How to ruin a 6263 case.

[choate]

It's been a while.... thanks everyone for the comments, hopefully this will help everyone building a vintage daytona.

I've been wearing the watch for the last couple of months and I've really been enjoying it. Something about the size and how it wears has meant it's hogged most of the wrist time. It gets a shower most days and because I don't baby any watch I own I've had to polish the crystal a few times. Amazingly it's only running about 10 seconds a month fast, and I haven't regulated it since I serviced the movement. In short, it's fantastic! So, time to deal with the hands, which are still the cartel stock ones.

But first, I decided I needed another 2 daytonas..... so I got another vn case and I decided to get one of the ebay val 72 cases......

A warning to those who don't know the big tells on the cartel daytonas, once you see the next post you won't be able to unsee it....

 

[choate]

Ebay case on the left, cartel right. This shows how to tell a cartel instantly, the pushers are way to close together. This also shows the horrendous bezel on the eBay case.



Ebay case on the top, vn on the bottom. The Ebay case pushers are in the same place as vn.




Cartel left, vn center, Ebay right.
Ebay case has lugs that has some meat to work with. The crown side of the Ebay case is extremely thick... there were several diffrent cases used by rolex over the years, the later cases were a bit bulkier but I think the vn case is a bit too chunky even for a later 80's 6263. So hard to get a clear answer on case shape since many of these watches have been polished.








Cartel top, vn middle, Ebay bottom.
Please note the crown did not come with the Ebay case. The Ebay case is the same thickness as the vn, with the same crystal.

Ebay case pros:
Lugs much better than cartel.
Thickness same as a vn case
Pushers in the right place
A Clark's crystal snaps in like it should!

Cons:
Crap bezel.
Super crap pushers.
Super duper crap crown and tube.
Needs reshaping to be used at all.

To be continued....

 

[DeLoMan]

This was an amazing read! Fantastic job on this build. I envy your skills.

 

[choate]

Thank you! I hope it helps anyone trying to build a vintage daytona!

 

[choate]

Here is the current crop of victims, I mean projects.. from the left; cartel, Ebay case, New 6265 vn case and the vn 6263



Those of you hooked on vintage daytonas may notice the explorer bezel on the eBay case, I made a few bezels for my 1016 build so I modified one of them to help with the case reshaping since I'm turning it into a 6238. I might start a new thread for that, though.

 

[choate]

I've been on the hunt for hands for months, and this has proven to be quite a challenge. The hour and minute hand on the daytonas are unique, with very short lume plots. I've got about 20 sets of hands on the way from around the world, some early date just hour hands look very close, but so far no dice on the minute hand. I caved in the end and got a set of vn/phong hands....



Vn/phong left, alpha hands right.
These are very close to the Gen hands... but out of the 6 hands, exactly none of them fit an st19. A quick check of the actual sizes I doubt they fit a v72 very well either..

I may be able to crimp the hour hand, but the collar on the minute hand is too short. This leaves the only option to make bushings, which is a giant pain in the butt... not to mention a new tube has to be made and crimped on for the center seconds and running seconds. I'm going to hold off until all the other hands arrive, maybe there is a better option!

 

[choate]

Since the original 6263 is going to be out of service, for what I was hoping was a hand upgrade, a Gen coronet, and dial feet (the 3m tissue paper double sided tape works fine, but it's a bit too hokey, and makes alignment a nightmare...) I decided to throw the 6265 together since Noone should be without a daytona for Christmas....
It's essentially as opposite to the 6263 as possible, silver dial and jubilee!

 

[m1994]

Great progress, the 6265 looks pretty good with the tropical dial.

 

[j21]

Guys happy new year
Because i want to buy a cartel 6263 base watch but I can't figure wich factory is it
Is the jkf ?

 

[Globemaster_98]

Hello all.

After purchasing and wearing an jkf 6263 I found myself really enjoying the fit and size. But, I never could get past how the case, pushers and bezel were all not very close at all. Sure, the case can be reshaped but I've looked at a lot of modded cartel cases and I can tell instantly. The lugs are just too thin.

The gateway drug in question:



So what to do? A vn case set is 650$ or so but the issue is the val 72's, way to expensive to buy and to service. Why not fit the st19? Yeah, that's right it doesn't fit.
Well, I reject your reality and I will substitute my own.....

Here is your standard vn 6263 case.



Here is the case in a step collet in my lathe. The st19 fortunately has a smaller diameter than the major diameter of the caseback threads. Also if you want to save some money the cartel caseback fits! The od needs to be reduced slightly but it will work.



I machined the id to the specs of the st19. It's a snug fit in the bottom 3mm to center the movement and then I made some more space

Wow, great work. What type of chuck do you use to machine the case? Wonderful.