Regardless of replica or genuine, what is it that people enjoy about the watch collecting hobby most? Is it the thrill of buying a new toy? The thrill of being able to collect a gorgeous replica, at a fraction of the cost? Pulling the wool over the guys at the poker table by fronting a $20K watch? The pursuit of the newest “1:1 super rep� Or even just getting to blow your hard earned extra income on a bunch of fun stuff? What I have discovered is that for me it is something totally different. I enjoy finding a discarded, homeless genuine dial and giving it a second chance at life
I enjoy the pursuit of rare parts to get as close to gen as my meager skills will take me. I enjoy tinkering and learning new things everyday. So with that being said, this build filled all of those buckets, stretched my skills, taught me a lot about watch making and REWARDED me with one of the most unique frankens around. I present to you the PAM252I
There’s a long back story here, but I’ll keep it as brief as possible. I love gen tritium dials. I think the era in Panerai history between 1993 and 2000 is the second best only behind the WWII era. I love contrasting look of aged tritium against a black dial and I don’t give a shit if it “doesn’t glow like a torchâ€, because it’s gen dammit and it’s not supposed to So when I had the opportunity to procure a pair of gen tritium dials from a collector in Italy.
I jumped on it. One was a plan old 10A in perfect condition. The other was a bit curious. I was told it was a PAM252 Mike Horn dial, but when I researched the dial before buying there was a disconnect. The PAM252 is a BLUE LUMINOVA dial:
The one I bought was BLACK TRITIUM.
I continued with my research and learned that the 2006 Expedition that this watch was designed for, involved two adventurers: Mike Horn and Bjorn Osland. This expedition was a journey from Cape Artichesky, the most northern part of Russia, to the North Pole, in total darkness. Now why the hell would you have a Lumniova dial-tool watch, in total darkness? Great question….You wouldn’t! The dial from actual watches used on the expedition would have been tritium…They would have used this dial mounted on my wrist as I type this.
What’s the significance of this…Who knows? I would assess this dial to be in used condition. With some slight scuffs on the lacquer finish visible when viewed from just the right angle. Could this be one of the dials used on the expedition? If so it is 1 of 2 in existence and a nice piece of Panerai history. Or did Panerai do a small production run of these dials and build a few prototypes. This is also completely possible and more probable. The only way to know for sure is the ask Mike and Bjorn if they ever had their dials replaced….Believe me I’m working on that I NEED TO KNOW!
On to the build.
Here’s the specs:
Gen Tritium PAM252 dial
Gen Luminova hour and minute hands
H Factory GMT and seconds hands: lume matches the gen but glows faint like the tritium
H Factory "Ultimate" PAM252I case set
Rehaut custom milled to fit the gen dial GMT ring
Case drilled and gen like DSN Tube and Crown fitted
Noob factory CG Body with custom fit Sead A-F lever…VERY gen like
A7754 GMT movement with correct datewheel.
I first attempted the build back in March, when I got the watch all together the stem would not line up with the movement. I got out my calipers and discovered that the rep dial was ALMOST exactly the same spec as the gen. Unfortunately the GMT ring was 0.5mm too small. The solution?... Attack the rehaut with a drum sander? Hell NO! Send it to NeckyZips for some professional metal working. The man is a pure craftsman. I highly recommend him
Rep dial GMT ring...smaller than gen:
Instructions for Necky
A few months later it’s I get the case back. Time to install the DSN crown and tube. The original rep crown was horrible, not spring loaded, no gaskets….Just awful. There’s no way it could possibly be water proof. Look how far the Rep tube sticks out from the case. not like the gen at all.
Now it is DSN Gen like Crown to the rescue (see review of DSN crown here). The old tube is pushed out, the case is drilled to 3.3mm and the tube is epoxied in place with JB Weld Steel Epoxy.
The tube is completely gen like now. The crown is nice and tight to the case.
