Panerai 183 Lume and Cannon Pinion Tutorial by Skathewatch. (PIC HEAVY)

[Ska 11]

Panerai 183 Lume and Cannon Pinion Noob-Torial by Skathewatch

 

With huge gratitude to KinCaidK and Sconehead.

 

When I joined this forum I quickly noticed the Panerai fetish shared by a staggering proportion of those who frequent our hallowed board. Indeed it became clear that for some it is a veritable obsession. You all know who you are.

 

I have to confess that for a long time I just couldn't understand the love and fascination people had for what looked to me like clumsy, oversized railway-station clocks on chubby straps made from ancient Viking underwear. (And I unashamedly voiced this opinion.)

 

"Just wait a while." said... well everyone really. "You'll see, in a couple of months it'll hit you and you'll never look back."

 

Well fuck me. :P I bet you're all feeling pretty smug now aren't you...... because 6 months later I now officially like one Pam.

 

Sooooooo

 

My latest acquisition from the ever-awesome Mary is precisely that: a Panerai Radiomir Black Seal 183h. And its downright gorgeous. True, classic watch porn. A timeless design almost unchanged since its inception in 1936 and one of the great cult watches of all time.

 

Here's a shot of the gen:

 

 

The rep itself is going to be the subject of a detailed review in the next few days so I won't go into the minutiae here but suffice to say its staggeringly good. There were however two issues (both of which I knew about before buying the rep) which I knew would have to be sorted before I was happy with her. Firstly as with most (if not all) Pam reps with Asian Unitas movements the cannon pinion is too short meaning that its crown is sunken below the top of the minute hand's tube. Second was the rep lume which was both shockingly weak at night - the worst in my collection by a country mile - and worse, bottle green in daylight.

 

Here's my 183 on arrival:

 

 

A good excuse for some ninja-style modding I thought. How hard can it be??

Kink for reasons best known to himself decided to send me some lume for which I am eternally grateful, but to make things weirder, (I still don't fully understand this - I'm just quietly thankful) it was sent to me by Sconehead, although... it was Kinky's. Why a monkey from up north would be harbouring bags of exotic powder for a gay viking isn't something I'm prepared to give much thought..... best just to nod and smile.

 

I've been gradually adding to my watchmaker's bench for ages ever since the oft-lamented UPO Chrono Crown/Tube/Stem/Thread debacle so I had most of the tools needed for this job.

 

My Bench:

 

 

For anyone who wants to attempt this in future here's a list of what you'll need: (Most of this is available from the RWG shop.)

 

Cannon Pin Fix:

 

1. Genuine ETA 6497 Cannon Pin (Available at Cousins here: http://www.cousinsuk.com/searchresults.asp...=UT6497240H315)

2. Gaffer Tape (Duct Tape to the yanks) - Or a Jaxa style case opener if you have one.

3. Set of Watchmaker's Screwdrivers (I got mine ages ago but now I'd recommend using the RWG Shop)

4. Movement Holder Vice. (Again RWG shop, but if you must use fleabay make sure you get one with an aluminium chassis.)

5. Jeweller's Tweezers

6. Presto or similar style hands remover.

7. Some small, clean tubs to store parts as you remove them.

8. paper to use as a dial protector

9. 2000 grit wet and dry paper

 

Re-Lume: (Most of the above plus a few more bits.)

 

1. Lume Powder (I used GlowInc's Pure Blue - fine grain and according to those who know, it easily stands up against super-luminova.)

2. Binder (you can buy specific binder for lume however I used a polyurethane lacquer which dries hard and clear in 15 mins.)

3. Toothpicks

4. Scalpel

5. Pallette or Mixing Bowl

6. White modeling spray paint.

7. Some thick card

8. A watch oiler

9. Rodico

10. Silicon Grease (Not essential but very useful)

 

Well here goes!!

 

PART ONE: INSTALLING THE GEN ETA CANNON PINION

 

1. First we must remove the bracelet. The Radiomir has removable lugs in the form of right-angled pins which are joined by a tube in the centre.

