Building a Franken Omega SMP Black

[onzenuub 331]

Originally posted by Francisco on another board.

 

The Black Omega Seamaster Profesional is a simple, elegant and all-purpose watch. Follows a picture of the gen:

 

 

However, the reps of this model are not satisfactory. It seems that the only way to have a decent rep is to make a Franken. In my case, I had two buy two reps and a gen dial to build a good rep. In this tuto it is explained how it was built a Franken SMP black. I hope that some of the steps shown here were useful for your franken projects.

 

In first place, some pictures showing the two second-hand reps I bought in a rep forum. Models A and B. Next pictures show these models and their flaws.

 

 

 

Model A has the big advantage of having the helium valve in the correct position, above 10. Very hard to get a model with the correct position. However, hands are clearly short. The font of the bezel is a bit too bold and the pearl is obviously wrong.

 

 

Model B has the helium valve in the wrong position. Bezel is worse than model A. However, hands have correct length.

 

Follows a picture of the bracelets. Model A is the speedmaster bracelet, well replicated. Model B is the Bond bracelet. Although this bracelet is correct too, it is not well replicated, it has a flat surface. Therefore, model A was choosen for the franken.

 

 

The back is correct on both models.

 

 

It is time to talk about the quality of the dials. After a detailed study I decided to buy a gen Omega dial from Ofrei. As I have the gen dial, now it is easy to make a comparison that it is shown in next pictures.

 

 

Next picture shows the more important flaws of watch A dial. The most obvious flaw is not shown on the picture. The quality of lumen. The gen has a lot of C3 surface and it shines like a torch. Apart from the lumen problems, the text on the dial is not correct on this model, for example, the word Omega is quite big.

 

 

Next picture is for watch B. The text on the dial is much better on this model. However, the lumen has a horrible green colour. In this picture the green colour is not visible, just check previous picture to see it. And, as in watch A, no real lumen in the dark.

 

 

Both movements are shown on next picture, the A21j model. Both were in good health. Therefore, I just selected the watch with the closest day text font to the gen. Movement form watch A is a bit better than B in this aspect. Movement B will be for spares.

 

 

Therefore, to build the franken SMP Omega:

 

Take from Model A: case, movement and bracelet.

 

Take from Model B: hands.

 

The bezel insert of both models were not good enough from any model. So I bough a new one from Ebay.

 

Although there is a chance to use an ETA movement like the gen employs, there are some problems to take into account. Some difficulties arise: how to fasten the movement to the case, ETA model has a different colour day font and the DW of the A21j is not compatible. The advantage of using an ETA movement is that the gen hands are compatible. However, rep hands are very good and were lumed with C3. This was the firs step in building the franken, luming the rep hands.

 

The second step was cutting the dial feet. These feet are shown in next picture:

 

 

The dremel with a cutting disk was the tool employed to cut the feet.

 

 

 

To fasten the dial to the movement special stickers designed for this task are going to be employed. The stickers are shown on next picture. Cousins reference number: D0419

 

 

After removing one of the paper protectors one sticker is placed on the movement:

 

 

One sticker more to get a better fastening.

 

 

And the other papers are removed… stickers ready for the dial:

 

 

It is very important to place the dial in the correct position. The day window is the key. It is not easy to get the correct position the first time. However, the stickers permit to remove and to fasten the dial again. Next picture shows the result.

 

 

Next picture shows the movement in the case. The new Ebay insert has to be glued.

 

 

Final result after glueing the insert:

 

 

Last step was Chieftang double AR. The gen only has single AR. However, I wanted to see all the details of the gen dial.

 

 

A picture with his brother Omega Railmaster XXL.

 

 

Thanks for reading

 

Francisco

[jcagara 0]

my my lovely mate!

[zig 0]

Wow, great eye fo detail

[Aren 27]

This is fantastic! I have seen and studied the analyses of many Rolex watches, even though I don't own one. I may never own a Rollex. Still, I can spot a rep Rolex without much difficulty from the education I received here. Learning about the Rollies was fun and interesting, but how much can you examine a DSSD, etc.

 

Now this thread...wonderful !!! This is great. I really love the comparisons of the gens and the reps. This is great. I will have to look at all of the details here more carefully when I have more time. It is Mother's Day here today and I must leave soon. I appreciate seeing the details and having the gen/rep differences shown in fine detail with great photographs and identifying markers for the deviations. This is great.

 

I miss the times when I could enjoy coming to the forum and appreciate reading discussions of lovely watches seeing wonderful reps right at the top of the Recent Topic threads. I have spent too much time looking at news and world events and not appreciating the General Topic discussions as much as I did pre-Fuk-U.

 

The camaraderie here has been wonderful as always, but I look forward to a time when there are more posts like this one, which take me away from areas in life which can become too serious. This is one of the things I love most about RWG. I have been waiting for more Ska Glow Jobs dissections and being content with merely looking at the wrist checks. Still, I can't do a comparative analysis of a watch on my own. I can do some, but not as much as I would like. This post reminds me of a different time in a world sense and a horological sense.

 

Awesome necropost... I love time machines !

 

Thanks Onze and especially Francisco.

 

[seclark007 11]

nice, I'm glad this was reposted.

[facemanuk 4]

Truly fascinating. Every day I find something new on the Forum and there's no better example of that than this. After just a few days of joining it's obvious to me that buying a rep is just the first step of a much more involved passion!

[Olly 0]

Talk about dragging a thread from the achieves

[facemanuk 4]

Talk about dragging a thread from the achieves

 

Classic literature is timeless!