- 7/8/16
- 2,527
- 787
- 113
Hi guys,
Just received my V7 2 days ago. Will make a review. Very nice watch but the SEL fitment sucks!
Here are some photos:
After a few hours of fiddling with the bracelet i found a way to fix the SEL fitment.
Too tired to make a proper post but here are some after photos:
Please share your opinion. Will write about this mod tommorow if you guys are interested.
Here is the update:
So after almost 3 months of waiting, the watches from PureTime are here. I seems I was unlucky with the UK customs at first but after the package was resent to China it came back without any issue.
I have ordered a Noob v7 submariner SA3135 and a Tudor BlackBay Heritage V4 ZF, I think, PT does not specify what version it was.
So first of all I would like to say that the Tudor in my opinion is a far better replica than the Sub. The Sub is great all in all but the Tudor just blew my mind. How can a 289 usd watch be so amazing?
I will not go deeper into the Tudor but boy I was shocked how good it is.
Now let’s talk about the noob. Again as I said about the TC v7, not a huge fan of the Sub, I rather bought it in the virtue of the hype created on the forum. In contrast to the TC however, this one surprised me in a good way. I had little to no expectations for the watch and I was aware of all it’s flaws, so when I held it for the first time I honestly had a difficulties in finding what the flaws were.
I had even trouble remembering the differences between the noob and the gen [emoji1] .
It’s hard to notice the subtle differences when not looking at macro pictures. A very good watch.
On the other hand, for the TC I had huge expectations and that’s why probably I was kinda disappointed at first.
If you want to see my TC SUB v7 review please visit this thread:
https://forum.replica-watch.info/vb...and-GEN-comparison?highlight=tc+v7+gen+vs+rep
PROS and CONS:
I’ll mention here only the things that poped at a first glance.
PROS :
-Really nice build, very low tolerances, snug fitment of all the parts.
-Nice turning bezel and click sound
-Very nice bracelet construction. Little to no rattleing. Was very pleased with this. Almost Gen like
-The SEL sits flush on the back side and very close to the midcase.
CONS:
-The SEL fitment is just bad, The sel sits flush with the lugs on one side and on the other it sits actually above the lug.
You can see this in the pictures at the beginning of the thread.
-The cristal is a finger print magnet and it’s also difficult to wipe.
-The Dial is not aligned with the watch. I think this can be easily fixed. I’ll try to address it myself below. Of course this an issue only for this particular watch but I’ve seen many with the same problem.
Not much else to say about the watch, there are plenty of reviews and pictures of it all over the forum.
Fixing the issues:
1.The first thing that’s need to be addressed is the dial alignment. As you can see from the pictures it sits a few degrees to the left. Also you can be fooled in beliving that the Cyclops is croocked when actualy the dial is tilted a bit.
This is a rather simple fix and below you can see the step by step pictures:
Will update soon...
2.The second issue is more challengeing and also more annoying IMO. I’m talking here about the SEL fitment, a topic widely debated here on the forum and a problem that is bothering many of us.
Short disclaimer:
Sorry if this method was already discovered by others before me. I’m not trying to brag here about my “invention”, just want to give a helping hand to the ones that want a quick and easy fix to this problem.
That’s what a forum is for anyway, right ?
I think I’ve read all there is to read about the SUB C on this forum and I have never stumbled upon a method that can address the SEL fitment, besides the one in wich you have to swap the bracelet for a V6S bracelet.
If someone knew how to fix this before me, then the nice and smart thing to do was to post a thread about it. [emoji6]
While generaly speaking the difference between the Noob V7 sel fitment and the GEN is not so noticeable, my watch was on the worse side of the bunch. I’ve seen many V7’s that IMO don’t need any fixing but since my SEL issue was bigger than other’s I decided to go ahead and try to fix it.
After looking at the SEL for several minutes I have concluded that the problem is not the spring bar or the lug hole position as some stated but rather the SEL shape is the culprit.
I had 3 different ideas for a fix and I will share with you all of them below:
FIRST ONE:
Like many members have said before, the SEL is a bit rounded than before. The 1st thing that came to mind was to grind the excess away with a file. The problem was that the file will defenetly grind also the side of the SEL middle part. Since I don’t have any special tools to this and I guess neither of you do, I abandoned the idea all together.
