Watchmaking & Clockmaking
Back to ProjectsI'm quite fond of devices that measure time. This, combined with my affinity for mechanical things, has led me to creating, repaining, and restoring a variety of clocks & watches. Here, I'll provide a quick overview of the various timepieces I've worked on.
Battery replacements
Both of my parents had various watches with dead batteries that they wanted replaced. It's a very easy process, but sometimes sourcing the correct battery (such as those for the solar-powered Citizen Eco-Drive movements) can be tricky. I estimate that I have replaced at least 6 batteries so far.
Movement replacements
A step up from a battery replacement, a movement replacement is quite a bit more complex. This entails removing the movement, safely removing the hands & and dial, and swapping them onto a new movement. I've been tasked with this 3 times, with 1 of them currently in the works.
The first one, an old analog Casio with significantly more sentimental value than monetary value, had a broken and now very obscure movement. This movement is impossible to find new, and more importantly it has proven unreliable over time. Because of this, I had to get creative. I did research online, and found that people had success replacing the Casio 394 movement with the ETA 804.124, which is readily available and quite cheap. Because the dial feet are in different places on these 2 movements, I will have to cut the dial feet off and secure the dial with adhesive instead. This project is currently paused, as I don't really like the idea of cutting the dial feet off of such a sentimental piece.
Next is a mechanical watch. The movement on my father's Seiko SKX started running extremely fast, to the point that even adjusting the balance wheel wasn't enough to fix it. After a couple failed attempts to regulate it, we decided to replace the older 7s26 movement with the more modern, more reliable, and cheaper Seiko NH36. Fortunately, they are completely drop-in compatible (except for the stem/crown), which simplified the process greatly.
Last is an old Swiss quartz watch that my father inherited. It is from the very early days of Swiss companies embracing quartz movements, and as such it is difficult to find a replacement. Fortunately, the movement was manufactured by a very large Swiss manufacturer, so it's not impossible to find a replacement. I was able to source a replacement movement, it was expensive and was labeled as "working, but a service is recommended". Maybe at some point I will service it. There was one problem, though. The OEM date wheel was a gold-tone, to match the dial, and the replacement had a standard white date wheel. I had to swap them, which added quite a bit of complexity to the operation. Removing the date wheel from the movment consisted of removing 2 small plates, secured with tiny screws. In the end, I am quite satisfied with the result.
Custom-built watches
I have built 2 custom watches, one for me and one for my father as a gift. The process of building a custom watch entails sourcing parts that are all compatible with each other, and then putting them all together with specialty tools (and a steady hand). The first part is made slightly easier as some major movement manufacturers have "ecosystems" of similar movements for which sourcing parts such as cases, dials, hand sets, and winding stems is relatively straightforwards.
The watch I built for myself is not anything too remarkable, but it acted as a test and proof-of-concept for my main goal, which was the custom watch I made my father. The movement of both is a Seiko NH38, which is a simple 3-hander with no extra complications. It is in a 40mm field watch case, has a field watch dial and handset that I quite like the style of. Funny story, I later learned that these hands are a copy of the hands of the Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra. Small world! A nice feature of building your own watch is that the dials you buy generally have extra dial feet so that you can also put the dial upside-down, to create a left-handed watch.
One thing you need to know about my father is that he likes his yellow car. He is very proud of it, as it is a cool car and the metallic yellow color is quite rare (and beautiful!). My idea for the perfect gift would be to build him a watch with a custom painted dial in the exact color of his car. I would do this by stripping the paint off of a flat dial I bought, and re-painting it with a touch-up paint kit I bought for the exact color of the car. It's a lot easier said than done, though; it is a rather complicated and precise 3-coat paint process, and I need to get everything perfect for it to turn out accurate. It took quite a while to get right, but when it was done it turned out amazing. I am proud of myself for this one!!! The hour and minute hands are recreations of the hands of his SKX, but with grey lume for a blacked-out look. The seconds hand is red and supposed to be reminiscent of a gauge in a car.
Vintage Bulova clock
I was browsing around at Electronic Parts Outlet, a store which sells countless electronic components new and old, as well as a dizzying amount of very cool stuff, new and old. I saw a cool vintage Bulova pendulum wall clock hanging on the wall in a corner, dusty and abandoned looking. I saw it multiple times across many trips there, and each time I saw it the idea that I needed a pendulum wall clock became clearer. It didn't have any price tag, so I didn't even know if it was for sale or not! A quick conversation with the manager later, I had a price and had it on the bench to test if it worked. I thought the price was a bit much, but decided to buy it anyways since I'd rather support a local shop (especially this one!) than buy from a stranger on ebay. Now I think the price was actually justified; it cleaned up amazing (it had been sitting in the store for at least 2 years at that point, and had accumulated quite a bit of dust and gunk), and the internals managed to stay very clean. The movement is in quite good shape, and while it might benefit from a full service, I unfortunately don't have the proper tools and materials to clean it properly right now. I did clean and oil the pivots, which is the next best thing. The movement is a Hermle 131-030, with a date code of 1979. I have not been able to find a model name/reference number for the clock.
The part that needed the most tweaking was the chimes. The hammers weren't hitting them correctly, and it took a while to get them all to the correct position to create a nice resonant note. Each chime consists of 2 strikes, comprised of 3 individual notes. It first goes "Bing!" on the single highest note, and then goes "Bam!" with a chord of 2 lower notes. Every hour, it chimes the hour and every half-hour it chimes once (how funny, it just chimed the half hour as I was typing that. what a small world!).
This clock is currently kept in my room, and while some may think that the chiming could interrupt your sleep, I sleep very well with it in my room. The chimes are quite calming, and I've always enjoyed having the ticking of a clock to fall asleep to.
Bulova 23 B
One of the watches that my father inherited that I have grown quite fond of is this little Bulova model 23. It is date code of 1956, and looks to match. When I got it, the acrylic crystal was quite heavily beat up and had a crack in it. Even ignoring the water-resistance issue that the crack introduced, I really wanted to replace the crystal so that the full beauty of the dial can be seen. Acrylic crystals are very cheap and easy to source, as long as you have the right measurements. This proved difficult apparently, as it took 3 tries to get the right crystal. The first time, it was completely my fault as I had incorrect measurements. You live and you learn. The second time, I ordered 2 crystals which were closest to my measurement. The smaller one was too small, and the bigger one was... even smaller??? It turns out that the seller mis-labeled the bigger one, so I had to get a refund and order another. This time, it fit perfectly. In order to install the crystal, I made a makeshift Robur Press. It presses on specific parts of each side of the crystal in order to make the radius slightly smaller, allowing you to slip the case around it, and then release the tension for the crystal to expand and create a (in theory) watertight seal. I was able to make my own press using some specially designed 3d-printed dies hot-glued to a mini vise. In the future I intend to service and clean the movement of this watch, as there are some signs of corrosion/rust.
