Building a DREAM Custom Watch from AliExpress

we're going to be building another watch from AliExpress everybody's been really loving watching these videos I've been loving making them so here's another one the difference with this one is that the case is going to have an exhibition case back so we can see inside the movement we haven't done one of those yet I'm also going to be installing a custom dial this was £20 they come into two different sizes there's a slightly larger one and a smaller one and this you can print anything you want onto however it's not quite it seems we're going to take a look at that in just a moment I'm also going to be installing a custom rotor this is for the automatic watch movement there's a little rotor thing here I've got no idea what to expect from it but what I'm looking at right now is not what I thought it was going to be so again this is going to be interesting um I've got some really cool little hands which kind of goes with the dial and then the exact same movement as I've been using in the other ones the nh35 I'll be linking the places where you can buy all of this stuff in the description without any further Ado let's begin so let's take a look at the case this is for my friend Alex and his wife Joe is an artist she's really damn cool and this is a piece of art that she did that is now going to be on Alex's wrist so kind of awesome for those of you who may have watched my Japan Series where I traveled around Japan Alex came with me on that Adventure so this is for Alex we've been friends um since we we were like six or something like that um but yeah this is a lovely big case it's in rose gold it's absolutely beautiful it's got a really nice big sort of bevel or curve or sort of Bulge on the um on the sapphire crystal on the top there and then it's got the nice exhibition case back so we can see inside and then to go with the custom dial I was hopefully going to be installing this blue little sort of rotor weight but what I'm looking at actually is not a rotor and it's like a little face plate thing that you just stick on is that not like a piece of adhesive there is that not going to be slightly damaging to the movement I mean it is incredibly thin so it might not make much of a difference but I can't imagine putting anything on that is going to be a good idea but we're going to take a look we'll give it a go if it doesn't work Alex can uh can send it back he only he only lives in Japan um this is the custom dial now this is just absolutely gorgeous and it's actually a place that's very close to my heart as well as Alex's and his wife Joe's this is a light house in Jersey now correct me if I'm wrong Joe but I believe it's corbier Lighthouse and uh yeah it's just absolutely beautiful her painting is just so cool check out her Instagram I'll put that in the description but where this is slightly interesting is that it's not actually like a proper company offering this custom dial printing service it's just the like this dude on AliExpress and when you buy the thing you contact him he asks to contact you via WhatsApp and then you email him the file and he doesn't print it onto an actual dial this is just a thin piece of round metal so it's not quite like a custom dial as much as it's just a a UV printed disc with a hole in the middle um and what that also means is that there's no dial feet so what it includes is these little glue strip sticker things so we're going to have to essentially adhere the dial down to the movement so if we get a watch at the end of this it will be a miracle so let's begin by by gluing the dial to the movement so this is one of the photos that the AliExpress seller sent me on Whatsapp and this is just showing where you need to apply the stickers to it's sort of on the edge of the move movement this is really quite a strange thing to be doing it feels wrong I'm sure there's going to be many people very unhappy with this also kind of curious to see how this little rotor sticker is going to work so let's just very very carefully in fact we'll keep it in this because this is kind of like a movement holder which is quite good let's uh let's take a look at this how does that fit onto there you know what's going to be really hard is actually aligning it when we place it down because the the sticker is just going to immediately adhere onto that okay so that does actually look really cool but I'm a little bit worried about how well it's going to align as I'm placing it down the adhesive is just going to get all sticky and stick to everything and it's going to be really hard to move it around and Center it but you know we'll give it a go um I just think that it's kind of of a crazy concept I thought we were going to be like unscrewing this and replacing it entirely but anyway what we're actually going to have to do is put this on first because I need to sit the movement down flat then after that so that I can put the dial and the hands on so we're actually going to do this first so let's try and peel off this sticker on the back there we go right now let's attempt to stick this down Goodness Me well that is on I uh I fiddled with it a little tiny bit more but that is on and to be honest with you it's not too bad uh I don't I don't know how good of an idea it is but I wanted a little surprise on there for Alex and to me that looks like the ocean the kind of the waves and given that the case back is uh is open I just thought that that would be really cool to see that but I don't know how much I like sticking something onto a rotor I just think that's a bit crazy I don't think Rolex would be seen doing that but anyway let's uh let's place the movement down now and you can see around the edge where this gray plastic is that's where we're going to be sticking the little uh glue strip things so let's go ahead and do that now okay so that's all the little glue strips stuck down let's take the dial there's a small indentation on the side to align with the stem so let me go ahead and set that down I'm going to do it like this so that I can get it all nice and centered very gently press on that there and there we have it that is looking good okay so it's time for the hands so I ordered two different sets of hands I ordered black hands and white hands um but undoubtedly the white hands look so much better plus it also kind of makes them look like bones so these are little fish uh bone hands and yeah the white ones 100% look much better so I just realized this this dial hasn't got a cut out for the calendar which is uh rather bad I didn't actually see that so we're going to carry on but it's going to have an extra click which is going to do nothing so yeah whoopsie um not great so these hands can now go on in any way shape or form because uh there's nothing to align them to as in I don't have to set the time so that the date is about to change to know where 12:00 is I can just push these down at will so let