But then quickly realized that the SEL is made out of 3 separe parts. I knew this for sure from an old SUB I have. The bracelet on this old sub is not so well made as the noob’s and looking at the SEL you can clearly see what I’m talking about.
So, I took a sharp tool and made my way between the 2 components of the SEL.
Pushed gently not to cause great damage to it and voila… the piece came off.
I was hugely satisfied with this because I knew that grinding the excess of the SEL could be do-able with rather good results using tools available to anybody.
I took the side piese, fixed it in a wood chinese chop stick[emoji2] and started to grind off the excess.
As you can see from the pictures, my first attempt was not very satisfying. It took a while before developing a technique that allowed to grind the piece perfectly without loosing the plane but curved surface. Here is my second try:
https://vimeo.com/188140256
After a few tries to make sure that I won’t cut to deep, the pice was ready. I imagine that with some training I would be able to obtain similar results on all 4 pieces of the bracelet, so the final result would have a simetrical look. One way to achieve this is to count the number of passes you make with the piece on the file.
Using the same technique describe above I started to sand gradualy the piece with 100, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1500 sanding papres. After I was done with the sanding, I gave the piece a few brushes with a Scotch-Brite to obtain the brushed look of the original piece.
Taking into account that this was only my 2nd try I was very satisfied with the result. Although close enough, I still have to do a little trial and error before I find the best way to give the piece it’s original shiny brushed look.
Of course I realize that this is hard work and although it can be achieved by anyone at home, I don’t know if many of you would want to risk damaging your bracelet [emoji3] .
I was lucky enough to have a shitter SUB that I could practice on .
The conclusion:
Even this is achievable with common tools at home, most of you would not want to risk damaging the bracelet.
So this brings us to the second method:
As I removed the bracelet from the watch I realized that if the SEL would sit just a bit lower the fitment would be much better. The downside would be that the backside will not be fush anymore but still better to have a nice fitment on the front than on the back.
While the first method is the only way to achieve the best of both worlds, it’s hard to master, so this easier solution would be more effective.
As you can see from the pictures above, I’ve fixed the SEL in place with a pice of paper in the desired position and the results are satisfying. Since the spingbar won’t reach the holes in this new position, one way to solve this is to drill larger holes but still very difficult to achieve at home using normal tools.
So I though a brutal way to achive this is to glue the SEL in the new desired place with an epoxy metal adeshive.
To make sure this would hold I glued the bracelet of an old Omega shitter I had lying around.
After a few hours of waiting for the glue to dry I tested to see the resistence of the weld. I pulled as hard as i could but the weld was solid and the bracelet didn't pop off.
Pretty impressive!
You have to understand that tidiness was not my target with this one. [emoji23] If careful, one can apply the adeshive without it being visible. So while the SEL would be fixed firmly in place, it would be fixed forever. I don’t know if you find it a bad thing or not but honestly I wasn’t put off by this.
And just when I came to the conclusion that I have found a good and easy method to fix the SEL issue, I’ve notice the obvious:
The SEL sits in place firmly due to 2 holding points. One being the springbar and the other being the edge pointed in the picture below.
So here is the 3rd method and the best one:
So I cut a piece of plastic out of the ZF tag I got with my Tudor and glued it to the inside of the SEL just to achive the necessary offset .
I used a cutting knife to smooth the cut on the plastic piece to match the SEL curvature.
Because the original springbar is so thick, this allowed me to use a thinner springbar from another shitter Omega I had [emoji2]
to reach the lug holes in the new position.
The thinner springbar wobbled inside the hole but still was not enough for it to reach the holes, but due to it being thinner I was able to push and slightly bend it to clip in the holes.
So here it is the final result.
Pretty darn close I have to say, much better than before anyway. Yes you have the offset on the back but still a good tradeoff.
While things looked good I still had to make one final adjustment. Due to the difference in diameter between the new springbar and the original SEL hole, the SEL didn’t sit firmly and had a little wobble.
I had to pull the pringbars out and wrap them in stickytape to make them thicker so they fit firmly in the SEL hole.
After doing this the SEL movement is minimal, the SEL position is almost perfect and the bracelet can be taken off the watch anytime.
So all you have to do is buy a Tudor made by ZF and use it’s plastic tag as a spacer [emoji23] .
A wonderful result achieved with things you can find at home.
Hope this helps all SUB v7 lovers here. Have a nice day!
Andrei.
