My 1655 "Freccione" build
Hello gents :wave:
This time I was asked to build a watch I knew almost nothing about, it was the 1655 aka Steve McQueen.
It's funny collectors have been calling it this way since there's no evidence McQueen actually had one.
In Italy we call it the "freccione" or big arrow which sounds more historically correct
In any case it was a new project for me, a chance to learn something and push my knowledge a bit further.
As a first thing I had to choose a reference. My friend asked for something seventies, well cared, just some patina on dial and case.
I found this one on the web which seemed like a good candidate:
Of course there were some compromises to accept, as usual. Impossible to find a good dial with T SWISS T inscription, bezel numbers on the rep being different and so on. But the overall look was set.
Here are the parts we chose for this project:
- 1655 cartel with a2836 movement donor watch
- New plexi from JK horological
- Raffles hands complete set
- Tonny dial from ebay. This dial was shipped the day before gan_antique disappeared from the bay and Tonny's website too so I think I should call it rare? Well, at least for now
Cartel donor watch
As you can see awful orange lume, "antifog" colored GMT hand and an overall modest look. But it has potential
Parts ready to be assembled:
The easiest tasks were performed on dial and hands: new dial feet, hands lightly aged and relumed.
Then I went to disassemble the case. Not much to my surprise crown tube broke while unscrewing it out. Rep tubes are total crap plus they are superglued inside the tube hole. You never know what will happen if you try to remove them.
I didn't know where to source a new one so I went McGyver style (my favourite style tbh
)I tried a few crowns I had and found out the 1655 crown threads were matching a cartel 1680 tube. But the tube was way too tall so I had to thin it down a lot. I also had to mod the crown neck in order to screw it completely inside the hole.
It was no joke doing it by hand and water resistance is most likely compromised since the o-rings are no longer where they are meant to be. But it worked and that's what matters in the end
Finally some heavy duty work was instead performed on the case.
Please, take a second look at the QC pic, check the lugs at 4 and 8 then look back at the gen reference pic. Do you see how much metal needs to be removed?
Of course while I was at it I also reshaped the CG's to an oval shape, drilled the lugs for 2mm springbars and reinforced the chamfers on the lugs.
It took a few hours to get there and there's always room for improvement but I'm happy with the result, especially because all my work is done free hand. I dont't have a watchmaker's lathe (at least until tripdog ships the one he promised to send me
) nor any other exotic tool. Just a dremel plus a bunch of sanding and polishing tools.
Here's the final result:
Bezel was lightly retouched in order to soften the brushing and remove a few spots of paint from the numerals.
The most visible let down is the date mag being not perfectly centered on the date window. I tried 3 different plexis and this was the better I had. At least I have to say it has a very nice tall profile too.
As a very final touch, a bit of smoothing and aging on the bracelet. Almost invisible yes, but needed to make the watch look like it's been worn before
Few more glam shots:
One last time
Gen
Rep
Build
And once again that's all folks, see you soon with my next projects
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