RM11 Quartz Project

[GiantSquid]

Finished the first test prints of my first two prototype cases, have some pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/OsE20hb

Prototype 1 was a good start, Prototype 2 is a big step forward, and I'll be working on Prototype 3 this week. I'll share STLs when they're finished so anyone with a 3d printer can create a gen-sized midcase of their own for modding or fun. Hopefully there'll also be a smaller RM67 midcase for a TBD quartz movement as well as an RM50-04 midcase sized for the VK mecaquartz as described in my last case, and I'm planning to have a couple fancy additions to that that will hopefully make up for the lack of a split-second and the incorrect pushers.

It'll be threeish weeks till my 50-04 gets here, so nothing to do in the meantime but continue iterating these cases. Updates as they happen!

 

[OffshoreNL]

wow wow wow! Some amazing work being done here!!

 

[RichardMiller]

This is awesome. I can't wait to try printing my own!

 

[GiantSquid]

So I've been busy:

https://imgur.com/a/pp7aKQV

We're almost there, and I see no reason why this part of the project won't work. My last iteration is probably as close as we're gonna get to a gen spec case, and next iteration will be curved for a KVF bezel. Once I can confirm things fit, we'll be golden. RM50 stretch goal of a midcase reprint is looking like not so much of a stretch after all. Looking forward to sharing files with anyone interested, stay tuned!

 

[GiantSquid]

50-04 project update:

https://imgur.com/a/DNRkamV

Photos are hot off the printer with no finishing besides removing supports, but things have been going quite well.

First crack at this case went perfectly (considering I've had plenty of practice making the RM11 that's not too surprising) and it's almost perfectly sized. I made a deco plate as well but the printer I'm testing on doesn't have the resolution to make it look as good as it does in CAD. That I'll print in resin or slice into layers and lasercut so I can have the detail I need. Considering it's non-structural and going to get painted anyways, resin should do fine but if I can source thin enough stock I'll get it lasercut out of brass or titanium because fancy.

The donor RM50-04 is surprisingly nice for a shitter! All real screws, decent AR, deco is pretty damn great except for the stupid big-date window, and the velcro strap is better quality than the eBay ones, but not by much. Bezel is coated steel but it doesn't seem to scratch off at all. Once I ditch the metal midcase and put in the lighter movement it's going to be quite a comfortable watch. Making it thinner by the required 2ish mm is going to be an incredible challenge, but I can definitely shave off 1mm and maybe a bit more without problems.

Waiting on some parts and extra screws but next update should be assembly!

 

[josephag94]

50-04 project update:

https://imgur.com/a/DNRkamV

Photos are hot off the printer with no finishing besides removing supports, but things have been going quite well.

First crack at this case went perfectly (considering I've had plenty of practice making the RM11 that's not too surprising) and it's almost perfectly sized. I made a deco plate as well but the printer I'm testing on doesn't have the resolution to make it look as good as it does in CAD. That I'll print in resin or slice into layers and lasercut so I can have the detail I need. Considering it's non-structural and going to get painted anyways, resin should do fine but if I can source thin enough stock I'll get it lasercut out of brass or titanium because fancy.

The donor RM50-04 is surprisingly nice for a shitter! All real screws, decent AR, deco is pretty damn great except for the stupid big-date window, and the velcro strap is better quality than the eBay ones, but not by much. Bezel is coated steel but it doesn't seem to scratch off at all. Once I ditch the metal midcase and put in the lighter movement it's going to be quite a comfortable watch. Making it thinner by the required 2ish mm is going to be an incredible challenge, but I can definitely shave off 1mm and maybe a bit more without problems.

Waiting on some parts and extra screws but next update should be assembly!

very excited hopefully this goes well!!!


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[GiantSquid]

Tore apart the shitter this morning and holy shit that was a chore. This is NOT assembled in a way that allows easy removal, but after a fair bit of manhandling everything came apart, although it's fair to say the Seagull movement it came with will never again fit another watch.

Back crystal is flat and is glued into a metal surround which actually gives me more room for deco details! I'll have to realign the back of my midcase to make room for the surround but that's not hard, Deco fits perfectly (or will when I finish sanding), as do the bezels which is much better than I could've hoped for. Front crystal is super thick (2mm+) which is interesting, and also glued into the midcase. Although that's a pain in the ass to deglue it, it should be a matter of precision acetone application and it'll come right out. If not, I've got a crystal coming that I should be able to glue into the front bezel.