me go ahead and do that okay the hour hand is on next up is the minute hand and this looks really really cool so the hour hand and the minute hand are on the final one to do is the seconds hand all go going fairly well so far little bit of a FF trying to align it but you know what you're doing when you look at it in person you just need to make sure that the hands are sweeping over each other and not hitting if they're lopsided you know put the uh the hand Pusher thing back down and just sort of Center it again let's go in with the second hand now so the dial and the hands are on one thing I think I would really strongly advise is that you don't go for like painted hands I think the paint makes it really difficult when you if you misalign the hands you have to sort of Wiggle them around again with the hand pushes um and I ended up slightly scratching the black hand luckily I just used a little marker and it and it's completely hidden it you will never see that again but the white one the white second hand I ended up scratching which is why I've put on the Black second hand but actually I think the variation looks kind of nice maybe I don't know but it's it's the best that I can do now hopefully Alex won't mind it it makes it look quite hard to see with this lighting but the black hand is really nice and obvious in the light so I think it looks kind of cool with the variation of hands there so the next thing to do is put it inside the case so let's take a quick look inside here right we've got this little um this little piece which I imagine is to Center everything because this case is quite large we need to take out the existing stem which is in there so I'm going to go ahead and do that quickly that's achieved by just pushing down that little lever okay so let's take the dial and the movement and everything and give everything a good dust off and we can pop that inside roughly seeing where it's going to go um with the little cut out that was in that dial that I mentioned there we go and then we can just ever so carefully tilt it round till we see where the stem needs to go in take the stem that came with the movement and I'm going to pop that [Music] in there we go right and then this little piece here is going to clip everything into place and hold it all down and Center it so let's push that all the way in make sure that is Thoroughly down and what we're going to do before we go any further is just screw down the case back and see that that's going to close all the way up because then we know it's all aligned okay so the good news is the rotor spins absolutely perfectly and everything is in so this is actually beginning to look like a watch and it's really quite cool it's a very unique look and it's going to mean a lot to Alex I think it looks kind of sick I wish the second hand was white I'm going to double check with Alex that he's happy with this if not I will order another set of hands and replace it because I do think that the second hand is quite hard to see when it goes over those rocks but everything else looks kind of sweet so I'll check with Alex and I'll order that up if that's an issue right so the next thing we need to do is sort out the stem so we've learned how to do this now we need to screw the uh the stem all the way down and then get my calipers okay and between the end of that little barrel and the inside of the crown is 5.64 so now what we can do is open the case back again and just set that to the side and then remove the stem entirely okay right let's unscrew that little crown and my advice to you on this is order a bunch of stems from AliExpress don't just trust that you're going to get this right the first time and that way you've got backups and I've realized as well that trying to Sharpie on the stem is just a complete waste of time so here we go ouch so then we need to file down the end of the stem the end of the stem it's quite poetic okay let's see if that screws down getting this stem perfect is a little bit of a nightmare because this isn't a screw down Crown so what I'm doing is just putting it in making sure that the stem is all the way flush to the case if it's not I'm taking it back out and just filing it ever so gently again and that is absolutely perfect great stuff okay I'm going to now put some Loctite on that and that's it done whilst that Loctite dries to try and make this as waterproof as possible I'm going to very gently remove the seal that is inside the case back and give it a good grease so here we go let's pop that in there and give it a little twist okay take that out and pop it back into place right I'm going to set this Crown in here now once and for all here we go that is it Filly in oh boy it's getting close Okay then we can take the case back give it one final little dust off and screw it down oh yeah there we go okay let's remove the protective sticker from the back and you can see there oh yes look at that and you can see the little uh balance wheel there oh goodness me we can also remove the protective film from the front as well oh boy that is unique that is a stunning little thing Alex is going to be so pleased with that and then to finish it all off we have little brown leather strap now this was unbelievably cheap it was £3 and to be honest with you this will probably get changed I'm sure Alex is going to want to change this because it looked good in the pictures but then when it came down I don't think it goes very well with the rose gold but again it is all completely personal preference and uh straps are something that get replaced periodically anyway but to be honest I don't know actually no I think that does work that does actually look pretty good oh man I am so excited we've been talking about this as soon as I started doing the uh the watch videos Alex doesn't really wear watches and even if this isn't something that he gets a lot of use out of it's certainly going to be a beautiful little piece of memorabilia of his wife's artwork look at that Joe that is such a beautiful piece of work Alex I hope you like this little thing let me know what your thoughts are in the comment section down below I've pulled the stem all the way out um right I didn't push it in quite far enough that is okay now let's uh screw that back down you know what I actually think that is just so beautiful with this little light you can see the loom on the hands in the sort of the eyeballs of the fish it's very cool if I just turn this light off oh and the back of that just looks so gorgeous I hope you like that Alex and I hope you've all enjoyed watching that too I'm actually kind of a little bit speechless this has been a really fun little thing to build my friend I hope you've all enjoyed thanks very much I'll catch you all in the next one bye

Channel: Elliot Coll

Views: 75,685

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Id: BT7b2jXRxbs

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024