THE CONCEPT (aka, the "Rabbit Hole"):
I've fallen down a rabbit hole recently, trying to put together a watch for my girlfriend's birthday (in early June...it was supposed to be a Christmas present, to give an idea of how deep this hole went, lol). After some dead ends and (often costly) mistakes, I finally came up with an acceptable product...and lots of spare parts and solutions to the problems that presented themselves along the way (which will probably wind up as future presents and/or sold here M2M to recoup some of the expense). There's really not a lot of information on building one of these, at least that I could find, and a lot of the information is old, outdated, and very limited.
I decided to put together a post to share what I've learned, and hopefully help anyone wishing to go down the same path can avoid my mistakes. All in, you can put together a watch that looks great, is all gen but the movement and hands, and is damn near indistinguishable from the gen...for about $500 USD or less, depending on how patient you are accumulating the parts. If you keep your eyes open, you can probably add a gen movement and hands down the road (if you find a deal) and have essentially a genuine watch. Women's parts are dirt cheap, relative to men's, with some caveats.
Women's watches generally don't have the popularity that Men's watches do, and as a result, there's not a lot of good offerings in the rep world. Either they don't exist at all, don't have the high quality of the better offerings in men's watches (ie, there's no Clean Explorer or VSF Sub equivalent). There's also a trend toward women wearing wearing larger (men's) watches, which reduces the demand even further. Currently, you can buy a rep of the 28mm, 31mm, or go with a larger 34, 36, or larger watch. I focused on the older, vintage 24mm and 26mm No Date, Date, and Datejust watches, which are classic, timeless, and very femine.
I'll go over the process a step at a time.
THE MOVEMENT (AND HOLDER):
Most women's watches use a variation on the ETA 2671 or Asian clone. Like all ETA movements, the keyless works can be problematic, and working on a movement that's half to 2/3 the size of the 2824 we're familiar with wasn't something I was looking forward to.
After some research, I went with the Seiko NH05, which is comparable in size, very reliable, and considerably cheaper than the ETA (around $30 on AliExpress, vs close to $100 for the ETA clone). The NH05 has a plastic spacer ring included, which attaches to the movement. The spacer is removable, it fits the movement via 2 plastic "pins" that fit into holes in the movement. I have found it to work equally well in either the 24mm or 26mm cases, although the movement holders are different.
The beat rate is 21,600, which is close enough to the Rolex 1161 (18,000 early, 19,800 later) to pass a close inspection. It's a bit slower than the later 203X movement (28,800), but on such a small watch, it's hard to appreciate the difference.
I experimented with modifying this spacer (it's possible to drill holes in the plastic spacer, which will accommodate the dial feet, so they can be used without removing them), but ultimately went with a 3D printed spacer that's a tight fit to the movement and the case, while allowing the rotor to spin. I removed and didn't use the stock plastic spacer.
There's no way to use case clamps this way, but some careful applications of sticky dial holders secures it, and if you experiment with the hight of the holder, it can be a snug, press fit when the case back is screwed on. There's a lip that stops the movement from contacting the dial, so there's room for the date wheel to rotate, and for a DWO to be added to the movement. The 2671 DWO from Raffles should work, although I haven't tried this yet, since I'm waiting for them to arrive. Out of the box, the NH05 date wheel is pretty close to the stock Rolex dial opening, with just a small amount of daylight to the outside edge.
The 3D printed movement holder can be altered by either tweaking the measurements in the CAD file, or with some careful sanding. Generally, when I sand anything 3D printed intended for the inside of a watch, there's some dust created. I wash off what I can under the sink, then hit it (quickly) with a disposable lighter...enough to "melt" the dust and stick it to the holder, but not enough to melt or misshape the part...think about when you pass your finger through a flame...hot enough to feel, but not enough to burn. It seems to work as far as I can tell, although it's not probably "horologist approved," lol.
The 3D movement holder has plenty of space for a DWO.
The Date wheel lines up pretty well with the gen Rolex dial, although there's a little daylight on the outside edge. The font is also wrong, and it's a little sunken. I'm optimistic that the Raffles DWO for the 2671 will work perfectly (I'm waiting for my order to arrive), with a little spacer behind it to bring it closer to the dial.
24mm spacer:
www.tinkercad.com
26mm spacer:
www.tinkercad.com
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, I guess that makes sense since even rolex stopped making them. I'm at a stage where I don't want to use nh05 movement but I don't have the movement holder yet for it to fit the case and align with the steam.