 

 

These are released by simply removing screws at each corner of the case.

 

 

And here with the bracelet removed.

 

 

 

2. Now we remove the case-back using either a ball of gaffer-tape or a jaxa opener if you have one.

 

 

3. Remove the main o-ring from the case and store in a clean tub, we will grease this before closing up when finished. You can see here how good the engraving is on the movement. Mary sent me a truly beautiful example. Of course your watch will be worth significantly more (should you ever wish to sell it on RepGeek) if you take the opportunity to swap the o-ring for a genuine Panerai one

 

 

 

 

4. At this point I needed to have lunch so I covered the open watch with a very expensive and rare antique dust shield, this was actually handed down to me by my late great grandfather. I believe he won it in a Poker match against A. Lange and Sohne on a paddle steamer in 1936. I'm selling it for £50,000 on RG next week.

 

 

5. Back from lunch, the next step is to remove the crown, It is held in with a little silver-headed screw offset sightly from the stem. Unscrew the crown from the tube and pull out to the time-setting position before turning the screw anti-clockwise by NO MORE THAN 1.5 TURNS. This should easily release the stem.

 

 

Once the crown is released I always tighten the screw back up by half a turn to avoid the risk of over-loosening which is a whole other nightmare.

 

 

6. The movement is secured into the case by two small screws with retainer plates that fit under a lip on the case's inner edge.

 

 

Take them out and carefully uncase the movement, transferring it dial-up into a movement vice. You can see here how green the rep lume is in daylight.

 

 

 

7. Next we will be removing the hands. First cut a slit in a square of paper just wide enough for the cannon pinion and slide it under the hour hand. You''ll notice I have now set the hands at midnight.

 

 

8. The presto hand-remover is a godsend. Once removed, store the hands on toothpicks stuck in something which won't fall over.

 

 

 

9. Repeat for the seconds hand with a smaller slit and be careful not to let it ping off into an alternative dimension. Store on a little cone of Rodico for later.

 

 

 

10. Right, time to get into the heart of this beast. The dial is secured by two captive screws which hold in dial pins on the underside of the movement with cams that locate in the pins' grooves. Unscrew them 180 degrees, and holding securely flip the movement back to dial-up and place back in the vice. The dial will come away easily to reveal this:

 

 

11. Remove the hour wheel to reveal the cannon pin beneath. Taking a firm grip with the presto remover pop it off. Here you can see how much shorter it is compared to the gen ETA CP (on the left).

 

 

12. To install the new pinion we need to remove the keyless works cover by undoing the big screw in the middle of the plate. EXCERCISE EXTREME CAUTION. There is a leaf spring under the plate which will pop off if you aren't VERY careful. If this happens I can almost guarantee you will never find it. I decided to preempt this by removing it myself so it didn't fly off whilst I was busy setting the gears, and carefully reassembling it on my own terms!

 

 

13. Once the cover is off, remove the minute gear, press down the Cannon Pinion firmly and then fit the minute gear back making sure it engages with the winding gears. Put the cover back on and presto, you have a spangly new Cannon Pinion!!

 

 

14. To get the top of the minute hand to fit flush with the top of the CP turn it over and use some very fine grit abrasive paper to sand down the tube almost to the bottom surface of the hand. I used 2000 grit aluminium oxide paper (and forgot to take a photo. Dammit.)

 

At this stage if you're not going to be doing the lume mod, just reverse points 1 - 10 to put everything back together. Don't forget to grease the o-ring.

 

PART 2: RE-LUMING A SANDWICH DIAL

 

1. As we have the dial off, the next stage is to separate the two halves of the sandwich. I left the dial under a warm bulb for about 10 minutes prior to starting this, to warm the glue up a little. Take a scalpel blade and carefully work around the edges at the join until the top disk comes free. Be careful not to go too quickly or you risk bending the dial. Patience is the key here.

