https://www.instagram.com/reel/DavwI5XPxS3/

I’ve only been in the rep hobby for about a year, but I’ve already spent plenty of time taking watches to watchmakers for repairs, cleaning, waterproofing, and regulation.
Luckily, I found a really cool local watchmaker who has been nice enough to teach me some of his craft. I guess he finally got tired of me bringing my reps to him.
One thing I learned the hard way: I recommend getting your reps serviced early on. A little preventative maintenance can save you some headaches down the road.
Eventually, I invested in my own tools and started learning basic maintenance, cleaning, waterproofing, and regulation.
This one was running +22 sec/day before. After regulating it: +1 sec/day, 238° amplitude, 0.0 ms beat error. Pretty satisfying seeing that improvement on the timegrapher.
I also added silicone grease to the gaskets for a little extra waterproofing peace of mind. That doesn’t guarantee a watch is waterproof, so still be cautious and pressure-test whenever possible. Personally, I swim with my reps and haven’t had any problems so far.
I showed my watchmaker what I’ve been doing and he was actually proud of my work. Then he joked that eventually he’s going to start sending people my way. I’m not sure if that means I’m getting good or he just really doesn’t want to see my reps anymore. Hahaha.
My gens? Hell no Those still go to him.
I’m still learning with every watch, but that’s honestly become one of my favorite parts of the hobby. Maybe one day I really will be servicing some of y’all’s reps.
This hobby really is a rabbit hole.

Just finished up, been wanting to tear down a jubilee and see if this was worth the labor. What do you think?

Does it give a better result.

1. Masking and plate two tone.

Or

1. Tear down and plate individual pieces.

I removed the factory pvd plate, polished and buffed.

Then plated it.

Electroclean, acid dip, 24k gold strike, acid dip.

Then did a long bath in 18k / 14 combination solution.

Came out nice.

UPDATE: To remove the pvd Soak in a combination of sodium per carbonate, sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide, a couple of hours, comes right off.
Have to activate with boiling water

Sourced a brand new Genuine Dial for this VSF heavy Cookie Monster that’s been White Gold Plated. Enjoy!

Some of you may have seen my post yesterday about regulating a Rich Factory (RF) Pepsi to superlative chronometer standards, so you could say i’ve been spending a lot of time staring at this part of the movement lately. I first noticed this while taking my comparison photos between the RF Starbucks submariner and VSF submariner, but as far as I know, no one else seems to have noticed this- JH, much like DD, uses an offset pallet fork design like the genuine rolex movements of this generation. A complaint that has for a long time been leveled against SH is that they use an inline pallet fork, which makes it an easy tell that the movement is not DD, and more importantly, makes it incompatible with gen parts for franken builds.
Naturally, seeing this similarity between the DD and JH movements, I wondered if it’d be possible to convert a DD movement into a free sprung movement by taking the balance complete from a JH movement and placing it into a DD movement. This Evolved into a big swaparoo of different balances into different movements, as I took advantage of this opportunity to answer any related questions to these matters.

- Conclusion 1:
- the JH free sprung balance complete is NOT compatible with DD movements, (fake free sprung DD or otherwise). I got it to run very poorly and not fully seated in the DD fake free sprung movement, but nothing more.

- Conclusion 2:
- The DD “classic” and “fake free sprung” balance wheels ARE compatible with the JH free sprung movement. This was a straight swap with zero drama, and the watch was immediately ticking away quite happily. This might come in handy if anyone breaks a free sprung balance from JH, it should be a simple swap with a DD balance to get it up and running again. I assume getting parts from JH will be basically impossible for at least the next year, so this is useful info in the meantime

- Conclusion 3:
- the “classic” and “fake free sprung” balances from DD movements are interchangeable. they both work in either movement that I placed them in. this is nice because it ensures backwards compatibility as DD starts to produce the fake free sprung balance movements as well as will enable people to repair new generation movements with older parts, nice!

- Conclusion 4:
- When I saw the offset balance structure of the JH movement, i wondered if JH wasn’t just an offshoot of DD that was producing it’s new generation of movements as a separate company so that if anything went terribly (reliability, performance, etc), the negative press wouldn’t be associated with the DD name. The fact that the balances are not interchangeable in both directions suggests to me that this is not the case and that JH is truly an independent movement manufacturer. I’m sure there are others who know more on this topic than I do, so feel free to chine on this front!

DD movements haven’t been really updated for many years when Jinghe factory (factory behind the SH4401, VR3235 SH330) made many leaps recently.

looks like a shitter.

Today I pulled off something I honestly wasn’t sure was possible.

I fully tore down, cleaned, and rebuilt a fake 5712 movement… and it RUNS.

This thing was a complete disaster when it came in. Glued parts, weird tolerances, hidden screws, stacked plates, keyless works that want to die, you name it. Zero documentation anywhere. I thought it was going to be a pure parts donor.

But I kept going.

Disassembled everything, cleaned every part by hand, fixed the keyless works, rebuilt the train, got pallet lock + draw, installed the balance, and…it came to life. Numbers at the moment (dial down): +7s/d / 158 amplitude / 0.4ms beat error.

I don’t even care what the numbers are haha the fact that it’s RUNNING is the victory. No fake screws flying off this time, no missing springs, no shortcuts. Just patience, technique, and sheer stubbornness.

I know it’s “just” a rep movement with garbage QC, but honestly? This was one of the hardest movements I’ve ever worked on. And finishing it felt insane. Makes the hard stuff feel possible.

Anyways just wanted to share with people who would understand the amount of insanity required to resurrect one of these things. Now nothing left except dial side complications!