Sent from the RWI mobile app
Just received my V7 2 days ago. Will make a review. Very nice watch but the SEL fitment sucks!
Here are some photos:
After a few hours of fiddling with the bracelet i found a way to fix the SEL fitment.
Too tired to make a proper post but here are some after photos:
Please share your opinion. Will write about this mod tommorow if you guys are interested.
Here is the update:
So after almost 3 months of waiting, the watches from PureTime are here. I seems I was unlucky with the UK customs at first but after the package was resent to China it came back without any issue.
I have ordered a Noob v7 submariner SA3135 and a Tudor BlackBay Heritage V4 ZF, I think, PT does not specify what version it was.
So first of all I would like to say that the Tudor in my opinion is a far better replica than the Sub. The Sub is great all in all but the Tudor just blew my mind. How can a 289 usd watch be so amazing?
I will not go deeper into the Tudor but boy I was shocked how good it is.
Now let’s talk about the noob. Again as I said about the TC v7, not a huge fan of the Sub, I rather bought it in the virtue of the hype created on the forum. In contrast to the TC however, this one surprised me in a good way. I had little to no expectations for the watch and I was aware of all it’s flaws, so when I held it for the first time I honestly had a difficulties in finding what the flaws were.
I had even trouble remembering the differences between the noob and the gen [emoji1] .
It’s hard to notice the subtle differences when not looking at macro pictures. A very good watch.
On the other hand, for the TC I had huge expectations and that’s why probably I was kinda disappointed at first.
If you want to see my TC SUB v7 review please visit this thread:
https://forum.replica-watch.info/vb...and-GEN-comparison?highlight=tc+v7+gen+vs+rep
PROS and CONS:
I’ll mention here only the things that poped at a first glance.
PROS :
-Really nice build, very low tolerances, snug fitment of all the parts.
-Nice turning bezel and click sound
-Very nice bracelet construction. Little to no rattleing. Was very pleased with this. Almost Gen like
-The SEL sits flush on the back side and very close to the midcase.
CONS:
-The SEL fitment is just bad, The sel sits flush with the lugs on one side and on the other it sits actually above the lug.
You can see this in the pictures at the beginning of the thread.
-The cristal is a finger print magnet and it’s also difficult to wipe.
-The Dial is not aligned with the watch. I think this can be easily fixed. I’ll try to address it myself below. Of course this an issue only for this particular watch but I’ve seen many with the same problem.
Not much else to say about the watch, there are plenty of reviews and pictures of it all over the forum.
Fixing the issues:
1.The first thing that’s need to be addressed is the dial alignment. As you can see from the pictures it sits a few degrees to the left. Also you can be fooled in beliving that the Cyclops is croocked when actualy the dial is tilted a bit.
This is a rather simple fix and below you can see the step by step pictures:
Will update soon...
2.The second issue is more challengeing and also more annoying IMO. I’m talking here about the SEL fitment, a topic widely debated here on the forum and a problem that is bothering many of us.
Short disclaimer:
Sorry if this method was already discovered by others before me. I’m not trying to brag here about my “invention”, just want to give a helping hand to the ones that want a quick and easy fix to this problem.
That’s what a forum is for anyway, right ?
I think I’ve read all there is to read about the SUB C on this forum and I have never stumbled upon a method that can address the SEL fitment, besides the one in wich you have to swap the bracelet for a V6S bracelet.
If someone knew how to fix this before me, then the nice and smart thing to do was to post a thread about it. [emoji6]
While generaly speaking the difference between the Noob V7 sel fitment and the GEN is not so noticeable, my watch was on the worse side of the bunch. I’ve seen many V7’s that IMO don’t need any fixing but since my SEL issue was bigger than other’s I decided to go ahead and try to fix it.
After looking at the SEL for several minutes I have concluded that the problem is not the spring bar or the lug hole position as some stated but rather the SEL shape is the culprit.
I had 3 different ideas for a fix and I will share with you all of them below:
FIRST ONE:
Like many members have said before, the SEL is a bit rounded than before. The 1st thing that came to mind was to grind the excess away with a file. The problem was that the file will defenetly grind also the side of the SEL middle part. Since I don’t have any special tools to this and I guess neither of you do, I abandoned the idea all together.
