Okay, so, I’ve been eyeing those Rolex Submariners for a while, you know, the no-date black ones. They look so slick, but man, they’re pricey! I did some digging and decided to try my hand at making a high imitation. I’m no watchmaker, but I’m pretty handy, and I figured, why not give it a shot?
First off, I started gathering all the parts. I searched many places and found a good case. It needed to be 40 millimeters, just like the real deal. That was important. The genuine ones are about 1.57 inches, which is the same thing, so I made sure of that. I measured it like ten times with my ruler, just to be double sure.
- Case: I spent hours looking for a decent 40mm case. Needed to look like the original.
- Movement: This was the tricky part. I went with a reliable automatic movement.
- Dial: Black, obviously. I found one that looked almost identical to the real Rolex one.
- Hands: The classic Mercedes hands, got a set that looked pretty good.
- Bezel: Black ceramic, with the right markings. Took a while to find a good one.
- Bracelet: Stainless steel, just like the real one. This was easier to find than I thought.
Putting it all together was a bit of a pain, to be honest. I watched a bunch of videos online, and it looked way easier than it was. I had to be super careful not to scratch anything. Also, aligning the hands perfectly was a real challenge. I almost gave up a few times, but I kept at it, taking it slow.
I did some research about the real Submariner too. I learned some things. I read that they’re waterproof to some crazy depth, like 300 meters! That’s like, 1,000 feet. Mine? Definitely not that waterproof, so no deep-sea diving with this bad boy.
There’s also this magnifying thing on some of them, it’s called a “cyclops”, and Rolex invented it. It’s for the date window, but since I’m doing a no-date version, I didn’t have to worry about that.
After a lot of trial and error, and a few choice words, I finally finished it! It actually turned out pretty good! It’s not perfect, obviously, but it looks really close to the real thing. It feels good on the wrist, has a nice weight to it. I wore it around, and a couple of my buddies even thought it was a genuine Rolex! That made me feel like I really did something.
I learned that the real Rolex has a special name for that magnifier, I think it is “cyclops”. Since mine doesn’t have a date, so I skipped that part during making.
All in all, it was a fun little project. Would I do it again? Probably not. It was a lot of work! But I’m happy with how it turned out, and I learned a lot about watches in the process. Now I have a cool-looking watch that didn’t cost me a fortune.
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