Well I stole..umm...bought Nembo's vintage Seamaster 300 over on RG a few weeks ago and it's been on my wrist a lot but wasn't vintage.
Everything was all nice and shiny- looked like it was NOS rather than being the military watch that had seen service like a NATO Rollie.
Here's a few pics of what it looked like before the transformation in the hands of yours truly.
Pretty sweet watch but to me this model does not look right all bright and shiny- plus the factory strap HAD to go.
PAM249 on RG was selling an OD green NATO that I thought would compliment this watch perfectly so I snapped it up before any of you yokels saw the sales thread.
When I got the box I was surprised to find not one new strap but one new one and one that had already seen a lot of use. Solves the problem of distressing the new one.
Kudos to PAM249- this little extra really made my day!!!
The strap showed fading and a little bit of fraying- absolutely PERFECT for this project!!
So I got the strap- now to work on the case. I brought out my trusty chunk of concrete as highlighted in my 2533 thread and went to work.
I used an emory board out of the wife's nail kit to "break" the sharp edges on the case and used the concrete to give the case some simulated pits.`I went a bit heavier on the crown side, as this would be the area getting whacked more so than the left side.
The bezel got a light bleaching followed up by a few small scratches (one of which occurred in the course of wearing it :lol: ). I didn't want to go too overboard here- just give it a well worn look.
The dial was good to go as is. The lume is a beautiful creamy white with some slight irregularities and has a good "vintage" look when charged.
The plexi recieved the tiniestbit of roughing up- just enough to make it not perfect, mostly centered on the top of the dome- exactly where you would expect the plexi to make contact with hard objects.
And of course we had that mirror finish caseback. That just HAD to be dealt with. I could have shaved using this thing as a mirror. Perfect finish for a Breitling- not so much for a military looking Omega :lol:
This was done with emory board and 1200 grit sandpaper followed up by a Dremel and a wire wheel. Again all sharp edges were "broken" using the emory board and the scratch pattern is what you'd expect to see after dirt/sand got between the strap and case.
Finally ya gotta take the wristie
Overall this was quite an easy transformation from new out of the box to believably vintage. Out of all my reps I'd hazard a guess that this one is going to be the one I never get called out on. It's unassuming, wears smaller than the listed 43mm size and looks great with a little character added.
Everything was all nice and shiny- looked like it was NOS rather than being the military watch that had seen service like a NATO Rollie.
Here's a few pics of what it looked like before the transformation in the hands of yours truly.
Pretty sweet watch but to me this model does not look right all bright and shiny- plus the factory strap HAD to go.
PAM249 on RG was selling an OD green NATO that I thought would compliment this watch perfectly so I snapped it up before any of you yokels saw the sales thread.
When I got the box I was surprised to find not one new strap but one new one and one that had already seen a lot of use. Solves the problem of distressing the new one.
Kudos to PAM249- this little extra really made my day!!!
The strap showed fading and a little bit of fraying- absolutely PERFECT for this project!!
So I got the strap- now to work on the case. I brought out my trusty chunk of concrete as highlighted in my 2533 thread and went to work.
I used an emory board out of the wife's nail kit to "break" the sharp edges on the case and used the concrete to give the case some simulated pits.`I went a bit heavier on the crown side, as this would be the area getting whacked more so than the left side.
The bezel got a light bleaching followed up by a few small scratches (one of which occurred in the course of wearing it :lol: ). I didn't want to go too overboard here- just give it a well worn look.
The dial was good to go as is. The lume is a beautiful creamy white with some slight irregularities and has a good "vintage" look when charged.
The plexi recieved the tiniestbit of roughing up- just enough to make it not perfect, mostly centered on the top of the dome- exactly where you would expect the plexi to make contact with hard objects.
And of course we had that mirror finish caseback. That just HAD to be dealt with. I could have shaved using this thing as a mirror. Perfect finish for a Breitling- not so much for a military looking Omega :lol:
This was done with emory board and 1200 grit sandpaper followed up by a Dremel and a wire wheel. Again all sharp edges were "broken" using the emory board and the scratch pattern is what you'd expect to see after dirt/sand got between the strap and case.
Finally ya gotta take the wristie
Overall this was quite an easy transformation from new out of the box to believably vintage. Out of all my reps I'd hazard a guess that this one is going to be the one I never get called out on. It's unassuming, wears smaller than the listed 43mm size and looks great with a little character added.
