Hey guys,
So Ive had my V3 PAM111 for a while now, first rep I bought, and I've loved it ever since. It completely changed the way I place value in watches!
The crown-guard, while pretty accurate, still had a couple flaws that stood out to me, the CG lever shape, and lever pin. Though when I dinged the crown-guard on my first day of ownership (damn 5am morning klutziness), those flaws seemed invisible.. After buying a new CG (thanks Ryan), I wanted to go all out and make it as perfect as possible.
Knowing I would most likely ruin the CG by trying to remove the pin, I carefully sanded it down to be nearly flush, and much more flat. Once it seemed flat enough, I wet sanded it lightly, and used a polishing/buffing pad to smooth out the sandpaper scratches in the pin. I finished the pin with cape cod cloth. I then buffed out any scratches on the top of the crown guard, prepping it for brushing later on.
For the lever, I kept ALE's "The Last Steps to Gen" open, and carefully sanded the new shape out of the lever. I used a very light sandpaper, in order to not overdo it.
Lastly, I went over the entire crown-guard with my fiberglass pen, brushing every single surface to a satin finish.
Now onto the pics!
Brushing up to and around the pin was pretty difficult. Keeping lines straight, and not brushing the polished pin was nerve wracking!
Here you can see the lever re-shaping I performed. The tip is now thinner, and points further away from the case than stock. Much closer to the gen pics I viewed in ALE's thread.
Now in this shot, you can see that the pin isn't recessed as per the gen, but this is barely noticeable without extreme angles or macro.
For reference to a stock Noob V3 crown-guard, I took a couple pics of the one I dinged. It has been re-finished around the divot, seen in the bottom half of picture 1, and the top left corner of the CG in pic 2.
If you guys see anything I overlooked, let me know and I'll see if i can fix it. Otherwise, I'm really happy with how it turned out.
So Ive had my V3 PAM111 for a while now, first rep I bought, and I've loved it ever since. It completely changed the way I place value in watches!
The crown-guard, while pretty accurate, still had a couple flaws that stood out to me, the CG lever shape, and lever pin. Though when I dinged the crown-guard on my first day of ownership (damn 5am morning klutziness), those flaws seemed invisible.. After buying a new CG (thanks Ryan), I wanted to go all out and make it as perfect as possible.
Knowing I would most likely ruin the CG by trying to remove the pin, I carefully sanded it down to be nearly flush, and much more flat. Once it seemed flat enough, I wet sanded it lightly, and used a polishing/buffing pad to smooth out the sandpaper scratches in the pin. I finished the pin with cape cod cloth. I then buffed out any scratches on the top of the crown guard, prepping it for brushing later on.
For the lever, I kept ALE's "The Last Steps to Gen" open, and carefully sanded the new shape out of the lever. I used a very light sandpaper, in order to not overdo it.
Lastly, I went over the entire crown-guard with my fiberglass pen, brushing every single surface to a satin finish.
Now onto the pics!
Brushing up to and around the pin was pretty difficult. Keeping lines straight, and not brushing the polished pin was nerve wracking!
Here you can see the lever re-shaping I performed. The tip is now thinner, and points further away from the case than stock. Much closer to the gen pics I viewed in ALE's thread.
Now in this shot, you can see that the pin isn't recessed as per the gen, but this is barely noticeable without extreme angles or macro.
For reference to a stock Noob V3 crown-guard, I took a couple pics of the one I dinged. It has been re-finished around the divot, seen in the bottom half of picture 1, and the top left corner of the CG in pic 2.
If you guys see anything I overlooked, let me know and I'll see if i can fix it. Otherwise, I'm really happy with how it turned out.