My Watch Making Journey: Part 1

 My enthusiasm for mechanical watches started a long time ago, but never really gained momentum until recently. While I pride myself for owning mechanical watches since I was young, I have never really put much effort in researching about them not wanting to know more about the specific models and how they came about. All I knew was mechanical watches were cool because you did not need any battery changes every now and then. Little did I know that mechanical watches needed maintenance as well.

The recent events that limited our movement outside of our homes gave rise to a lot of free time and it gave me an opportunity to try watch making for myself. This was something I wanted to try for quite some time, but did not know where to begin.

I first considered going through some sort of formal training, but there are limited options for formal training where I am from. And while online options were available, fees were quite steep for me. Of course there are a ton of content on the internet that portrays watch making; watch making that looks very easy. It's not easy. By this time I already had some basic tools, but the tools I have are those ones that can be had for cheap online....made in China. Some tools work ok, and some just broke on the first use. I also tried looking for alternatives to some tools. Like the tweezers for example. The real watchmaker's tweezers are quite expensive and there are quite a few kinds to consider. An alternative I have found were eyelash tweezers. With a little modification, I now have tweezers that are my primary tools in handling very tiny watch parts.

Some of the more useful tools are small screwdrivers, case back tool, hand press (the one's used to attach the hands to the movement), a crystal press or watch press, and a couple of watch maker's loupes. I also had to buy some Rodico which was relatively affordable, but found that regular sticky tack worked fine for my purposes. I have never tried the actual Rodico before so I have no basis for a comparison. My point is that I use sticky tack to the same effect as Rodico based on the myriad of watch making videos I have watched online.

With all the tools prepared, I dove feet first into my very first watch build. I had to source some watch parts of course. They had to be affordable and readily available. Thanks to online shopping, one can now buy cheap watch parts from China without risking one's credit card. Of course the prices are a bit higher, but the security of Cash on Delivery (COD) is there. So if I happen not to get my order, I won't lose a dime or a Peso in my case.

As for the parts, there are a ton available online. For my first try, I bought parts that were the cheapest I can find from 1 seller only so as to limit shipping fees to a minimum. I had to find 4 parts, the case, movement, dial, and hands. I had to do a bit of research to at least be fairly certain that each part was compatible to each other. The movement should fit the case, and the hands and dial should fit the movement, etc. Because not all watch parts fit together, they have to be made for each specific part.

I wanted to start with  more reputable movement, the NH35 series from Seiko Instruments. The go to movement for most, if not all mircobrands and watch modders out there, but they were a bit more expensive than was comfortable for me at the time. The prospect of ruining an expensive movement was scary for me. And seeing that this would be my first try, I could not risk it.

Not to be discouraged by the risks, I decided to look for cheaper alternatives. As long as the movement was mechanical and preferably automatic, cheap enough that if I ever destroyed one that it wouldn't hurt the budget that much, and should be a basic three hander (Hours, Minutes, Seconds) with a date complication. There was only one place to turn to of course - China. And boy did I find what I was looking for!

Case, Movement, Dial, Hands

I ended up with the parts you see in the image above. The case, dial and hands came form one seller and are obviously inspired by Rolex, but these were the cheapest I could get. The movement came from another seller that sold the Seagull 2813 movement for 100 pesos cheaper. I ended up with a total of 1,600 Pesos in parts. You might say, "Wow that's cheap for a mechanical watch.", but there are even cheaper mechanical watches out there fully assembled and ready to wear.

Parts and tools ready! Let the assembly begin!

With my workspace cleaned and tools prepared, I started my journey into watch making. It's probably not watch making in the strictest sense of the word, but it sounds better that watch assembling.

The procedure I had in mind was simple. (1) Attach the dial to the movement. (2) Attach the hands to the movement. (3) Put the assembled unit (movement, dial, hands) into the case. (4) Trim the winding stem to size and attach the crown and screw on the caseback and voila! I have a watch! Or so I thought.

To be continued...

Enjoy!