Movement is encased in a steel ring that fits the midcase with the deco on top of it. Unfortunately I couldn't get the rotor off so the ring is still firmly affixed onto the movement, and it appears that the screws to remove the rotor have been covered so I'll have to remove that with a tiny die grinder if I want to fully remove the movement. As it is, I'm going to have an integral movement ring so we shouldn't need that part and I'm going to leave it alone.

Waiting on delivery of hands in case I can't broach the existing ones, as well as brass screw inserts, but once everything gets here the watch should go together perfectly. Looking forward to sharing!

 

[JimmyWW169]

My lord how good is this thread

 

[GiantSquid]

EVERYTHING FITS!

https://imgur.com/a/ReCAuzl

There are a couple modifications necessary from here (screw holes for the bezel need to be moved slightly, tolerances bumped out on the movement ring, etc) and a hellllllllll of a lot of filing and sanding but every major component fits, the movements have arrived, and as soon as I have threaded inserts (that will hopefully fit the screws please please) we should be go for assembly.

Front crystal came right off after an overnight acetone bath, and I had to revise the midcase to accommodate the mounting but it fits perfectly and with a gasket may even be waterproof. The deco slides on almost unmodified, and everything sandwiches together.

Next update is going to be a while as I need to order some polycarbonate/carbon fiber filament and a new nozzle and wait for that and the threaded inserts/hands/etc to ship. I'll be working on an RM67 case and the RM11 case in the meantime, and I'll update the thread with progress on those as well.

If anyone here knows how to photoetch things, I could use some hands made at the proper size in case I can't drill and broach the hand tubes I have. I can source tubes but have no experience photoetching and I'm too busy teaching myself CAD and making all the other parts of the project. Get at me if you can help!

 

[krkqm2008]

Wow !!!!!!!!!

 

[GiantSquid]

Quick update for new info:

The screws on RM reps are standard M1.4 threads! No fancy shit needed, just normal M1.4x2.5x3 threaded inserts. I'm printing what will hopefully be the last revision of the RM50 right now. Once the print is out and cleaned, I'll just hot-insert the threaded inserts and it'll all screw together! This makes customization much, much easier and should work for any non-ZF RM rep.

 

[GiantSquid]

NEW UPDATE WITH ASSEMBLED BEZEL/DECO/CRYSTAL:

https://imgur.com/a/ywjwsvX

I thought I was good but crystal fitment took another six or so iterations to get perfect because it is an amazingly tremendous pain in the ass. That wasn't a great time but we're finally where we want to be! I actually have two updates I need to make to the pictured case, plus a redesigned movement ring, before final printing but I wanted to make sure I kept people updated.

All parts are received and I'm just waiting on filament and a new nozzle plus my crystal epoxy. Excited to print it out for real and get the screw inserts in so I can put together the case at will, then I need to paint and insert the new deco, set the hands, and we should be good! I will need to remake the pushers as well but it's a simple enough shape that theoretically I could cast them, although casting steel is outside my home capability. The full watch will probably have printed pushers due to ease of manufacturing.

Stay tuned as always, I hope to have the next update in a couple weeks and it should the final update!

 

[krkqm2008]

Lovely... if you sell one.. please put in for one. Guarantee purchase

 

[JonathanLing91]

Projects like this one make me love the RWI community. Keep up the great work!


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[GiantSquid]

On further review, the deco as-made does not play nice with the VK movement. Despite measurements seeming to match, it just doesn't fit well and requires an absurd amount of adjustment to get it right. Not only that, the subdial pinion heights are too low to take the hands properly. SO, I'll be making my own deco. Xometry will lasercut brass and steel down to 0.005", which eliminates the problem of manufacturing, but I'll still need to solve the problem of printing on the rehaut and the top dial layer. I was hoping to avoid having to do this, since the printing is the biggest difference between a homemade and professional-looking watch, but I can probably rig up a pad printer to make it work. Deco will be three layers plus a resin-printed rehaut, and the main two layers will be 0.015" (0.4mm) thick, which is right on-spec for a VK dial, with the top layer being more decoration and staying out of the way of the hands.

