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TUDOR Black Bay 54 - 7924 Big Crown Build

jamiex

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25/7/09
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Have a look on cousins UK, they have the hand drills and taps. The thing to remember is light and slow, take your time and don't rush it. I haven't looked but I would imagine there are loads of tutorials on here how to do it.
 

nbeezy

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Have a look on cousins UK, they have the hand drills and taps. The thing to remember is light and slow, take your time and don't rush it. I haven't looked but I would imagine there are loads of tutorials on here how to do it.
my first instinc was drillpress, do you think a handdrill has advantages?
 

drvintage

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21/11/19
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nice idea to mod the BB on this way. I'm looking forward to your pics of the results
 
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nbeezy

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It's what he is using in the video plus easy access and cheaper than a drillpress.
From what i can tell hes using a reamer. Could be the cleanest option to incrementally open the hole using reamers.
220px-ReamerMorseTaper3.jpg
 

jamiex

Active Member
25/7/09
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From what i can tell hes using a reamer. Could be the cleanest option to incrementally open the hole using reamers.
220px-ReamerMorseTaper3.jpg
That's what I was thinking. I spoke to the guy in the video and he told me that he uses 7mm crowns and not the 8mm because they're a bit to big for the mid case, maybe something to keep in mind.
 

drvintage

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Any updates here? I bought an gen bb58 case for the same project haha
 

nbeezy

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Any updates here? I bought an gen bb58 case for the same project haha
unfortunately i suffered some setbacks by the hands of an incompetent watchmaker. but some work should be done this coming weekend
 

drvintage

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unfortunately i suffered some setbacks by the hands of an incompetent watchmaker. but some work should be done this coming weekend
Oh sad to hear that… I wish you luck with the next one
 

nbeezy

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Oh sad to hear that… I wish you luck with the next one
only thing that got permanantly damaged is the original zf dial so i got a raffles 29mm vintage dial. i did some cad work to make sure the print fits within the rehaut opening but ill have to find out on the weekend
 

nbeezy

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By now im getting used to spontaneous setbacks and today is no different.
Nevertheless there were some interesting revelations:

1: watertest
The case seems to leak from bezel region (something to keep in mind for every zf bb54 buyer)

2: inner case dimensions
Plan: swap in 29 mm raffles dial
The rehaut opening is 27 mm across and the entire dial print fits comfortably inside. I thought it would be pretty close with the "T swiss T" at 6 o'clock but i got pleasantly surprised by the spacing. This means railroad dials (wich i avoided because of spacial concerns) should work fine aswell.

Everything was going smooth until it was time to reistall the crown stem. The movement sits too high.
This is caused by staggered inner diameters leading up to the rehaut opening in the case. The 29mm dial sits (neatly) inside a 29.2 mm inner diameter.
This is followed by the actual rehaut position with an inner diameter of 28.2 mm.

3: fitting the dial
The dial needs to be 28.2 mm max, this meant that i had to shave off approx. 0.4 mm radius.
I set my calipers to 0.4 mm and fixed the sled with the lock scew. I then draged the calipers around the outer circumference of the dial, engraving the smaller diameter onto the backside of the dial.

Now its time to grind the dial to size. This was a stright forward (although scary) process using a metal file. After a few adjustments i got the dial to roughly 28 mm all around.
The edge obviously wont be pretty but thats where the 27 mm rehaut diameter comes into play. As far as i can tell everything looks clean when installed.
I would not reccomend trying this with a gloss dial. You will have a generous amount of shavings flying around and they will get on the face of the dial. There is no visible damage to my matte dial, but a gloss dial will need some protection.



So the final verdict is that you can make a 29mm dial fit the ZF bb54 with one hour worth of grinding. Sadly there doesnt seem to be a 28 mm plug and play dial available online (let me know if you find something interesting).
Next up is modifying the case to accept the anthaya brevet crowntube...
 

nbeezy

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I had the idea to swap the sapphire with a superdome plexi. measuring the crystal from the outside gives me 30.05 mm and it appears the crystal is simply pressed into the case.
Does anyone have any imput on what to look out for in the new plexi? My first instinkt was "Sternkreuz überhoch gewölt 305".


i assume that will give me the most pronounced dome effect?
 

nbeezy

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i mean the "Sternkreuz überhoch gewölt 301" of course
 

Singapore9

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Following with interest for the final result - great research and work so far :)
 
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