Looks good to me. I shall follow this with interest.
Black dial. No fauxtina. L2L<47. Longer lumed plot, less taper on minute hand. Please.
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Big tick in the box for the Sellita movement
BTW, Eddie, it would appear you have outwitted the Grim Reaper and are on your way to recovery.
I wish you a full and speedy return to "normal."
What you say couldn't be further from the truth. The truncated hour hand was made so it couldn't at any circumstances get confused with the minute hand... as was the previous case of the double syringe hands.
For myself, I prefer the previous double syringe hands as on the JLCs, but that is another story.
Well I've just bought an original Mk XI to make sure it's done right.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Lug width, please consider to make it 20mm. We had that discusson with the second reissue of the Smith Military, and there, for more consistency with the original and the first reissue, for many it seemed a good idea to stay with 18mm lug width.
But 20mm looks so much better, and will make the watch more versatile, imho. 18mm is just too slim. I have a Speedmaster reduced with 18mm lug width, looks great on steel, but not so much on leather, nato, or perlon. I owned a Stowa Partitio, and sold it because the 18mm lug width was just too "girlish" looking. For me, the classic winning proportion is to be found on the Explorer 1016: 36mm case, 20mm lug width.
Tomas
Last edited by TomasC; 4th December 2019 at 14:38.
I'm in for this one. It's been so long i don't post here that i had to register again since i don't even have same email nor i remember my user name but this watch made me want to rejoin TF family, my last Eddie's watch was the PRS29B, this will be next.
This is supposed to be a homage to one of the most iconic military watches ever made, the IWC MK11. Personally I want it to be as close as possible to the original (which is out of reach for me financially) and that means 18mm lug width. If it would have 20mm lug width, it would look more like a homage to a Rolex than to the MK11.
PC,
I've always been under the impression that the military aviation purposed "Type 48" dial/hand pattern used for most of the Mk XIs was these "obscure"(?/!/?) timepieces' most distinctive aesthetic feature. However, as Abraxas has already mentioned above, JLC early on made up some Mk XIs with various dial and hand sets [which can be seen at the same http://www.markeleven.com/ website DannyPN put up earlier in this thread] that were more congruent with the style of the WWII issue WWWs that preceded the post-war MkXIs and I always thought those rarer versions of the Mk XI looked nice in their own right despite my own particular preference for the "f'ed up"(??/!!/??) Type 48 style dial and hands
You may still be a bit out of sorts physically, Eddie, but your mind is obviously still clicking on all cylinders regardless. I hope you take a close look inside your just acquired original Mk XI and duplicate the ultra high spec internal case technology of these peerless pilot watch icons in the same manner you did for your beautifully done through and through first series PRS-29A recreation of the original late 1960s Smiths GS ref.4701 W10s.
I think that a "real" Mk XI from TF would be truly special in the highest horological sense and sought out by anybody who fully understood what it was even underneath the signature aesthetics for the same reasons military and commercial pilots and aircrew sought out the original IWC Mk XI and kept it in production basically unchanged for 36 years straight from 1948 to 1984
There's only one way to get it right.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
I know there's been homages to the Mk XI before but in my opinion the only thing any of them got right was the dial, they never got the case right.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Hmmm, DJ36/Explorer 1016 diameter 36mm, lug width 20mm. Probably two of the most iconic 36mm diameter watches ever. But apparently Rolex got the measurement all wrong....
I’m not suggesting that this model should have 20mm lug width, just that there’s some Ill-considered commentary on here sometimes.
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Wow. I’m really impressed with this. Slap me, but I’m in agreement about the minute hand but everything else is absolutely spot on. I too was eyeing up the MK2 Hawkinge but this completely outdoes it. I have a 29a and would defo buy this! I also think the Smiths name on it totally looks the part. I’m rarely excited but this is brilliant! Can’t wait for 2020 now!
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The hands on an IWC Mark XI are iconic. They define the marque. Legend has it that an RAF pilot had difficulty differentiating between the minute & hour hand on the prototype mark xi in the poor lighting conditions of the cockpit and asked for the hour hand to be truncated. It was literally cut short. The new design stuck...
Last edited by trident-7; 5th December 2019 at 21:47. Reason: image added
36/20 - so weird that not even the 1016 managed to normalise it.
Although 20mm would give access to a wider choice of straps, if this is intended as a true to life homage of the classic IWC Mark XI then surely the lug width is already defined by history - irrespective of what Rolex did with the Explorer?
This said, looking at the drawings it seems that the dial is brass rather than soft iron, which left me wondering if this model have the Faraday cage as per the original?
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It is all about balance in the design. One of my most admired watches, the Zenith DeLuca, is a smidge under 42mm, and has 22mm lugs.
No-one ever said the De Luca was imbalanced in that respect.
