Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this Rolex GMT-Master II, the one with the “Pepsi” bezel. You know, the red and blue one. It’s a pretty popular watch, and I wanted to see what it would take to make a really good fake one, not to sell or anything, just as a little project.
First, I got my hands on a decent quality replica, I went to some forums and got some suggestions about where to buy a decent one. You can find them online pretty easily, but the quality varies a ton. I wanted one that was already pretty close to the real deal, just to see how far I could push it.
The biggest thing I noticed was the bezel. On the real Rolex Pepsi, when you shine a UV light on it, the whole bezel glows red. It’s wild. Most fakes don’t do that. So, that was my main target.
I started by taking the watch apart. It wasn’t too bad, but you definitely need the right tools. Tiny screwdrivers, tweezers, the whole nine yards. Once I got the bezel off, I could really see the difference in the material compared to pictures of real ones I found online.
- Finding the right material: This was the hardest part. I tried a bunch of different ceramic materials, trying to match the color and the way it reacted to light.
- Shaping the bezel: Once I found something that was close, I had to shape it to fit the watch. This involved a lot of careful sanding and polishing.
- Testing with UV light: After each attempt, I’d shine a UV light on it to see how close I was getting to that all-red glow. It took a while, and a lot of failed attempts, but I got there to some extent.
Eventually, I got it pretty close. It wasn’t perfect, but under a UV light, it definitely had that red glow, much more like the real thing. It’s crazy how much detail goes into these watches. The real ones are listed for like, over ten grand! I can see why they’re so expensive, the craftsmanship is insane.
Putting it all back together was another challenge, but I managed it. Now I have a fake Pepsi Rolex that looks pretty darn convincing, at least when it comes to the bezel. It was a fun little experiment, and I learned a lot about watches in the process. It’s definitely not something I’d recommend doing unless you have a lot of time, patience, and the right tools, though.
After finishing this project, I went to a lot of watch forums and checked out some related videos to see if there were other ways to make this work better. But there are many people who have tried to do this but ended up just buying a new one because they messed it up badly. I guess I’m just lucky.
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