u/CtrlAltRep

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If you like the 39mm Royal Oak look but don’t want to go down the full 15202 modding rabbit hole, the 15300 is a great alternative. It has a little more wrist presence, still keeps the classic proportions, and can look very convincing without nearly as much money or work.

For a lot of people, it just makes more sense.

Not even looking for an excuse anymore, but let's just call it a Halloween giveaway.

Same rules as usual. Like & leave a comment to enter, one entry per person. I’ll let this run for a week and randomly pick a winner.

U.S shipping on me, others pay their own shipping/customs/fees etc..

Good luck everyone, and happy Halloween.

Figured I’d put together a little 15202 modding guide, I'm not inventing anything new, there’s a ton of good information out there, just scattered all over.

Before anything, nothing wrong with wearing one out of the box. Modding isn’t for everyone, not everyone notices or cares about these little details, and you really don’t need to start tearing apart a perfectly good watch just because somebody on Reddit pointed out a flaw you never noticed before.

And just a friendly reminder, the biggest tell will almost always be the person wearing the watch anyway. This isn’t a guide on how to make a 15202 NWBIG. With the factories and parts we have available right now, even a heavily modded one is still pretty far from gen if you know the watch well.

This is just for the people who enjoy messing with them and squeezing a little more out of what we have.

1-Base watch

ZF is best, XF if you can get your hands on one, but they’re getting harder to find.

2-Pizza hand

The first thing I’d fix. The base of the hour hand is too big, hence the lovely “pizza hand” name.

It can be shaved down, shaped and polished.

DP or SW hands don’t fit the Miyota movement, so they’re not a simple drop-in. There’s more work involved if you want to go that route.

3-Bezel screws

Rep screws are steel, gen uses white gold screws, so having the screws white-gold plated is a nice improvement.

They can also be polished, aligned and adjusted so they sit properly in the bezel.

You don’t need to go crazy chasing microscopic perfection here. They just shouldn’t be the first thing your eye goes to when you look at the watch.

4-Case and bracelet

A good refinish can make a pretty big difference on a Royal Oak.

Better brushing, cleaner bevels, nicer transitions between the brushed and polished areas, and cleaning up some of the sharp bracelet edges.

The important part here is finding somebody who knows what they’re doing. More polishing isn’t better. Once someone rounds everything off and kills the edges, you’ve gone backwards.

5-Dial

This is where it gets tricky. You can keep the ZF dial, have it worked on, go with something aftermarket like DP, or eventually go gen.

DP dials can be nice, but DP doesn’t mean better. There are different versions, different colors and some are better than others. If your stock dial looks good, there’s nothing wrong with leaving it alone.

Gen is obviously another story, and another price bracket.

6-Crystal

Deep and other aftermarket crystals are an option. Not needed in my opinion

7-Case thickness

This is one of the bigger differences people sometimes overlook.

ZF is 8.7mm thick, gen is around 8.1mm. 0.6mm sounds like absolutely nothing, but on a watch whose whole thing is being thin, it matters.

The case can be thinned and the profile cleaned up to get it closer, but remember you’re removing metal. There’s no putting it back afterward.

8-Movement/rotor

The Miyota movement is fine for what it is. Attention to the rotor is more often than not necessary. The rotor by design is unidirectional, inherently noisy, but it can be quoted down with a little luck.

9-Quick-date mod

quality-of-life mod if you actually wear the watch a lot, but gen doesn't have it.

10-Relume

If your hands and dial are noticeably different, it can be worth doing.

11-Going franken

Gen dial, gen 2121 movement, custom hands, pinion work, CNC case … this is where it gets very expensive very quickly.

At that point you’re doing it because you enjoy the build, which I completely understand. Just don’t go into it thinking another $4,000 in parts is finally going to make the watch indistinguishable from gen. It won’t.

If I were starting with a stock watch, I’d keep things pretty simple: fix the pizza hand, white-gold plate and clean up the screws, give the case and bracelet a proper finish, silence the rotor, If something else bothers you, fix it. You don’t have to order every mod on the menu just because it exists.

And if absolutely none of this bothers you, even better. Save your money and enjoy the watch.

That’s really all this is about. Some of us enjoy messing with these things almost as much as we enjoy wearing them.

If you can think of something else, or disagree with my take, feel free to discuss in the comments.

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Nothing to celebrate this time, just cheers and thanks for being here.

Same rules as always. Like and Leave a comment to enter, I’ll randomly pick a winner this Saturday.

U.S. shipping is on me, international winners cover shipping and any customs fees.

Good luck everyone.

Weighted

Custom dial/hands etc ..

Upgraded crystal

Custom free sprung movement

Weighted

WG plated

Custom dial/hands/DW etc.

Upgraded crystal

Free sprung movement

Solid gold rotor

RG plated

RG plated

Which one would you choose?

VSF base

175 grams

RG plated

Custom dial/ hands

F+F