWII Aircombat fanatic. Indeed Did Pilots wear standard isue Goggles in fighter Aircraft during WWII. The Pilots used their goggles if the Plexiglass Canopy was shatered by shrapnell or bullets, Or to protect their eyes from smoke or oil, And when Bailing out, But most of the time they would use their goggles when fliyng with their Canopy or "Hood" open, Wich was standard procedure for Navy & Marine Carrier aircraft on take-offs and landings. In order to have A less constricted view and Allowing A faster escape. Sunglasses or goggles could safe you from "The Hun Out of the Sun" 8)

Modern Jets don't interest me that much, For A start they are flown by correcting on board Computers, If these break down The Aircraft usely Falls like A brick out-off the Sky, The Pilot just sits there to switch on emergency or automatic weapon systems :roll: At the same time beeing the weakest link and restriction to the Aircraft!
In Airliners Pilots most important task is to give the passengers the comforting idea that they are flown by humans! (It is even more reasuring or accepteble to blame A Chrash on human error Then a Auto pilot Failure that might re-occur to simular Aircraft)

Call me A control freak but the Prop inline and Radial Aircraft had much more caracter then these Ultrasonic Robots.

 

[Perspex Tropic]

Interesting theories!
But I was Refering to 1930's and WWII area, The area the Original Panerai watches where used.
The Pilot Goggles........No Serious If You do try to explain A Joke It becomes even Lamer Then It probaly was already!

After all the Tests and theorys Plexi Pilotwatch Crystals seems to be Sort of right!?

Ofcourse something will happen to any Crystal If stressed to extremes in tests. That is the idea behind testing A product to find out its limits.
Will be A very uninteresting Test result If they come out with something like "Uhh...nothing happened"

By the way I am quite the WWII Aircombat fanatic. Indeed Did Pilots wear standard isue Goggles in fighter Aircraft during WWII. The Pilots used their goggles if the Plexiglass Canopy was shatered by shrapnell or bullets, Or to protect their eyes from smoke or oil, And when Bailing out, But most of the time they would use their goggles when fliyng with their Canopy or "Hood" open, Wich was standard procedure for Navy & Marine Carrier aircraft on take-offs and landings. In order to have A less constricted view and Allowing A faster escape. Sunglasses or goggles could safe you from "The Hun Out of the Sun" 8)

Modern Jets don't interest me that much, For A start they are flown by correcting on board Computers, If these break down The Aircraft usely Falls like A brick out-off the Sky, The Pilot just sits there to switch on emergency or automatic weapon systems :roll: At the same time beeing the weakest link and restriction to the Aircraft!
In Airliners Pilots most important task is to give the passengers the comforting idea that they are flown by humans! (It is even more reasuring or accepteble to blame A Chrash on human error Then a Auto pilot Failure that might re-occur to simular Aircraft)

Call me A control freak but the Prop inline and Radial Aircraft had much more caracter then these Ultrasonic Robots.

 

[ragerover]

If You do try to explain A Joke It becomes even Lamer Then It probaly was already!

Didn't know u were joking...hard sometimes to gauge someones tone when you're leaving a msg on a forum. That said...this exploding crytal thing is a bit weird and freaky. Seriously, u could get hurt (i.e. chip of glass in your eye).

This is all just another reaosn to keep using plastic! yea, it scratches. But its also easy to buff and out, and cheap to replace.

 

[ragerover]

Modern Jets don't interest me that much, For A start they are flown by correcting on board Computers, If these break down The Aircraft usely Falls like A brick out-off the Sky, The Pilot just sits there to switch on emergency or automatic weapon systems :roll: At the same time beeing the weakest link and restriction to the Aircraft! ....Call me A control freak but the Prop inline and Radial Aircraft had much more caracter then these Ultrasonic Robots.

which is why there is ejection seats, right? LOL just give up and bail! LOL

Im into mechanical watches and Land Rovers for the same reason...no circut board on the quartz watch to fry out...or trying to find some obscure battery that even Radio Shack dosent carry. And with old Land Rovers (or any old car for that matter. I love British classics) no ECU to malfunction.

My friend used to drive a "modern" (they were never really that modern LOL) Land Rover. The ECU was always screwing with him...he was always getting missfires, etc. I prefer to just have the gas pedal, carb and a wire in between.

 

[takashi]

What a true man... My dad used to own in the 70's a Land Rover too. Flood came for a day. At the end of the flood, just dry the sparkplugs, it started.

 

[Perspex Tropic]

Exactly, Prop Aircraft and Mechanical Watches will become Antiques after 100 Years.

Higtech Jets and Quartz Watches will become Obselete or Breakdown, Very Soon!