Finally it’s time to assemble the dial and gen hand stack. I fully intended to use the gen seconds hand as well, but guess what? Somehow the rep seconds post is too thick for the gen seconds tube…Back to plan A with the rep seconds hand. Then after attempting to make the minute hand completely flush with the cannon pinion, I noticed the gen hand was too big for the rep CP. I had to push it about 1mm down below the CP to get it to kind of stay put….Then I noticed the rep GMT hand was slipping!!! THIS BUILD IS CURSED! So here’s my dilemma: I don’t have a staking set to adjust the hand tubes and I really didn’t want to risk nuking my EXPENSIVE gen hands. So I begged Necky for help. He talked me down off the ledge and convinced me that a slight crimp with a set of tweezers is all that is required. Necky was right…I was back in business
Now the CG. The rep CG for this "Ultimate" case is comical. It is seriously the worst I have seen. The lever is $hit, the CG body barely fits the case. I can go on but I wont. the gen PAM252 has the historic shaped CG with a non-rollerball lever. Simple solution was adding a Sead A-F Lever to a Noob CG body. I then custom flattened the CG pin and totally flush with the body.
The side profile of this build looks great when compared to gen.
Gen:
Franken:
I like flat and flush, but only on my cannon pinions and CG pins, not my women.
There's still some stuff to do.
1. I need to smooth out the edges of the bezel markers
2. shape the CG feet so they better fit the case, but for now...on the wrist...It's close enough for sure!!!
Then Of course there's some stuff that I can't do anything about. Like the caseback. Panerai likes to play a little joke on Asia replica makers by publishing high res pics of their watches with wrong details. for the 252I the misdirection was the hand shape and the caseback. The caseback on the Panerai site is totally out of order compared to gen
Panerai Image:
Gen Caseback:
But the Asian makers didn't care. They said, "high res image from Panerai...Yup...Good enough for me.
OH YES THE LUME SHOT....
Since this watch was made in 2006-ish The tritium is only about 8 years old. It still glows. funny thing is, the WEAK lume on the rep GMT and seconds hands matches the gen in color, but the tritium in glow strength. The gen hour and minute hand, Glow so bright it amost looks white. Seriously I have never seen gen hands that glow like this. Screw the "Torch" reference.... These glow like a gottdamm Luke Skywalker's ROTJ lightsaber
And we’re “done†? time for some wrist shots, but wait...Last but not least, I have custom strap I put together for my tool watches. This is an exact replica of the legendary Mille Metri strap. This isn’t the original vintage Seiko rubber, but it is authentic ITALIAN MADE rubber complete with a 22mm buckle from my good friend ELIAS from HomageForum. Send orders to him there
What a watch and what a build. This was way more than assembling a bunch of parts. I’m proud to say I learned some new skills, tried some new things and have an awesome franken to show for it.
I hope you enjoyed this.
I enjoy the pursuit of rare parts to get as close to gen as my meager skills will take me. I enjoy tinkering and learning new things everyday. So with that being said, this build filled all of those buckets, stretched my skills, taught me a lot about watch making and REWARDED me with one of the most unique frankens around. I present to you the PAM252I
There’s a long back story here, but I’ll keep it as brief as possible. I love gen tritium dials. I think the era in Panerai history between 1993 and 2000 is the second best only behind the WWII era. I love contrasting look of aged tritium against a black dial and I don’t give a shit if it “doesn’t glow like a torchâ€, because it’s gen dammit and it’s not supposed to
So when I had the opportunity to procure a pair of gen tritium dials from a collector in Italy. 
I jumped on it. One was a plan old 10A in perfect condition. The other was a bit curious. I was told it was a PAM252 Mike Horn dial, but when I researched the dial before buying there was a disconnect. The PAM252 is a BLUE LUMINOVA dial:
The one I bought was BLACK TRITIUM.
I continued with my research and learned that the 2006 Expedition that this watch was designed for, involved two adventurers: Mike Horn and Bjorn Osland. This expedition was a journey from Cape Artichesky, the most northern part of Russia, to the North Pole, in total darkness. Now why the hell would you have a Lumniova dial-tool watch, in total darkness? Great question….You wouldn’t! The dial from actual watches used on the expedition would have been tritium…They would have used this dial mounted on my wrist as I type this.
What’s the significance of this…Who knows? I would assess this dial to be in used condition. With some slight scuffs on the lacquer finish visible when viewed from just the right angle. Could this be one of the dials used on the expedition? If so it is 1 of 2 in existence and a nice piece of Panerai history. Or did Panerai do a small production run of these dials and build a few prototypes. This is also completely possible and more probable. The only way to know for sure is the ask Mike and Bjorn if they ever had their dials replaced….Believe me I’m working on that
I NEED TO KNOW!On to the build.
