Cheap and Rolex aren’t usually mentioned in the same sentence.
However, thanks to 3D printing, people might be able to get their wrists around a Rolex for a much cheaper price.
Thanks to the innovative work of Franc Falco’s 3D printer, he’s been able to 3D-print Rolex Submariner replicas.
Now, the differences may seem obvious. One Rolex is real, while the other Rolex is 3D-printed. But, there’s more than meets the eye.
One of the main differences is the size. Though it’s not the size of the Big Ben in London, Falco’s Rolex is printed at 300% scale.
This means that his 3D-printed watch is ginormous!
Take a look at the difference in the picture below from 3dprintingindustry.com:
The creation of this 3D-printed watch took many attempts. However, the final outcome of the product took more than 30 hours to complete and includes about 131 individual parts. These parts include the individual band links, the numbers and dial dots and the watch hands.
The work doesn’t stop there either, because all of these parts have to be hand-assembled with super glue!
Falco admits that the hardest part of the whole process was the lettering on the watch’s face dial. Doing so involved “printing the face with de-bossed lettering at a very high resolution, then flooding the de-bossed areas with white paint, letting that dry, and then surface-sanding the whole face back to reveal the lettering.”
We must say, that does sound like a labor-intensive process!
In an effort to avoid any copyright infringement issues, Falco removed the Rolex logo from his 3D-printed replica.
Rolex has yet to comment on this 3D-printing endeavor, which leaves us very curious as to what the watch-making giant thinks about this larger-than-life imitation!
Copyright Inventionland, 2015
Sources:
https://gizmodo.com/this-cheap-3d-printed-rolex-would-be-perfect-for-spendt-1678858004
https://3dprintingindustry.com/2015/01/17/gianormous-3d-printed-rolex-giant-life/
Sources:
https://content.rolex.com/is/image/Rolex/default-sharing13147175139993H4S?wid=560&hei=350&qlt=85&fmt=png-alpha
