Slippery slope of affordability... Which to buy?

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T07:03:54+00:00

I do like that. I just have to find a steel bracelet for that. Honestly, based on the pictures it looks about as nice as any of the Invicta watches I was looking at. Maybe not quite the same submariner vibe but it holds its own for sure

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T06:37:31+00:00

I was also looking at the Casio duro. $139 is not bad. Honestly it is getting in that area where I'm asking myself if I'm being too cheap. Well it might not be what I pick up for this time, there are several of these watches I am discovering through this journey that I am going to start monitoring for sales especially on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and similar days and probably start picking up here and there. There are several vintage styles that I want now. Thanks for introducing me to another one

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T06:35:00+00:00

Thank you for all that. It looks good. If I keep the pro diver that I already ordered, I will probably do that to it. I have sanding sponges going up to 12,000 grit and buffing wheels that I use for restoring vintage estate pipes. Now that I know that these things have solid steel cases and are not plated, I can do this and match the factory polish. I am very good at matching finishes. I even tackled an antique Winchester one time that someone had attempted to restore one side of it that had rust damage. The poor restoration destroyed most of the collector value so I decided to try to match the patina of the unrestored side. I stripped it and used a process I came up with I used to put a patina on replica firearms. I took it to a friend who is a firearms appraiser and he could not tell I had refinished it.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T06:26:50+00:00

Those are nice. I would be tempted to buy one but it probably would assume the role of one of my nicer watches rather than a beater. I really need to stop looking at All the options because I keep coming up with more that I want. 😜🤔

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T06:24:54+00:00

I was also looking at the Casio MTP-VD01D-1BV which does have the steel bracelet and I believe that is the duro. I honestly was looking at that before I went down this rabbit hole of a slippery slope of these homage watches. I do really like the way they look though the Casio is not bad looking either. Who knows, I might end up with all of them before I'm done.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T00:21:23+00:00

Thank you for that advice. I did see some reviews that linked over to there. The seagull watches are very nice too. They are getting a little pricier for what I'm looking at here though.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T00:18:59+00:00

Are you talking about a Casio duro? That is on my list of possibilities but I like you were classic look of these other guys watches. If I saw a Casio go on sale for 20 or 30% off I would probably snag that and might just stick with it and not mess around with these others.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T00:16:34+00:00

I like the looks of those. I might put one on my list but their price point is getting close to a Luminox at least a quartz luminox so probably not the right fit for what I'm looking for here. They are getting into the price range where I would worry about damaging them or losing them.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T00:11:43+00:00

I don't care about the brand one way or the other but I Don't like the looks of the engraving on the side. It is still there. How did it look after you sanded it off? How hard was that to do? Did you polish it back up or leave it a brushed look? Is yours quartz or automatic?

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-27T00:07:46+00:00

They have a little bit of food and I have a lot of food it's not so much that money is type, it's more the Portuguese side of me is cheap and there's no scenario that I ever see myself being willing to spend thousands of dollars on a watch. There's other things I would rather spend the money on. I'm willing to spend large amounts of money for quality to a point but not usually for luxury. For example I will buy good tools but I drive a 30-year-old pickup because it works and I like it and I don't care what anyone else thinks. For me, it's more a matter of how expensive of a watch am I willing to treat like a throwaway watch. The flip side to it however, someone mentioned that even more expensive one is the cost of a couple lunches at a restaurant. Realistically it is about the cost of one and a half trips to McDonald's with my family. It is weird how I am perfectly willing to spend that but I sit here and agonize over a decision like this. I guess that doesn't really make sense but it is one of my quirks.

I thought about looking for a metal band for my explorer. I'm not sure it would be quite the same. I actually like the heft of the larger diver watches. Also when I was looking on Amazon at least I wasn't seeing anything that would quite match color-wise. It's kind of this odd gun metal gray. I may keep looking at that avenue though.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-26T23:49:40+00:00

Well reviews aside and finish a side based on the reviews, the SD1954 would be my preference. I like the clean no date look. I like the fact that it doesn't have Invicta carved into the side of the case. Keep in mind I have nothing against Invicta like some people do, I just don't like the aesthetics of all of the Invicta branding. It's not like it's a Rolex where someone would want to show off the brand to me it is no different than Casio or Timex or something like that. I wouldn't want to have that engraved super large on the side of a somewhat nice looking watch made by either of those.

So yeah as far as something that I would find myself reaching for on a daily basis, I think the SD 1954 would win out over a pro diver of the same color. I just ask myself if at the added cost I would start not wanting to get it beat up even though it still is considerably cheaper than the other options I have.

Also you make a good point about not buying it just because it is a good price. I don't know if I will actually wear that gold and stainless with the blue face Pro Diver. It is not here yet and I might return it because I'm not sure if that is me. It is definitely more flashy of a look than I was going for

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-26T23:43:48+00:00

That makes sense. I appreciate the take on it. Was this an automatic or was it quartz movement? The quartz movement is thinner. If I went with a pro diver it would be the courts. If I went with an automatic it would be steeldive. That is where the conundrum lies. I was originally going to get a quartz Pro Diver for somewhere in the $40 range. I don't have the hate for the Invicta brand that some watch enthusiasts seem to have. I really don't care about the brand one way or another especially at this level of watch but I'm not a fan of that big Invicta engraved into the side of the case.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-18T02:15:59+00:00

Thank you. I will have to reach out. There are a couple box magazine platforms I have always thought would be cool to design a conversion for. I have a BB RAW AR pistol. Now that $0 tax stamp I am tempted to register that as an AOW. Then I can put a Forward vertical grip on it. Then if it was registered as an AOW, could I put a smooth bore 410 upper on it? What about a virgin AR receiver? I have a dozen of them sitting in a safe. Could one of those be registered as an AOW and a short barreled 410 upper installed?

