Hi all,
I am still waiting for the crystal for my VCO to come back from Chief, and in the meantime I took on another project. I just finished it yesterday and thought I'd write it up and see what you all thought of my results.
The project was to put a gen dial in a Franck Muller Long Island. I got the watch from watcheden for cheap ($88) and two really nice copper-colored dials off ebay. One of the dials was lumed and the other was not. The dials weren't in perfect shape, they have a few scratches here and there and I had to touch up the lume in a couple places, but overall, between the color of the dial and the brightness of the lume, the imperfections are hard to see to the naked eye. Both dials had holes for a date at 6, so I ordered an eta 2824 with a date wheel for 6 o'clock once I verified it would fit.
Here's the rep as I got it. I'm not sure if it's a fantasy model or not but all I wanted was the case and crystal. It came with an asian 21j:
and here are the dials I bought, with a test fit being done in my Long Island Crazy hours:
The shape of the hands weren't quite right on the rep, and I wanted lumed hands so I could use the lumed dial, so I decided to carve my own out of stainless sheet steel. I used this pic of a gen as my template:
here's a montage of carving the hands. Basically a lot of work with jeweler's files and micro drill bits, followed by my lume job:
The finished shape of the hands I made is not all that close to the gen, in my opinion. The ones I made are rather thicker than the gen and the overall proportions are different, but I sort of like them this way. I might decide to make a pair closer to the gen later on, but for now I'm sticking with these.
The second thing I needed to do was make a movement holder for the 2824, since the plastic jobby supplied in the rep just wouldn't cut it. I had a guy I know cut a blank out of 1/8" thick steel plate and drill a 1" hole in the center which saved me a ton of work. From there I shaved and finished the holder until it fit in the case and held the movement tight:
Here's a collage showing the steps involved in making the movement holder: Grinding the outside of the blank to fit the case, grinding a lip inside the hole to hold the movement while allowing the rotor to spin, cutting out two nubs at the proper depth for the movement screws to hold, and polishing the piece up. You can also see my very crappy attempt at perlage in the last two pics. Overall it's not quite up to swiss standards, but it works.
After the movement holder was done, the rest was pretty simple. I cut down the stem so the crown would fit tight, buttoned everything up and checked for rattles. Luckily there is a lip inside the caseback that holds the steel plate pretty tight up against the case, so there isn't any rattling of the holder inside the movement.
I had to install the tallest cannon pinion/hour wheel combo possible to get the right clearance, and I also shaved off the second hand pin and capped the cannon pinion with a small bit of polished steel to match the gen.
Here are the final results of my Francken Muller. First a shot with flash to show the real brightness of the copper dial. This thing shines like a new penny:
But in other light it looks more salmon colored, as in this shot without flash:
The factory lume on this dial is just incredible. Here's a shot in medium light after a brief charge:
And in dim light:
The last shot is in near total dark, this thing really is a torch:
So that's it for the project, hope you all like it. I ordered a dark brown antique gator strap from HKtan that I think will match up nicely with this one. The real neat part of the Long Island is that it has 24mm lugs, so I can switch straps around with my 111
Also the copper dial is pretty unusual. I'll probably keep on the lookout for a gen strap for this one, and as I said before I might end up redoing the hands altogether to get them as close to the gen as I can. Maybe I'll even try with some white gold sheet metal if I'm feeling daring.
edit: I forgot to add the total cost of the project:
rep watch: $88
2 dials: $35
eta mov't: $140
Total: $263
I am still waiting for the crystal for my VCO to come back from Chief, and in the meantime I took on another project. I just finished it yesterday and thought I'd write it up and see what you all thought of my results.
The project was to put a gen dial in a Franck Muller Long Island. I got the watch from watcheden for cheap ($88) and two really nice copper-colored dials off ebay. One of the dials was lumed and the other was not. The dials weren't in perfect shape, they have a few scratches here and there and I had to touch up the lume in a couple places, but overall, between the color of the dial and the brightness of the lume, the imperfections are hard to see to the naked eye. Both dials had holes for a date at 6, so I ordered an eta 2824 with a date wheel for 6 o'clock once I verified it would fit.
Here's the rep as I got it. I'm not sure if it's a fantasy model or not but all I wanted was the case and crystal. It came with an asian 21j:
and here are the dials I bought, with a test fit being done in my Long Island Crazy hours:
The shape of the hands weren't quite right on the rep, and I wanted lumed hands so I could use the lumed dial, so I decided to carve my own out of stainless sheet steel. I used this pic of a gen as my template:
here's a montage of carving the hands. Basically a lot of work with jeweler's files and micro drill bits, followed by my lume job:
The finished shape of the hands I made is not all that close to the gen, in my opinion. The ones I made are rather thicker than the gen and the overall proportions are different, but I sort of like them this way. I might decide to make a pair closer to the gen later on, but for now I'm sticking with these.
The second thing I needed to do was make a movement holder for the 2824, since the plastic jobby supplied in the rep just wouldn't cut it. I had a guy I know cut a blank out of 1/8" thick steel plate and drill a 1" hole in the center which saved me a ton of work. From there I shaved and finished the holder until it fit in the case and held the movement tight:
Here's a collage showing the steps involved in making the movement holder: Grinding the outside of the blank to fit the case, grinding a lip inside the hole to hold the movement while allowing the rotor to spin, cutting out two nubs at the proper depth for the movement screws to hold, and polishing the piece up. You can also see my very crappy attempt at perlage in the last two pics. Overall it's not quite up to swiss standards, but it works.
After the movement holder was done, the rest was pretty simple. I cut down the stem so the crown would fit tight, buttoned everything up and checked for rattles. Luckily there is a lip inside the caseback that holds the steel plate pretty tight up against the case, so there isn't any rattling of the holder inside the movement.
I had to install the tallest cannon pinion/hour wheel combo possible to get the right clearance, and I also shaved off the second hand pin and capped the cannon pinion with a small bit of polished steel to match the gen.
Here are the final results of my Francken Muller. First a shot with flash to show the real brightness of the copper dial. This thing shines like a new penny:
But in other light it looks more salmon colored, as in this shot without flash:
The factory lume on this dial is just incredible. Here's a shot in medium light after a brief charge:
And in dim light:
The last shot is in near total dark, this thing really is a torch:
So that's it for the project, hope you all like it. I ordered a dark brown antique gator strap from HKtan that I think will match up nicely with this one. The real neat part of the Long Island is that it has 24mm lugs, so I can switch straps around with my 111
Also the copper dial is pretty unusual. I'll probably keep on the lookout for a gen strap for this one, and as I said before I might end up redoing the hands altogether to get them as close to the gen as I can. Maybe I'll even try with some white gold sheet metal if I'm feeling daring.edit: I forgot to add the total cost of the project:
rep watch: $88
2 dials: $35
eta mov't: $140
Total: $263