But then quickly realized that the SEL is made out of 3 separe parts. I knew this for sure from an old SUB I have. The bracelet on this old sub is not so well made as the noob’s and looking at the SEL you can clearly see what I’m talking about.
So, I took a sharp tool and made my way between the 2 components of the SEL.
Pushed gently not to cause great damage to it and voila… the piece came off.
I was hugely satisfied with this because I knew that grinding the excess of the SEL could be do-able with rather good results using tools available to anybody.
I took the side piese, fixed it in a wood chinese chop stick[emoji2] and started to grind off the excess.
As you can see from the pictures, my first attempt was not very satisfying. It took a while before developing a technique that allowed to grind the piece perfectly without loosing the plane but curved surface. Here is my second try:
https://vimeo.com/188140256
After a few tries to make sure that I won’t cut to deep, the pice was ready. I imagine that with some training I would be able to obtain similar results on all 4 pieces of the bracelet, so the final result would have a simetrical look. One way to achieve this is to count the number of passes you make with the piece on the file.
Using the same technique describe above I started to sand gradualy the piece with 100, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1500 sanding papres. After I was done with the sanding, I gave the piece a few brushes with a Scotch-Brite to obtain the brushed look of the original piece.
Taking into account that this was only my 2nd try I was very satisfied with the result. Although close enough, I still have to do a little trial and error before I find the best way to give the piece it’s original shiny brushed look.
Of course I realize that this is hard work and although it can be achieved by anyone at home, I don’t know if many of you would want to risk damaging your bracelet [emoji3] .
I was lucky enough to have a shitter SUB that I could practice on .
The conclusion:
Even this is achievable with common tools at home, most of you would not want to risk damaging the bracelet.
So this brings us to the second method:
As I removed the bracelet from the watch I realized that if the SEL would sit just a bit lower the fitment would be much better. The downside would be that the backside will not be fush anymore but still better to have a nice fitment on the front than on the back.
While the first method is the only way to achieve the best of both worlds, it’s hard to master, so this easier solution would be more effective.
As you can see from the pictures above, I’ve fixed the SEL in place with a pice of paper in the desired position and the results are satisfying. Since the spingbar won’t reach the holes in this new position, one way to solve this is to drill larger holes but still very difficult to achieve at home using normal tools.
So I though a brutal way to achive this is to glue the SEL in the new desired place with an epoxy metal adeshive.
To make sure this would hold I glued the bracelet of an old Omega shitter I had lying around.
After a few hours of waiting for the glue to dry I tested to see the resistence of the weld. I pulled as hard as i could but the weld was solid and the bracelet didn't pop off.
Pretty impressive!
You have to understand that tidiness was not my target with this one. [emoji23] If careful, one can apply the adeshive without it being visible. So while the SEL would be fixed firmly in place, it would be fixed forever. I don’t know if you find it a bad thing or not but honestly I wasn’t put off by this.
And just when I came to the conclusion that I have found a good and easy method to fix the SEL issue, I’ve notice the obvious:
The SEL sits in place firmly due to 2 holding points. One being the springbar and the other being the edge pointed in the picture below.
So here is the 3rd method and the best one:
So I cut a piece of plastic out of the ZF tag I got with my Tudor and glued it to the inside of the SEL just to achive the necessary offset .
I used a cutting knife to smooth the cut on the plastic piece to match the SEL curvature.
Because the original springbar is so thick, this allowed me to use a thinner springbar from another shitter Omega I had [emoji2]
to reach the lug holes in the new position.
The thinner springbar wobbled inside the hole but still was not enough for it to reach the holes, but due to it being thinner I was able to push and slightly bend it to clip in the holes.
So here it is the final result.
Pretty darn close I have to say, much better than before anyway. Yes you have the offset on the back but still a good tradeoff.
While things looked good I still had to make one final adjustment. Due to the difference in diameter between the new springbar and the original SEL hole, the SEL didn’t sit firmly and had a little wobble.
I had to pull the pringbars out and wrap them in stickytape to make them thicker so they fit firmly in the SEL hole.
After doing this the SEL movement is minimal, the SEL position is almost perfect and the bracelet can be taken off the watch anytime.
So all you have to do is buy a Tudor made by ZF and use it’s plastic tag as a spacer [emoji23] .
A wonderful result achieved with things you can find at home.
Hope this helps all SUB v7 lovers here. Have a nice day!
Andrei.
Sent from the RWI mobile app
