My dream rep...the Blancpain Great Wave

[Leverage]

Working to piece together / mod a few watches and pieces into the Blancpain Great Wave...I know this is no easy task but I'm willing to invest some real dollars into pulling this together.

1. The case overall looks close to a typical Blancpain Villeret (42mm diameter, 11.2mm thick, 23.0mm between the lugs)
2. The dial / face will admittedly require a real artist to pull together
3. The open case in the back is going to be a tough...can get away with a typical manual wind movement but the back plate will be tricky

For people who have done more extensive modding projects, any thoughts on an approach?

1. Thinking about starting with a rep Villeret for the case (although I may need to machine shop one so I can get the back text more accurate--e.g., piece unique)
2. The face materials are actually reasonably cheap--obsidian + very little white gold
   1. Have a jeweler / artist who feels decent that they can get something close
3. Since no date is needed nor second hand, thoughts on an appropriate manual wind movement?
4. May be straight up impractical to rep the case back...

 

[atgm]

Movement: Wonder if you could pull the movement out of a BPFF? Not sure how accurate it would be, but at least it would be decorated for BP.

Caseback: If you could get a case with a blank open-faced caseback that fit the movement, you could probably find someone to engrave it for you.

Dial: Yeah, good luck.

Edit: Actually, for the dial, I wonder if you could get it 3D printed in metal, then finish it by hand...

 

[JackJ1980]

Serious undertaking. Consider a leman for the base. Villeret is so thin it might be impossible to find a movement for it that isn't the one it comes with. If you have a jeweler for the dial caseback should be easy. If you mean movement in the skeletal view - don't even try

 

[JackJ1980]

Movement: Wonder if you could pull the movement out of a BPFF? Not sure how accurate it would be, but at least it would be decorated for BP.

Caseback: If you could get a case with a blank open-faced caseback that fit the movement, you could probably find someone to engrave it for you.

Dial: Yeah, good luck.

Edit: Actually, for the dial, I wonder if you could get it 3D printed in metal, then finish it by hand...

BPFF won't work for movement. Uses a 2826-2. Even gen f185 is manual. Only the villeret uses manual for Blancpain. But it's so thin..... I still think move up to leman or just start blank with custom ofrei case and have the jeweler go to
Town.

 

[JackJ1980]

Also the BPFF rep movement isn't decorated. It's a plain a2836-2. If you want to be creative and use a few gens pieces and go automatic let me know. But I don't think automatic is the way you should go with it.

 

[JackJ1980]

How's this coming?

 

[Leverage]

For the case, I'm trying to two approaches to try to get one that works:

1. I'm modifying an Ofrei case with the help of a metalworking buddy...it's going to be tricky to get close to a 1:1 dimension...
2. I found a Villeret knock-off rep that actually has wider / closer dimensions to the GW case...currently being shipped

For the dial, my jeweler has just started working on the white gold waves, although it isn't easy to get the same layered aesthetic. We have Mexican obsidian being shipped over (luckily it's super cheap) to hopefully slice and layer over thin metal dial plates.

I'm trying to figure out a movement that best fits the 42/11.2 dimensions of the case. It may make sense to use the Villeret knockoff manual movement which would leave enough room for a fake decorated caseback plate...once the rep that's shipping arrives I'll see how the dimensions play out

All in all, I suspect this watch is probably going to cost me a few thousand to pull together given the labor intensiveness. Still beats paying 100k for a gen I guess...

 

[JackJ1980]

The Blancpain FPiguet movements are so thin and precise. Why they're hard to copy in reps besides big BPFF or similar. Mind sharing the link to the villeret? I'm pretty stoked to see your piece when done.