 

 

You will end up with something that looks like this:

 

 

2. I took this opportunity to clean up the main dial with some rodico.

 

 

 

3. The rear dial has two locating pins in the back of it. Take your thick card and press the dial into it, this will keep it secure. I followed a tip from RWI at this point and marked out the position of the indices. (later this proved to be useless as you will see.)

 

 

4. First we have to remove the old lume from the dial, I used a cloth soaked in solvent which got rid of it in about 2 minutes.

 

 

It left a load of glue residue but this was easily scraped off with the flat of a scalpel blade. When finished it looked like this:

 

 

5. Paint time! I tested a number of white primers and settled on this one as the smoothest (its also the fastest drying which is a bonus) Its "Army Painter" white spray primer which I "liberated" from my Brother-In-Law's cupboard. Another piece of card comes in useful too.

 

 

And the finished dial 15 minutes later:

 

 

6. In the meantime I removed the lume from the hands. I took my time over this, because its very easy to accidentaly remove the paint from the top surface. I kept the hands on the toothpicks (upside down) and gently rubbed the lume with a cotton bud soaked in solvent until it started to "melt away" I then used the scalpel to slowly scrape away any remaining particles until I ended up with this:

 

 

7. Lume time! Here's a quick shot of the required gear.

 

 

Lume Powder. (It came in bags but I had these phials lying around.)

 

 

Right, here's the important bit. At first I used way too much powder and not enough binder. It needs to be very wet, the consistency of double cream for the dial and only a tiny bit thicker for the hands. Remember, the binder will partially evaporate as it dries so the lume will be distributed evenly. I used a 40:60 Lume to Binder ratio for the dial and a 50:50 ratio for the hands by just adding a tiny pinch of powder to the mix.

 

I used a toothpick to drop little blobs of lume onto the dial, if its wet enough these will 'level out' by themselves and result in an even spread.

It was at this point I decided to ditch the idea of just doing the indices, and thought fuck it, I'll do the lot. I just had to make sure that the layer was uniformly thin so that the two parts of the dial will come together flush after the lume dried. Please note, that the darker tinge in the photo is because the lacquer has a brown tint to it when wet, however it dries perfectly clear as you'll see later.

 

 

8. The hands are done in much the same way but using a watch oiler instead of a toothpick to place the lume in the cavities from the BACK of the hands. I found that a larger blob of lume and a single smooth motion was the best way to get a good finish. (Mind you it took a couple of tries and a lot of swearing to get it perfect.) In the end though it worked out very well. Try not to get too much extra lume on the back of the hands, I left too much on the hour hand the 1st time, recased the watch without realising and then had to take it all apart again to fix it.

 

 

We need to leave the hands for 15-20 minutes to dry before then using the tiny hobby brush to paint a little stripe of white paint on the underside of the hands to reinforce the strength of the lume.

 

9. Now everything's dried we can line-up and refit the dial using some care and a little hypo cement which will take another 15 or so minutes to dry. We can see here that the daylight colour is almost perfectly white. Great result!!!

 

 

 

We can now have some fun and test out the lume, thankfully it seems to have worked very nicely indeed!!

 

 

10. Time to case everything back up. Make sure the dial is pressed firmly onto the movement before tightening the dial screws otherwise they won't bite on the pins. Once back on, put the movement back in the vice and carefully press on the hands. BE VERY CAREFUL WITH LOCATING THE SECONDS HAND - you can easily bend the spindle it sits in. I use my microscope for jobs like that, and have the seconds hand on the end of a sliver of rodico. Give the dial a final once-over with some Rodico, check the inside of the case for dust/lint and carefully place in the movement. Don't forget the movement retainer screws.

 

The rest is a breeze!! Just grease the o-ring with some silicon grease and check the case-back is clean before screwing it back down.

 

 

Refit the bracelet, and hooray!

 

 

A proper glowy Pam!!!

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this noob-torial.

