Building My Dream Speedmaster

Last year I purchased a First Omega in Space in remembrance of my best friend.

My best friend in the world, my biggest inspiration, was my step grandfather. He treated me as if I was his own son, was project supervisor for the Mercury and Gemini space capsules. As a kid, I would sit listening to him for hours telling stories about working with the Mercury 7, Gordo and Gus stealing his 63 split window fuelie Corvette, putting water skis on Jackie Kennedy.



While I do enjoy the standard 2012 rendition of the CK2998, I did want to make some changes to the watch.



Changing out the dial for one with the old Omega logo, replacing the subdial hands with white leaf hands, adding a lollipop, and Naiad crown. I wanted to go for a more vintage look and while I know it's not to everyone's tastes, add some fauxtina. I was able to get my hands on the parts and sent them to James, Alchemist relumer.



I also changed out the Delrin block for metal 861 parts and added a Spiralwinders sapphire caseback, though I am on the hunt for a hippocampus caseback (112st1450012). All the parts are at a watchmaker being fitted now. Looking for a LWC black base 1000 bezel, but after that, I'll have my dream Speedmaster. And don't worry, all original parts were saved, could be brought back to stock.

Interview I did with him back in high school

I remember him teaching me about how the Rochester fuel injection worked as a ten year old.


That's my 993, 1996 C2 Cabriolet. Tons of modifications done to it, wrapped, all new suspension, exhaust, ect.

My major passion is air cooled Porsches, I've help restore a number of them.

That is an amazing story and wow, look at those photos.

Please do share photos of the watch once it is back from the watchmaker!

You can see him in the first few minutes of this video

At 32 seconds, you can see the top of his head

Rebuilding his Corvette

Still trying to find more hi res photos with reverse image search

So I got my watch back from the watchmaker I have used before. He serviced my watch last year and thought he did a good job. This time, I have to say I am incredibly disappointed and am looking for some advice on next steps. When I dropped it off, I had told them to take their time and let me know if they had any issues. They had the watch for about 3 weeks, and they emailed me to come pick it up. Upon arrival, I came to discover that they had broken the lollipop, scratched up the hour and minute hands, the hour counter is misaligned, and the old hands were all just put loose into a container.



I had delivered the hands in container with Rodico so they wouldn't rub up against each other and assumed they would simply put the old hands back in the same place. The said they had difficulty installing the few hands which is strange as they are Omega parts for the 1861, it should have been pretty plug and play. I emailed them expressing my dissatisfaction, I'm just trying to figure how to move forward on this. This project started 5-6 months ago and to go through it all again feels brutal.

Real shame about the broken lollipop hand.

The macro photos really make the scratches look bad but they should not be too obvious when the watch is actually worn.

Did you at least get your money back from the watchmaker?