Alright, today I’m gonna share my experience remaking the Patek Philippe Calatrava 6119G-001. It’s a pretty fancy watch, and I thought, why not try to make one myself? It was a wild ride, let me tell you.
First, I started by looking up everything I could find about this watch. I saw that the real deal is a “high-end luxury watch known for exceptional craftsmanship” and it’s a “sought-after status symbol”. I also found out that it’s not really for everyday wear, it’s more of a special occasion kind of thing. I mean, it costs around $29,203, so yeah, it’s a big deal.
I dived into the details. The watch is made of white gold, has a charcoal gray dial, and it’s 39 mm in size. The real one has a “manual winding, ultra-thin mechanical Caliber 30-255 PS”. I’m not a watch expert, so I had no clue what that meant, but it sounded complicated.
So, I started gathering materials. Getting white gold wasn’t exactly easy, or cheap. I had to settle for a less expensive alternative that looked similar. The dial was another challenge. I tried to paint it myself, but let’s just say it didn’t turn out great. I ended up finding a similar-looking dial online that did the trick.
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Sourcing the materials: Tried to find white gold, ended up with a cheaper alternative.
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Creating the dial: Attempted to paint it, failed, found a replacement online.
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Finding the movement: This was the hardest part. I couldn’t get the real Caliber 30-255 PS, so I had to look for a substitute.
The movement was the trickiest part. I couldn’t get my hands on the real “Caliber 30-255 PS”, so I searched for a similar manual winding movement. After a lot of searching, I found one that was close enough in terms of size and function.
Putting it all together was like assembling a really complicated puzzle. I watched a bunch of videos online to figure out how to do it. There were a lot of small parts, and I definitely dropped a few screws along the way. It took me a few days, but I finally managed to put it all together.
The Result
The finished product? Well, it looked somewhat like the Patek Philippe 6119G-001. It wasn’t perfect, but I was pretty proud of myself. It had the white gold-ish case, the charcoal gray-ish dial, and a manual winding movement. It even had those “faceted applied hour-markers” and “dauphine-style hands”, although I had to make those myself, and they weren’t as fancy as the real ones.
Would I do it again? Maybe. It was a fun project, but it was also a lot of work. Plus, it’s not like I can wear it around and pretend it’s a real Patek Philippe. But hey, I learned a lot about watches, and I have a cool story to tell.
So, that’s my story of remaking the Patek Philippe Calatrava 6119G-001. It was a challenging but rewarding experience. If you’re thinking about trying something like this, be prepared for a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.
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