 

Cheers for reading

 

Ska :ninja:

[xcape 0]

I just can said, WOW!!!! I never liked look up about Panerai but this one with this blue number at night is awesome! Great pics, great job. Just go on like this.

[greg_r 81]

Why a monkey from up north would be harbouring bags of exotic powder for a gay viking isn't something I'm prepared to give much thought..... best just to nod and smile.

 

I find this vaguely worrying.... :P

 

 

Great tute, though mate. That lume looks outstanding!

[atmos 1]

amazing !!! wow !!

[KinCaidk 0]

You are a legend, mate!

 

Now we have the best lume tutorial available..

 

 

muhahahahahah ahhahahahaah

[Akira 0]

Awesome work Ska

 

Insanely precisely IMO, but its a pleasure to read.

Now i know where to relume my watches :P

[solkryssare 109]

Very impressive work mate! You are a true asset to this forum.

[sconehead 5]

Great tuto, fantastic pics...you have a sticky my friend...:P

[Brightlight 0]

Great Tutorial Ska!

 

And don't fear -

 

I have to confess that for a long time I just couldn't understand the love and fascination people had for what looked to me like clumsy, oversized railway-station clocks on chubby straps made from ancient Viking underwear. (And I unashamedly voiced this opinion.)

 

I too thought that at first, then I was brainwashed by the forumites and the thought that 'all these people can't be wrong' and I developed a love affair with Pam as you have now, even did the canon pinion mods and luming of sandwich dials, etc. until one day the scales fell from my eyes and I saw them as they actually are, "clumsy, oversized railway-station clocks on chubby straps made from ancient Viking underwear", decided my prick was big enough and I didn't need any compensation, so sold all my Pams and moved on to more sensible good looking watches.

[Ska 11]

Thanks guys!

 

I'm going to practice on a couple more of my own watches but once I'm totally confident, if anyone needs a relume / CP mod I'll be more than happy to help. Can't believe how well this went TBH, I was sure I was going to fuck something up big time.

[gtwc 1]

yet again my admiration knows no bounds.

 

my gast has never been so flabbered.

 

are you hoping to make a career out of this ?

 

wonderful tutorial ska.

[pollux1 3]

Simply outstanding work Ska!

[WebWind 1]

Great tutorial Ska!

 

Thanx for sharing.

[Dr.Verylong 0]

Kudos. Thank you for your tutorial!

[loketje 0]

I had never even heard of Panerai before joining this forum, and guess what my first watch was.....

Really great tutorial.

[andygt 0]

Good skills there mate, the blue lume looks superb.

Brilliant tutorial too, well done .)

[dingle 57]

Classy, Funny, Informative.....best damn tutorial I have seen, read, and enjoyed in a long damn time. Well done my friend.

 

P.S.---where the hell is Sam?

[avenger007 29]

Awesome work, Ska! Thanks for sharing this one.

[ImWatchingYOU 0]

Great job, great tutorial and excellent pictures. What camera do you use?

[mspangl 0]

thats just simply amazing.. i wish i could do that

[Ska 11]

Great job, great tutorial and excellent pictures. What camera do you use?

 

Thanks mate, I use a Nikon D5000 and various prime lenses.

[slvg325 0]

This tutorial makes it look easy, thank you. How much cursing was actually involved with the re-lume?

[ImWatchingYOU 0]

Great job, great tutorial and excellent pictures. What camera do you use?

 

Thanks mate, I use a Nikon D5000 and various prime lenses.

 

Sorry for the OT, but I have a Nikon D90, which should basically be the same, but I have the KIT lens, and dont know which ones to buy to picture watches and macro shots. Any suggestions? You are welcome to PM to keep the thread clean

[Luthier 1]

I have to confess that for a long time I just couldn't understand the love and fascination people had for what looked to me like clumsy, oversized railway-station clocks on chubby straps made from ancient Viking underwear.

:)

Best description of PAMs EVER!!!

+1M, Chris!!!

[Silverspeed 10]

Well done Ska...very well written tutorial...and a fun read!