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Mechanical Watch: Exploded View

(fellerts.no)
1168 points fellerts | 1 comments | 22 Jun 25 14:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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thom ◴[22 Jun 25 16:52 UTC] No.44348344[source]▶
Part of me wants to believe this is sacrilege: these are incredible machines, and the magic is in not just seeing _how_ they work, but that they continue to work reliably for decades, and when they don't it's magic seeing them fixed somewhere like https://www.youtube.com/@WristwatchRevival. But also... this is incredibly cool! As kids, my brother used to do these little resin sculptures, putting in sand shells and little plans to it'd look like the bottom of the sea. I tried repeatedly to get into the same hobby but I was always too impatient so my designs would end up with fingerprints all over them before they'd properly set.
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aDyslecticCrow ◴[22 Jun 25 18:29 UTC] No.44349148[source]▶
Pocket watches are sold in antique shops by the price of their weight in brass. Finding one that is complete but needs a cleaning and new oil to spring to life is relatively easy.

There are 10x more pocket watches than owners interested. Theyre incredible machines... but their greatest use is practice materials for aspiring watch repair technicians.

They're expensive to repair because few people have the skills and tools. The demand is so low. (I have two)

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polishdude20 ◴[22 Jun 25 18:59 UTC] No.44349394[source]▶
How does one get started in this? I'd love to have this as a hobby!
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1. technothrasher ◴[22 Jun 25 20:45 UTC] No.44350140[source]▶
I literally started by buying a bunch of cheap Waltham movements on eBay and tearing them apart. From there my progression was read a few books, watch some videos, buy some tools, join the NAWCC and go to some local meets, and meet local folks to teach me directly. Once you make some helpful friends who are a lot more knowledgeable and experienced than you are and are eager to teach, you're off and running.

I actually discovered pretty early on that my interest was more in clocks than watches, but the early explorations in the watch realm were almost entirely applicable to clock repair as well. I have since repaired at least a hundred clocks and pocket watches. Next month I'm going down to the NAWCC school of horology in Columbia, PA to take my third workshop there, this one on the repair of wooden works clocks. The school was closed for a number of years, but has fired back up in the past few and I know they're actively working on getting more watch repair workshops going. Last time I was there they were just putting together a killer watch lab with some very expensive benches and equipment.