I have a few build threads I will be doing but for now I’ll throw out a Mod thread.
Picked up this Immelmann diver just before Xmas. It’s one of 9 prototypes, either made of Ti of aluminum (not sure). Either way it’s nice and light. It chimes in at a grossly oversized 58mm if you measure from the widest parts, but you’d never know you’re wearing such a beast.
I bought it and I love it, but I knew I was going to have to mod this bad boy.
For those that don't want to scroll thru the process pics, here is the before and after.
As received when I bought it...
Take note of the cool stepped minute hand to get over the elevated indices. Bezel screws are faux.
Caseback removal…
No idea how to get this out, I suspected the large rubber gasket was holding everything in place as there were no screws and nothing would come out. As I didn’t want to ruin the gasket I got a tool that could get right under and I pried it off. After that everything just slide out nicely.
She's being powered by a Swiss 2824
Disassembled….
Heat blued hands with horrible reddish/pink lume - WTF!
Dial…
PLANS - open to suggestions…
I really want to keep the subtle, modern industrial look of the watch, but I also want to add a tiny bit of pop.
Hands - paint stonewashed grey colour w/ grey lume
Dial - text fill with bright white w/ grey lume.
[UPDATED - MARCH 1, 2020]
Ok, so I've realized this is going to be a work in progress and a test of patience. I really wanted to keep this muted and stay grey, with a bit of 'pop' coming from the white in the text and second hand. Bottom line is there are too many shades of grey trying to work together here. Dial is aircraft grade aluminum, steel grey hands, mid grey lume. The three don't match. I think I may need to go something along the lines of one of my past builds. (pic below.)
I knew filling the text with oil pastel may be an issue. On a painted dial it's fantastic, but as expected it is causing havoc on the aluminum. Note the shiny sections around the text. I can't get close enough to remove them without affecting the text. Ah well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Rubbed the whole dial with oil pastel to blend it in. That doesn't work either.
I painted 3 blank dials to see what would look good with the case.
I think that puttering will continue. Really think contrasting is the way to go. [mention]daevildog[/mention] suggested a colourway that would lean to that direction. Maybe white lume on a grey dial?
[UPDATED - APRIL 9, 2020]
Ok, decided to go with a nice diver blue for the minute and seconds with white lume. Indices are going to be white lume as well. 3 coats of lume already, one possibly two more for a nice torch glow.
Sandblasted the dial for a nice clean look, scrapped the idea of painting it. Filling the text resulted in a nice vintage look as you can see above, but ultimately I wanted a uniform looking dial and focused on the lume and hands.
[UPDATED - APRIL 14, 2020]
Six layers of Noctilume making this guy glow like a torch.
[UPDATED - COMPLETE JUNE 2020]
So with the lume complete all that remained was the crown. Being that this is a aluminum case painting was going to be a problem as paint doesn't really adhere to alu that well. I looked into cerakote, anodizing and some other options but none gave me the ability to choose a very specific colour. After some research I realized painting could be achieved by blasting the crown and then using special primer. BOOM! All done and complete.
Enjoy....
