Watchmaking & Clockmaking
Back to ProjectsI'm quite fond of devices that measure time. This, combined with my affinity to 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 2 of them currently in the works and/or paused.
The first one, an old analog Casio with significantly more sentimental value than monetary value, had an old and now very obscure movement. This movement is impossible to find new, and more importantly it has proven unreliable. 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. You'll be hearing more about Seiko's line of NH movements later =)
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 have managed to source a replacement, and hopefully will be replacing the movement soon.
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.
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!!!
Vintage clock restoration
Calling this a "restoration" is a bit of a stretch. 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.
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.
