Today, to get the same quality it looks like you would have to spend a few hundred bucks ($300-$500). The quality on the cheap Chinese watches seems to have gone down, rather than up (I decided to replace the Alpha Explorer II mentioned in the main post, look alike with an Alpha Day-Date look alike from the same company. The quality is even worse than the EII, verging on junk, actually. Of course our money is not worth near what it was a few years ago.

I always see to revert back to wearing the Ultrasteel, so as I said if it dies, I will just replace the movement. Even a fairly good quartz movement can be had for $35 or so, although, I would guess, a watch repair guy would charge you $100 for the that same movement..

It was a gamble, I hoped I would not have to spend more than $50 to put it into running condition. I lost that bet!

On the other hand, I have been wanting to get into being able to make my own parts for things, for better than twenty years, so maybe it is better to do something than to sit around crying I can’t do what I want.

With that little bit of windfall money, I bought the lathe. I paid the guy who has been lending me parts so I would have a working computer for the parts, so the workstation is all mine again. And, first mention, I bought a 4×5 mono-rail camera, that has not arrived yet. All those new toys makes for a very nice birthday/christmas this year. About the best in a long time.

If you are missing the actual bezel (the mechanical part the insert pops into), I do not know if you could find that or not. You may be able to get it from one of the Hong Kong eBayer that sell cheap Rolex parts if you contact them.