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A new steel look for your Casio G-SHOCK GA-2100

Spend any time in the vast world of Casio G-SHOCK, and you will uncover a vast community modifying these watches in all sorts of ways. Coloured screens, dial painting, full custom artwork, you name it, someone has probably done it and some with nothing short of spectacular results! Now while I don’t personally lust after a complete graffiti joker paint job on my G-SHOCK, I have always liked the steel versions that G-SHOCK makes.

Enter the Casio G-SHOCK GA-2100 or “Casioak” as it has come to be known. This very wearable G-SHOCK was a huge hit last year, and it didn’t take long for the modding community to fill in a pretty apparent gap in the Casioak line up. Namely, where is the steel version Casio? The GA-2100 series of watches was such a hit at points last year that supply couldn’t keep up, and these were trading hands for well over the RRP of £99.

With that in mind, I’m surprised that Casio didn’t cash in on the popularity of this model and get the full and half steel versions into production. I’m sure this is bound to happen at some point, but until then, if you want a steel-cased GA-2100 Casioak, you're going to have to roll up your sleeves and build it yourself! Thankfully There are a number of very nice kits available, including everything you need to change your GA-2100 into a steel clothed stunner

Thankfully the term build is probably a bit of an exaggeration as what we’re talking about is undoing four screws and sliding the module out so you can slide it into the new steel case and bracelet and put in the four slightly bigger screws. That is the extent of the procedure, and It takes a couple of minutes at the most to do the actual module swap, then if needed, maybe a couple more minutes to do and bracelet adjustments. Ten minutes max, and you should be completed and admiring your now gleaming full steel GA-2100 Casioak! 

So what’s in the kit? As described, there isn’t much needed, but most kits provide the tools required, namely a screwdriver for the case screws and one for the bracelet as the links are all solid and links held in place with screws. So you don’t need anything additional to complete the swap other than this kit and your donor GA-2100 Casioak.

Over the past year or so, I had been looking for a steel mod that I could use for one of my other Classic square G-SHOCK’s, and the array of options is dazzling, from plain polished steel to full-on rainbow finishes! The case and bracelet here is unapologetically based around the look of the Royal Oak from Audemars Piguet, which suits the original shape of the GA-2100 very, very well. Still, in obviously increased dimensions somewhat so this does wear more significantly on the wrist.

Finishing on the kit is also very nicely done with the same vertical brushing from the top of the bezel through to the butterfly clasp on the bracelet. The sides of the bezel are well polished, and the bezel screws are polished and all perfectly aligned and seated. Overall it’s tough to fault the quality of this kit. The 316L stainless steel case and bracelet and good finishing should be hard to get wrong, so thankfully this kit didn’t! It does feel like a quality product.

So how does it wear? Well bigger and heavier. The GA-2100 Casioak was one of the more wearable watches in the G-SHOCK lineup but wasn’t what you would call slender. This kit adds weight but, more importantly, adds length to the lug to lug distance, and because of the integrated bracelet design, there is no way of avoiding this. Measured at the widest point of the bracelet, you're looking at 65mm and a case that’s now approx 47mm in diameter. It’s not small, but if those dimensions suit your wrist, then this looks very cool indeed!

So what if you don’t currently have GA-2100 or are concerned about doing the swap? Well, You could certainly save cost by buying a used GA-2100 and as I said four screws is all it takes. This should be possible for most people or you may know someone who can help if your not comfortable doing it.

So can I recommend this? From ease of conversion point of view, this is so simple it’s hard to fault it, and it’s great you can swap it back and forth so you can effectively change it to suit your mood for the day. The quality is good, and it certainly gives the GA-2100 a completely different look depending on the dial color you use as the donor watch. The only real issue is the sizing. With that case shape and integrated bracelet, if you like to wear your watches snug on your wrist, you will need a large wrist not to have this wear slightly loose. For comparison, my wrist is 7.5, and I felt it wore fine, but I do tend to wear my watches on bracelets somewhat looser than my strapped watches. 

If the styling of this kit is not quite to your taste then you may want to check out the G-SHOCK GM-2100 which is the official steel version of the “Casioak” I have reviewed that in another article here