Just wanted to write some quick notes about my BaliHa'i Project watch. New to the forum so please excuse any unintentional transgressions.
I've had the watch over a month now, I saw the pre-order for the GMT, placed my money down then decided I couldn't wait. Chris was excellent to work with. I loved the look of the dark bezel and asked if he could arrange for me to get one if I changed the bezels myself. He agreed and shipping happened quickly. As many have stated before I was highly impressed with the packaging and extras. The screwdrivers included to change the band were a nice touch.
Changing the band proved to be an issue. I believe that one of the screwbars was cross threaded. Although Chris mentioned that they loc-tite the assembly, it never "freed" up and fought me the whole way. I ended up locking the watch in a hobby vice and putting way more leverage than I felt comfortable with before the one bar broke and had to put a lot of torque on it the whole way to remove it. I also had to fight it to screw that bar back together, it never seated into a thread and turned smoothly like the other bar did. At one point while removing the bar my screwdriver slipped and I scratched the case. Not a big deal, but it does make me sigh heavily whenever I look down and see it.
The bands that came with the watch were beautiful as were the bezels. My only concern with the bezel is using the watch as a work watch or "beater". When you turn the bezel, the corners overhang the body of the watch. Although it hasn't happened yet I have fears of catching the bezel when taking kit off and popping the bezel off at worst, or just having it rotated off the desired time.
Lume is decent although I'd love to see one of these suckers with tritium.
The watch seems to keep decent time. Within a minute over a month. I love/hate the screw down crown. It's huge, and the stem feels very delicate with a lot of movement when trying to set the time. It's also hard to engage the date set feature. On my particular watch the date set feature and the engagement for the first thread are very close to one another and frequently in process of trying to set the date I end up starting to screw the crown down. So if it's close I ended up just winding the time around and around and changing the date the long way. But once it's screwed in place it seems very tough/durable and I'm not worried about damage due to the lack of crown guards on the case.
Biggest disappointment/warning? The caseback. I replaced the band with a 4 ring tactical band and I was going to show someone the tiki drawing the other day and was amazed to see all the wear marks/grooves worn into the case back. As much as I love the watch on the OD band, I'm seriously considering removing it and going back to the rubber strap. Just be warned if you decide to go to a nylon band, with little wear and tear you could "goober" up your case back cosmetically.
I've attached a couple photos. One that I think shows the black CaliHa'i look on the OD band well and one of the caseback in an attempt to show the wear marks.
All-in-all I love the watch. It suits me and my personality and has a unique look. It's tough and feels like it can take a beating and I don't feel guilty wearing it as a work watch. I know I mentioned some issues with it, but those are more to paint as complete a picture as possible. When I researching the watch I found plenty of posts that were singing the praises of the looks and durability of the case but didn't see as many observations about the little annoyances that popped up after a couple months of wear and tear.
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