Hi all,
This is my first real modding project and took me a while as I have limited tools at my disposal. Everything had to be more or less done by hand though I do possess a Dremmel.
I think everyone was pretty hacked off when the Richard Mille 11 - 03 project was scrapped, I know I was and had waited patiently while we heard bits and pieces but then nothing.
So what to do. I had bought (quite a few years ago several KVF 11 - 03’s) when they were popular but one of the main problems is the thickness at 18mm. The Gen is more around 14.5mm. I wondered how much I could this and re-shape the case and still leave the watch functional. I thought if I could remove about 1mm top and bottom from the mid case - so reducing by 2mm o/all but then thinning the front and back bezels by say 0.5mm in thickness also, that would get the o/all thickness down to say just under 15mm. This would hopefully make the watch a lot more wearable.
I also wanted to round the front bezel more where it met the strap which would visually extend the case to be more Gen like where the strap bolts are.
I was lucky that I also had a grey KVF RM - 035 strap which hopefully would fit the new thinner case as the original strap would no longer fit between the bezels as it would be too thick.
Sorry I don’t have a load of pictures of all this, as it started off as one of those projects that I wasn’t sure would work, so it wasn’t altogether planned - only in my head!
Obviously lowering the front bezel would mean that the hands would become closer to the front sapphire and the plastic inner bezel would have to be reduced by a millimetre too, so that the front stainless bezel would fit down snug. In fact, this was my only real problem, as I lightly sanded the back of the plastic inner bezel, I overdid it slightly and the yellow lumped pips dropped off.
So….. what to do. I thought OK, I will try reducing the plastic bezel from my KVF - 035 watch. This worked fine and allowed me to get the front stainless steel bezel to fit down tight .
On both front and back of the mid case I had to dremmel out a groove to refit the rubber gaskets (sorry no pics). This took quite a while, but a mixture of dremmel and by hand, I managed.
On the rear bezel, the crown now fitted slightly over it, just like on a Gen, so I had to dremmel out this slightly to allow the crown to turn smoothly.
The pushers on the KVF were a pretty awful shape so we’re removed these and re-shaped to look more Gen like and less crap!
The finished watch doesn’t feel like you have Big Ben on your wrist anymore and is about 14.9mm thick from the top of the front bezel to the back of the back bezel, with the sapphire sitting just slightly proud. I have shown next to another original thickness KVF to give an idea of the difference in thickness. When the watch was all back together, I found the Chrono hand was just catching the glass at 12.00 and 6.00. So it all had to come apart again and the hands were adjusted to stop this happening. I hope you agree these mods do make a significant improvement and whilst the watch wouldn’t fool a real RM fan, it’s a real improvement over the standard KVF watch.
Please see the limited pics I have below - the first 4 pics are the final watch with the final plastic bezel and the sapphire cleaned up and sitting down snug into the stainless front bezel - lower pics are before sapphire was cleaned up and re-glued back into position:
This is my first real modding project and took me a while as I have limited tools at my disposal. Everything had to be more or less done by hand though I do possess a Dremmel.
I think everyone was pretty hacked off when the Richard Mille 11 - 03 project was scrapped, I know I was and had waited patiently while we heard bits and pieces but then nothing.
So what to do. I had bought (quite a few years ago several KVF 11 - 03’s) when they were popular but one of the main problems is the thickness at 18mm. The Gen is more around 14.5mm. I wondered how much I could this and re-shape the case and still leave the watch functional. I thought if I could remove about 1mm top and bottom from the mid case - so reducing by 2mm o/all but then thinning the front and back bezels by say 0.5mm in thickness also, that would get the o/all thickness down to say just under 15mm. This would hopefully make the watch a lot more wearable.
I also wanted to round the front bezel more where it met the strap which would visually extend the case to be more Gen like where the strap bolts are.
I was lucky that I also had a grey KVF RM - 035 strap which hopefully would fit the new thinner case as the original strap would no longer fit between the bezels as it would be too thick.
Sorry I don’t have a load of pictures of all this, as it started off as one of those projects that I wasn’t sure would work, so it wasn’t altogether planned - only in my head!
Obviously lowering the front bezel would mean that the hands would become closer to the front sapphire and the plastic inner bezel would have to be reduced by a millimetre too, so that the front stainless bezel would fit down snug. In fact, this was my only real problem, as I lightly sanded the back of the plastic inner bezel, I overdid it slightly and the yellow lumped pips dropped off.
So….. what to do. I thought OK, I will try reducing the plastic bezel from my KVF - 035 watch. This worked fine and allowed me to get the front stainless steel bezel to fit down tight .
On both front and back of the mid case I had to dremmel out a groove to refit the rubber gaskets (sorry no pics). This took quite a while, but a mixture of dremmel and by hand, I managed.
On the rear bezel, the crown now fitted slightly over it, just like on a Gen, so I had to dremmel out this slightly to allow the crown to turn smoothly.
The pushers on the KVF were a pretty awful shape so we’re removed these and re-shaped to look more Gen like and less crap!
The finished watch doesn’t feel like you have Big Ben on your wrist anymore and is about 14.9mm thick from the top of the front bezel to the back of the back bezel, with the sapphire sitting just slightly proud. I have shown next to another original thickness KVF to give an idea of the difference in thickness. When the watch was all back together, I found the Chrono hand was just catching the glass at 12.00 and 6.00. So it all had to come apart again and the hands were adjusted to stop this happening. I hope you agree these mods do make a significant improvement and whilst the watch wouldn’t fool a real RM fan, it’s a real improvement over the standard KVF watch.
Please see the limited pics I have below - the first 4 pics are the final watch with the final plastic bezel and the sapphire cleaned up and sitting down snug into the stainless front bezel - lower pics are before sapphire was cleaned up and re-glued back into position:
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