- 28/5/07
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Just thought I'd share some pictures of this project which has been the root of some significant vanity and vexation over the past year.
First the original watch as it arrived from River, with a missing minute tick at 9 pm but otherwise pretty nice for stock:
Pretty much good to go, except for the dial flaw at 9, the bulging crownguard pin, the relatively thin datefont and weaker cyclops, and the misproportioned minute hand and GMT hand. Of course most people were kind enough to overlook all of these.
Then after a new updated dial from Andrew and a lello datewheel:
Notice that the 6 mm date bubble is insufficient to bring out the potential of the lello datewheel. The outsize GMT hand looks like a clown shoe at its end. This is not so troubling until someone brings it up
Then after a quick 5-minute filing down of the crownguard pin (gotta love the dremel tool):
These fixes seemed to make the other flaws (oversize GMT hand, smallish minute hand) stand out more than even before.
Murphy's law of rep modding I guess. So the saga continues:
Then after a replacement with DSN's superlumed updated 089 hand set, and single AR'd sapphire with 7 mm cyclops:
The date bubble on DSN's crystal helps bring out lello's DW better, and reduces the poor visibility due to sunken datewheel from GMT mod. Finally I have a GMT hand that does not look like clown shoes! The proportion of the width of the minute hand and hour hands is more appropriate here, as the minute hand should be nearly the width of the hour hand, as opposed to 60% the width in the off the shelf rep.
For comparison, here is one gen example, which does not look like all of the gens I've seen but is a nice picture:
My crown is 2mm on this stock rep, luckily, so I don't think I will be replacing it, and otherwise I think this is the end of the line for this watch. The sunken date wheel is noticeable but much better with DSN's cyclops and beautiful crystal. His hands are better than previous issues, and in fairness, I have seen some gen PAM 7750 based GMT watches with hands more similar to his than the squared off minute hand base of this particular gen. The results are okay, at least when viewed straight on. I don't think I'll go with DSN's dial as the stock from Andrew and others is currently not that bad...
First the original watch as it arrived from River, with a missing minute tick at 9 pm but otherwise pretty nice for stock:
Pretty much good to go, except for the dial flaw at 9, the bulging crownguard pin, the relatively thin datefont and weaker cyclops, and the misproportioned minute hand and GMT hand. Of course most people were kind enough to overlook all of these.
Then after a new updated dial from Andrew and a lello datewheel:
Notice that the 6 mm date bubble is insufficient to bring out the potential of the lello datewheel. The outsize GMT hand looks like a clown shoe at its end. This is not so troubling until someone brings it up
Then after a quick 5-minute filing down of the crownguard pin (gotta love the dremel tool):
These fixes seemed to make the other flaws (oversize GMT hand, smallish minute hand) stand out more than even before.
Murphy's law of rep modding I guess. So the saga continues:
Then after a replacement with DSN's superlumed updated 089 hand set, and single AR'd sapphire with 7 mm cyclops:
The date bubble on DSN's crystal helps bring out lello's DW better, and reduces the poor visibility due to sunken datewheel from GMT mod. Finally I have a GMT hand that does not look like clown shoes! The proportion of the width of the minute hand and hour hands is more appropriate here, as the minute hand should be nearly the width of the hour hand, as opposed to 60% the width in the off the shelf rep.
For comparison, here is one gen example, which does not look like all of the gens I've seen but is a nice picture:
My crown is 2mm on this stock rep, luckily, so I don't think I will be replacing it, and otherwise I think this is the end of the line for this watch. The sunken date wheel is noticeable but much better with DSN's cyclops and beautiful crystal. His hands are better than previous issues, and in fairness, I have seen some gen PAM 7750 based GMT watches with hands more similar to his than the squared off minute hand base of this particular gen. The results are okay, at least when viewed straight on. I don't think I'll go with DSN's dial as the stock from Andrew and others is currently not that bad...