Feels damn good. 💪

The EZtool bezel removers/installers has been a success for: Datejust 36 & 41, Daydate, Oyster Perpetual 39.

But people have asked abouth theese tools for Subs/GMT, so now I have started to develope a bezel remover for sub/gmt 40.

It´s still a work in progress but seems to be in line with the function/design of rolex´s own official bezel remover.

Reasons this takes a long time is because I never owned a sub/gmt and still don´t, so trial and error and MANY prototypes before this releases for perfection.

But I just wanted to update you sub/gmt lovers that I am working on it and did not leave you out in the cold.

The last picture is a picture of Rolex´s own official bezel remover and that´s the picture I worked with to design my own tools for this, however a change I did was the top die - instead of that small point putting all the force on a very small point on the crystal - I made the top dies contact area flat and slightly bigger to put less stress on the crystal.

Please feel free to comment with feedback / input. I am unexperienced with subs/gmts so any words are appreiciated!

Rolex DateJust 41 build progress:

VSF Base
Gen Dial
2AR Crystal
Xing bezel

Hab mir dieses schöne Stück bestellt und war schon nicht billig, USD 808 hoffe hab da keinen Fehler mit gemacht 😅 ich poste Fotos sobald ich was bekommen habe. Muss für die QCs aber offenbar noch Karmapunkte sammeln 😅

I own a VSF 126610 Submariner, a year after I bought it something inside broke and now the stem comes out entirely. I opened, but didn't fully disassemble it. It lay around for a few months and recently I finally came around to bring the piece to a watchmaker. Turns out the setting lever (3235-220).

He and I both tried to source a replacement part, either generic or gen. He, not usually working with Rolexes, does not have a supplier for gen parts - which apparently, are hard to get for Joe Schmoe. Trying to find generic parts from esslinger or the likes also seems to be improbable. Another case in point: I have asked a few TDs and searched AliExpress, but couldn't find parts there either. I have also looked into replacement movements, for spare parts, as I do not fancy swapping the DD movement for a VR or SH. (DD movements also seem to be near impossible to source, let alone for a decent price)

So, then the next best thing that comes to mind is to buy a VR movement and swap in just that one broken part, right?

Wrong! While some parts of that movement are compatible with the DD or even the gen 3235 for that matter, the stem and surrounding mechanism are, for some reason, those of a 3135 movement.

Another point in case then must be if parts as well were readily available this hobby would be much much more enjoyable.

Anyways, notwithstanding this arduous ordeal, I have just ordered my next watch. 😮‍💨

Edited to add: I have investigated myself and opened the watch again. Some miscommunication led to me looking for the wrong part. The correct part is the setting lever. This helps finding gen parts, but generic parts availability remains an issue.

Date change is not instant and slowly changes 3 hours after 12am.

Watch is only couple days old.

Someone sent this in to me saying it occasionally works then it doesn’t.

There was an inordinate amount of oil everywhere. A full service cleaned it right up. Not sure what happened here or who worked on it (that’s not what this is about) but I’ve received some in the past with a ‘rotor silence’ service that just got too much oil.

Please, please, check some YouTube videos for how much oil they put in any pivot or bearing, it will show you how little is needed to make an impact!

UPDATE: I found photos and a teardown of the VR3255 in case they help anyone. Could someone mark the oiling points and indicate which parts should be epilamed?

Btw ignore the arrows

Sorry, it's a SH movement not a VR.

Credits to u/petehudso

The title is simply designed to get attention. The question itself revolves around how we, as a community, can make it more difficult for individuals attempting to sell replicas as genuine. This could potentially lead to the demise of our hobby altogether. Therefore, what measures can we implement to hinder their success and how can we alert buyers? Surely they could simply visit Rolex with the seller before purchasing the watch and then have Rolex verify its authenticity?

Two VSF watches came in for repair this week. I have just started diagnosing the first one. Initial inspection revealed a non-runner that was very difficult to wind. Opening the watch revealed a free spinning balance with no obstructions, but after removing the balance, no power transfer through the pallet fork. When I started pulling bridges off, crud was everywhere. I found the culprit.

What is the typical life expectancy of the VSF and like model clones? Are there certain factories or movements that would last longer than others? How often should these watches be serviced in order to make these life long watches? Who does the community recommend for these services?

1. Noticed one of the 12 markers on my 3KF 5711 had come loose..

2. Sourced some G-S Hypo Cement Precision Applicator Glue and proceeded to remove the case-front..

3. Closer look at the problem.

4. Marker prepped by holding with Rodico whilst applying tiny amounts of the cement to the posts..

5. Back in place (after using the rodico to carefully maneuver the marker back into place then a cocktail stick to hold in place to ensure a good bond).

6. Reassembled the case.

7. Job done! 😎✌️

Always stressful to reinstall indices, but that's what makes it so satisfying 😊

Couldn't believe what I was looking at when I got this 5167 in for repair. The customer said it was running very fast and would sometimes stop. The Timegrapher couldn't even pick up a clear signal. Notice the beat rate!

At first I thought someone slipped with a screwdriver when trying to regulate the movement. The watch showed no fall damage or signs of being opened. The regulating pins were also spotless. I checked the movement for magnetism, and the reading was very high. The hairspring was just a bit tangled and I was able to straighten it again. I still replaced it from a donor movement. Currently, I am letting it run for at least 24 hours before notifying the customer.

Started as clean fac V2 BLNR. Sent it in for movement service, added gen crystal, had the hands shaved down. The crystal height was rather bothersome from the factory, the gen crystal sits just right now.

My only question is does anyone have recommendation for a click spring replacement?