Bad news for timing and means a lot more design on my part but good news is that the more parts I have to remake, the easier future manufacture will be. The finished watch will require donor bezels and crystals, but if the deco works out then every other part will be either manufactured by me or available on Ali/eBay. I can relatively easily manufacture bezels to fit the case (although printing remains a problem just like with the rehaut), so theoretically we'd be able to create the whole thing from scratch without any donor watch if we could source the proper sized crystal.

Sometimes it seems like every step forward leads to two steps back but fuck it, ever upwards!

 

[GiantSquid]

Super quick update: lasercutting dial deco is out (not enough resolution, kerfing problems), photoetching is in (excellent resolution, no kerf, can be done at home). After I further separated the deco layers, I found that it's made of multiple layers that are too thin to be manufactured by any other method. So, I bought a kit and started some drawings. Photoetching layouts are done, now I just need the materials to get here and start experimenting with etching exposures and times. It's definitely feasible to do and with enough donor parts it should be possible to copy the deco stacks from most common RM reps. I'll upload some images of the etch process when I can and after the plates are etched I can see about printing. I'm hoping to use the current rehaut and top deco layer as-is so I don't need to source pad printing, but if it doesn't work I'm making etchings of the full deco stack so I should have an assembly image with deco and movement minus printing in a couple weeks.

Other news is, due to popular demand I've finished the first prototype for a quartz RM67-02. This will be a COMPLETELY CUSTOM build and involve NO parts from currently existing reps, just off-the-shelf inserts, screws, crystals, and crown. Current prototype thickness is 9.5mm (~1.6ish larger than gen) but I'll need a custom bracelet, custom bracelet/screw brackets, and I have no idea what to do about the rear crystal yet. Front crystal is sized for an off-the-shelf tonneau from Ali but we'll see if the curvature matches. The prototype is printing right now, will share some pictures tomorrow. This is by far an easier case shape to perfect but getting it to hold a movement will take additional engineering. I've got a very preliminary setup for a VX00 quartz but still need to work out some logistical issues to make sure everything can be disassembled to change batteries. Other challenges are colour ( I can't print multicoloured parts so I'll have to stick to the Zverev or Leclerc models in PC or nylon, or plain black carbon/PC) and fitting a fake rotor onto the back.

More pics of the 67 case tomorrow! Thanks for staying with me on this crazy journey.

 

[krkqm2008]

I love it .... Hoepfully you produce them and sell them i am all in

 

[GiantSquid]

As promised!

https://imgur.com/a/bCXX5BE

So shit is tiny but it worked pretty well. I need to enlarge the crystal window by a tiny bit and make custom strap inserts for the strap, but there really isn't much to this one. It fits together great and the crystal is almost a perfect fit, curvature included. Once I figure out what the hell to do for a rear crystal and how to mount it there's just deco and movement left. I'm still engineering how it'll go together and come apart, and I haven't even started thinking about etching the dials yet, but this is good progress for a day's work.

On that note, I DESPERATELY NEED DECO to tear apart to copy. If anyone has one of those chonker RM67 reps they don't want, I'll gladly buy it for parts. I don't want to buy another new one (yet) and I'm loathe to tear mine apart when I have three RMs in pieces in the shop already, so if someone has one that can be sacrificed for the cause, let's talk.

I'm going to try to get the crystal sizing right this week, will update with progress on either watch. Enjoy!

 

[sunrayminor]

As promised!

https://imgur.com/a/bCXX5BE

So shit is tiny but it worked pretty well. I need to enlarge the crystal window by a tiny bit and make custom strap inserts for the strap, but there really isn't much to this one. It fits together great and the crystal is almost a perfect fit, curvature included. Once I figure out what the hell to do for a rear crystal and how to mount it there's just deco and movement left. I'm still engineering how it'll go together and come apart, and I haven't even started thinking about etching the dials yet, but this is good progress for a day's work.

On that note, I DESPERATELY NEED DECO to tear apart to copy. If anyone has one of those chonker RM67 reps they don't want, I'll gladly buy it for parts. I don't want to buy another new one (yet) and I'm loathe to tear mine apart when I have three RMs in pieces in the shop already, so if someone has one that can be sacrificed for the cause, let's talk.

I'm going to try to get the crystal sizing right this week, will update with progress on either watch. Enjoy!

Simply amazing, congratulations!! Ill for sure be in! haha Amazing


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[Takel98]

Wow really amazing count me in aswell def on the 67