But all this discussion is ultimately unlikely to sway our commandant, he now has an original, so we are verly likely to be treated to a fairly exact homage.
And rightly so, it is lovely.
D
I'll be going with the hooked 7, a lot of the unhooked 7 dials are IWC service replacement dials (unless it's the rare white 12 dial).
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Re the Mk XI: Shoulderless springbars with non-drilled lugs would be my choice but other than that, I love it.
Initially I thought it should have the boobies coronet but maybe save that for the Smiths GS De Luxe (in the fat Dennison “56” case).
There are so many little details about this that just make it both perfectly balanced and functional. Surprisingly few watches manage to pull off both for some reason. I am looking forward to seeing a new prototype much closer to this than the OP, which despite having almost all the same features, really doesn't look the same at all. For example, the amount of breathing space between the hour hand and the numerals. It's a tiny difference in terms of the measurement, but makes a huge difference in how it looks. Also the weights of the chapter ring lines in relation to the numerals. It is what designers would call very, very "tight". And hence, very easy to get wrong. Even the modern IWC seems a bit sloppy to me.
Personally I think this could stand to keep roughy the same proportions except for being scaled up to 38mm without increasing the bezel thickness. What's interesting about this case is that it's actually quite chunky looking in spite of the very basic design. At 36mm it would probably need to stay exactly the same or it would either lose the solid, toolish look, or in the other direction it would look a bit too brutish.
But by scaling it up just a touch, it could retain a fairly thick, solid-looking bezel, while at the same time adding some extra refinement to give it a more modern and distinctive look, as opposed to a straight copy which almost always disappoints compared to the original. I prefer the older ethos of homages that are very slight incremental improvements: not losing the original essence, nor trying to be a straight 1:1 replica.
I also think 38mm is an under-used sweet spot that's not too big and not too small, regardless of the trend having swung wildly from far too big, in completely the opposite direction. But I'm a bit biased because I think 36mm is just slightly too small for my own wrists, trend or no trend. I know a lot of people think it's the perfect size. In many cases it's the perfect size if you like perfect typography, because larger versions are often scaled poorly. But there's no law that says they have to be.
Yep, it’s one of mine! I think the chunky Dennison case on the De Luxe GS/6B would be v hard to reproduce but also not really popular either. As with some other Smiths (eg the Mk X) it’s a rather home-made and ever-so-slightly awkward and amateurish attempt at doing with the Swiss did effortlessly. (Smiths did get it right with the W10, though: everything about that is perfect including the mil spec cal 60466E movement with hacking seconds and blue h/s.)
The Mk XI is much more in keeping with modern tastes and a timeless classic.
Ahem... id also like to see the boobies...
..
.
Ill get my coat.
Seriously though, top notch! Just what ive been waiting for. Although i do love the boobies/angry duck coronet. Id love to see a mock up with it on the dial!
Keep up the good work
Rich
It still needs some work, the minutes hand isn't right, the counterpoise on the seconds hand is too short and it's the wrong 7.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Hmm, after seeing the mock up with the boobies logo I think I prefer the plain Smiths logo after all. With the broadarrow lowered to the center to make room for the boobs, it looks a bit unbalanced to me. On the original, the broadarrow and the circle T are the same distance to the center and that looks better to me.
I think Der Amf suggested putting Smiths Speedbird on the dial. I actually think that's not a bad idea since it has about the same length as the International Watch Co. logo and it provides a connection to its bigger TF Speedbird brother. Something like the Smiths Astral but then Speedbird instead of Astral of course.
Last edited by DannyPN; 6th December 2019 at 17:57. Reason: addition
Looking nice.
Minute hand needs to be slightly thinner, perhaps.
Longer conterpoise on the seconds, agreed, and perhaps a bit of a taper to the pointy end too would be nice.The original is very slim indeed.
Hooked 7, as you say, but also, I notice the IWC has one of the crows feet with all 3 limbs ending on the same horizontal line, on the Smiths dial the centre one extends lower.
Possibly the thickness of the (unlumed) hour markers could be slightly more than current, and I see that the IWC white hour markers extend a little bit beyond the minute markers.
Dave
Both designs looks fine.
Just thoughts:
1.0 Design 1
1.1 To make it closer to a Smiths style branding, switch the positions of the /|\ and L around.
1.2 To make it closer to an IWC style branding, have a longer single-line brand name SMITHS ASTRAL or SMITHS DELUXE or similar.
2.0 Design 2
2.1 To complete what looks to be essentially a Smiths style of branding:
2.1.1 Switch he positions of the /|\ and L around, or
2.1.2 Delete the L and move the /|\ from nearer to 12 to be nearer to 6 where the L was.
Another option: keep the boobs logo and broadarrow in place at the top but remove the circle L altogether (there are IWC and JLC dial variants with broadarrow but without circle T). Or make it a civilian version by keeping the boobs and removing broadarrow and circle L.