Here’s the specs:
Gen Tritium PAM252 dial
Gen Luminova hour and minute hands
H Factory GMT and seconds hands: lume matches the gen but glows faint like the tritium
H Factory "Ultimate" PAM252I case set
Rehaut custom milled to fit the gen dial GMT ring
Case drilled and gen like DSN Tube and Crown fitted
Noob factory CG Body with custom fit Sead A-F lever…VERY gen like
A7754 GMT movement with correct datewheel.
I first attempted the build back in March, when I got the watch all together the stem would not line up with the movement. I got out my calipers and discovered that the rep dial was ALMOST exactly the same spec as the gen. Unfortunately the GMT ring was 0.5mm too small. The solution?... Attack the rehaut with a drum sander? Hell NO! Send it to NeckyZips for some professional metal working. The man is a pure craftsman. I highly recommend him
Rep dial GMT ring...smaller than gen:
Instructions for Necky
A few months later it’s I get the case back. Time to install the DSN crown and tube. The original rep crown was horrible, not spring loaded, no gaskets….Just awful. There’s no way it could possibly be water proof. Look how far the Rep tube sticks out from the case. not like the gen at all.
Now it is DSN Gen like Crown to the rescue (see review of DSN crown here). The old tube is pushed out, the case is drilled to 3.3mm and the tube is epoxied in place with JB Weld Steel Epoxy.
The tube is completely gen like now. The crown is nice and tight to the case.
Finally it’s time to assemble the dial and gen hand stack. I fully intended to use the gen seconds hand as well, but guess what? Somehow the rep seconds post is too thick for the gen seconds tube…Back to plan A with the rep seconds hand. Then after attempting to make the minute hand completely flush with the cannon pinion, I noticed the gen hand was too big for the rep CP. I had to push it about 1mm down below the CP to get it to kind of stay put….Then I noticed the rep GMT hand was slipping!!! THIS BUILD IS CURSED! So here’s my dilemma: I don’t have a staking set to adjust the hand tubes and I really didn’t want to risk nuking my EXPENSIVE gen hands. So I begged Necky for help. He talked me down off the ledge and convinced me that a slight crimp with a set of tweezers is all that is required. Necky was right…I was back in business
Now the CG. The rep CG for this "Ultimate" case is comical. It is seriously the worst I have seen. The lever is $hit, the CG body barely fits the case. I can go on but I wont. the gen PAM252 has the historic shaped CG with a non-rollerball lever. Simple solution was adding a Sead A-F Lever to a Noob CG body. I then custom flattened the CG pin and totally flush with the body.
The side profile of this build looks great when compared to gen.
Gen:
Franken:
I like flat and flush, but only on my cannon pinions and CG pins, not my women.
There's still some stuff to do.
1. I need to smooth out the edges of the bezel markers
2. shape the CG feet so they better fit the case, but for now...on the wrist...It's close enough for sure!!!
Then Of course there's some stuff that I can't do anything about. Like the caseback. Panerai likes to play a little joke on Asia replica makers by publishing high res pics of their watches with wrong details. for the 252I the misdirection was the hand shape and the caseback. The caseback on the Panerai site is totally out of order compared to gen
Panerai Image:
Gen Caseback:
But the Asian makers didn't care. They said, "high res image from Panerai...Yup...Good enough for me.
OH YES THE LUME SHOT....
Since this watch was made in 2006-ish The tritium is only about 8 years old. It still glows. funny thing is, the WEAK lume on the rep GMT and seconds hands matches the gen in color, but the tritium in glow strength. The gen hour and minute hand, Glow so bright it amost looks white. Seriously I have never seen gen hands that glow like this. Screw the "Torch" reference.... These glow like a gottdamm Luke Skywalker's ROTJ lightsaber
And we’re “done†? time for some wrist shots, but wait...Last but not least, I have custom strap I put together for my tool watches. This is an exact replica of the legendary Mille Metri strap. This isn’t the original vintage Seiko rubber, but it is authentic ITALIAN MADE rubber complete with a 22mm buckle from my good friend ELIAS from HomageForum. Send orders to him there
What a watch and what a build. This was way more than assembling a bunch of parts. I’m proud to say I learned some new skills, tried some new things and have an awesome franken to show for it.
I hope you enjoyed this.