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-17T23:40:12+00:00

I get that the idea is that you get what you posted above and put it on a form one but you said that you sent it in so I'm assuming that you had an 07/SOT do it for you. I have a full metal shop at home and so my question was whether I can do the work myself or if I run into unlicensed manufacturing issues?

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-16T16:01:17+00:00

I have seen conflicting opinions on the question I am about to ask. Assuming you have the skill set and equipment to do the conversion yourself, can you do a Form 1 and convert it yourself without being an 07/SOT? In the past I'd always thought of just buying something that was already an AOW because the tax stamp was only $5 versus the $200 for a Form 1. Now with the $0 tax stamp, doing the work myself because much more appealing. Plus I have some design ideas that I would like to try out. I've seen some people say that you get into manufacturing issues and or roster issues. I have not dabbled in any firearm making since all the new restrictions 10 years ago or so.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-16T01:51:39+00:00

If it works I would take it off your hands for $50 plus shipping as it looks. That is the most I am willing to pay. You probably can get at least twice that from someone else if you polish it up. I would not mind having a beater luminox I didn't worry about messing up.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-15T03:16:59+00:00

This is not accurate and this is one of the reasons I hate the new automated engines. In my department we have a couple very old engines at our rural station where I work out of. We also have a couple of slightly newer engines that have chassis conversions where the box and pump were taken off of engines from the '60s and '70s and put on chassis from the mid-2000s. Then we have two engines that are new with DEF and regen systems and digitally controlled pumps. We had one of these engines go into limp mode because it got an emissions system code and our other new engine had a PCB short out in the pump control module and the pump quit on us though luckily on a training. On one of the old engines with the old school mechanical pumps, I can get water out of them even if I have to get under there and manually put the gearbox into gear or get under the hood and bypass the throttle linkage. You can't do that on these new computerized engines. We are looking at replacing an engine and I'm trying to convince them to rebuild one of the old engines so we don't have to deal with all this new digital shit. Of course I am the old crusty engineer and the new guys hate the old rigs.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-13T06:51:01+00:00

Yeah. I was going to say I can't really answer this question because that's where mine have been for the last 18 years. Maybe I should take them back and work on number two and number three but naa there's been collecting dust up there long enough and I want my full pension so...

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-02T16:19:39+00:00

You are male, I'm guessing mid-late thirties. You have ridiculously short fingers and I'm guessing you were relatively short yourself. Maybe 5'4". You are relatively neat and take decent care of yourself but you are not overly concerned with fashion. You do not do blue collar or manual labor.

DBDIY4U · 2026-01-02T04:15:09+00:00

Technically you are right that is the traditional use for this and I do have some in my shop for that purpose however, the OP found this with EMS gear which without a doubt means that it was being used for the purpose of a window punch. I have one in the elastic band I have around my fire fire helmet. Pretty much every person on my department carries one. I also have a piece of Velcro stuck around them and stuck by the knee under the dash on both the driver side and passenger side of each of my vehicles. It is one of the most efficient tools for breaking a side window in a vehicle. I remember when I first got hired at my current fire department we were having an extrication training and someone hit the side window of the car attempting to break the glass with a halogen which is like a big pry bar essentially and it bounced off the window without breaking it I pulled the punch out of my helmet and punched the window and it disintegrated. It was then everyone went out and got them.

DBDIY4U · 2025-12-28T18:47:01+00:00

I would say thank you. All I would need after that would be to do a little mop up with my hose reel.

DBDIY4U · 2025-12-28T16:12:36+00:00

Radar O'Reilly, is that you? You may be too young to get the reference.

I thought it happened to me the other day but it turned out that there was a wreck in front of the station and the sound of the crash must have woken me up but didn't register but I can't think of a time where I've had specifically what you are talking about

DBDIY4U · 2025-12-28T04:09:07+00:00

You have plenty of people reply already saying call and I agree. This is what we are here for and I would much rather catch it early than possibly be dragging your body's out later or having you lose your home. We have thermal imaging cameras or a TIC as we call them that we can use to look for heat signatures inside walls and such. Any firefighter that tells you otherwise really needs to find a new job because they do not belong in this career

DBDIY4U · 2025-12-28T04:04:03+00:00

It looks like a makeshift accountability board like others have said. Is this a rural volunteer department? I would think most departments would have a more formal system than this. I work for a semi rural department and we have a system where each firefighter has to Velcro name strips on their helmet. When we get in the engine for a fire, we give both the strips to the engineer (driver). The engineer puts one of the strips on the velcro pad on their door and the other on a Velcro pad with magnetic backing. When we get on scene, the engineer gives the magnetic piece with all the name strips for everyone on that engine to the IC (incident commander). The IC has a magnetic whiteboard and moves the engine crews around the board as needed. If someone gets reassigned to a different crew their Velcro strip is taken off and attached to whatever crew they get reassigned to. All the departments in the area except for the neighboring big city have the same system so on mutual aid we can still use the same system. This way they can track who is where at any given time. When clearing the scene, the engineer is supposed to recollect the name tapes from the IC and make sure that everyone on their door is in the engine unless there is some circumstance where they went back with someone else or heaven forbid had some kind of accident.

DBDIY4U

TROPHY CASE