In my haste to assemble my Rolli/FGD Logo dial, There were a few details I skipped that I immediately regretted. It's one of those things when you build a watch that you know you can do a little better if you spend some more time, but skip because you need to wear your watch yesterday
For me, it was the following:
- Swap out the David Wong crystal
- Another polish on the rehaut
- finally, tweaking the Rolli FGD hands to get them closer to gen
First up the crystal and rehaut polish... The David Wong crystal I used for my build is respectable... It's not low quality at all, but there are those times were you catch a haze you can't wipe off or a reflection that seems too strong. I heard from DSN that he has a new source for crystals that he is using on his latest watches. DSN is now selling French made HIGH quality sapphires. The proof is in the pictures below.
You can test the clarity of your crystal by shining a bright light against the edge. Like magic, any cloud or haze inside the crystal becomes immediately evident. Just to give you an idea the David Wong crystal that looks like this on the watch (Not bad at all from most angles)
Looks like this when you test it's clarity
Now here's the DSN. It's like a piece of window glass:hypnotized:
I don't say this lightly; It's easily as good as the BM C3 crystals and approaching OEM quality.
Next up the hands. Now let me preface this by saying, I'm really getting into minutia with this one, but that's the fun part right? Gen Pre-V hands are made of brass. Some detail having to do with how they were manufactured produced an effect where you can see the exposed brass around the cannon pinion. See these Gen photos:
Coincidentally the Helena Rou hands that FGD used in his projects are also brass, but the tube of the minute hands is painted, not allowing for any of the brass to show through. With a little ingenuity, it's possible to recreate this effect with your FGD hands All you need is some fine grit sand paper
This isn't something you'll see on that wrist that often, unless the sun catches the brass just right, but that's not the point, is it?
Thanks for reading
For me, it was the following:
- Swap out the David Wong crystal
- Another polish on the rehaut
- finally, tweaking the Rolli FGD hands to get them closer to gen
First up the crystal and rehaut polish... The David Wong crystal I used for my build is respectable... It's not low quality at all, but there are those times were you catch a haze you can't wipe off or a reflection that seems too strong. I heard from DSN that he has a new source for crystals that he is using on his latest watches. DSN is now selling French made HIGH quality sapphires. The proof is in the pictures below.
You can test the clarity of your crystal by shining a bright light against the edge. Like magic, any cloud or haze inside the crystal becomes immediately evident. Just to give you an idea the David Wong crystal that looks like this on the watch (Not bad at all from most angles)
Looks like this when you test it's clarity
Now here's the DSN. It's like a piece of window glass:hypnotized:
I don't say this lightly; It's easily as good as the BM C3 crystals and approaching OEM quality.
Next up the hands. Now let me preface this by saying, I'm really getting into minutia with this one, but that's the fun part right? Gen Pre-V hands are made of brass. Some detail having to do with how they were manufactured produced an effect where you can see the exposed brass around the cannon pinion. See these Gen photos:
Coincidentally the Helena Rou hands that FGD used in his projects are also brass, but the tube of the minute hands is painted, not allowing for any of the brass to show through. With a little ingenuity, it's possible to recreate this effect with your FGD hands All you need is some fine grit sand paper
This isn't something you'll see on that wrist that often, unless the sun catches the brass just right, but that's not the point, is it?
Thanks for reading
