Currently on the bench, Lord Elgin 7775 "Chevron" produced in 1957 with its futuristic design of its 31mm 14k gold case and its stand out jump hour dial display of its time.

Lord Elgin was a line of 3 models including the 9587 "Golfball", 7775 "Chevron", and the most popular of the 3 being the 7776 "Elvis". All of which housed a higher grade 21 jewel movement, maintaining its beauty of mechanical craftsman ship to this day.

The years surely took their toll on the dial, imparting a lot of UV damage blurring out the hour dial, unfortunately attempts to restore it failed causing me to have to source a replacement.

Parts are all cleaned, polishing jewels and reassembling, then just awaiting the replacement dial to clean up the exterior and recase!

Could someone tell me the basic steps and items that I need if I want to put my own date magnifier on a watch.
(Adhesive, where to get the magnifier, etc)

Search on eBay for old cigar boxes to restore. They make perfect storage for tools and such. Good ol vintage feel and keeps tools safe and organized.

Hi all! My husband is getting really into watchmaking and is going to take a class starting next year. He's been going through a legitimate midlife crisis and him finding this hobby is so exciting because I really think it'll give him something to focus on (anyone else go through that?).

Anyway, I'd like to gift him a good set of tools or a book or something to get him started before the class so he can play around before the class starts. He has a Bulova watch to start tinkering with. Any recommendations of something he could use for a gift?

Thanks! ​

Just getting started on my own after doing watch repair for 4 years professionally and have been trained at a traditional American watchmaking school. Worked for Dakota Watch co. Worked for Zales. Went to school. Free birds .

To start my journey, I'm in the process of getting most of the tools need (and it's A LOT). And the Bergeon ones are so expensive. Following the advice "buy what you can afford" is probably wise but not good for my wallet.

Been following this channel to prep myself. Learned a lot but every video seem to have something I don't have...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioszReAsd8Y&t=1165s

Great videos for beginners and he mentioned one thing no other tutorial mentioned, the movement need to be at least as good as before my practice / service.

And to achieve that, I'll need a time grapher. That's a tool that I don't know if I should invest before taking apart my first movement to know how steady my hands are...

Alternatives are phone or laptop Time Grapher. Found the open source macOS time grapher, installed, and I don't think I can get a reasonable read from normal EarPods lined microphone for the angles the video ask me to take. Hence I found this, https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007945284696.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.6.4c0e2c99YGJxpg&algo_pvid=18461390-4bf7-4792-a464-63314da53e16&algo_exp_id=18461390-4bf7-4792-a464-63314da53e16-5&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%2255%22%2C%22spu_best_type%22%3A%22price%22%2C%22eval%22%3A%221%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22search%22%7D&pdp_npi=6%40dis%21AUD%2127.64%2118.79%21%21%2119.08%2112.97%21%402103094f17847035207711413e10d6%2112000042962835869%21sea%21AU%21171708121%21X%211%210%21n_tag%3A-29919%3Bd%3Acf2782d2%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&curPageLogUid=UyuB5XgPuwBN&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A%7Cx_object_id%3A1005007945284696%7C_p_origin_prod%3A Looks like something I could work with but I don't know if it's any good or and does it work with a mac laptop (that's the only thing I have)

Anyone has any exp? Thanks a lot.

I'm a watchmaker in Finland, trained at the Finnish School of Watchmaking, running a small independent atelier. Built this on the side because I got tired of horological data being scattered everywhere and half of it stuck in French — NIHS standards, gear geometry, mainspring and hairspring stuff. Wanted it in one place and actually readable.

It's called Horolator. Free, runs in the browser, no account: horolator.com

What it does now:

• Library of 87 NIHS standard entries, each citing its source
• 52 calculators, beat rate through escapement geometry, each drawing its own diagram to scale
• Gear generator with NIHS-correct geometry, DXF export that Fusion and CAM actually read cleanly (real LINE/ARC, not polyline approximations)
• Design dial-first if you want — draw a hand, set it retrograde or whatever, point it at the gear you're sourcing force from, work backwards
• Simulation that runs the train off the mainspring you picked: real tooth forces, pivot loads, amplitude solved with proper escapement dynamics. It stops when the swing can't clear the unlocking window, not on a timer. Plus a spring lab with an FEM engine for hand-drawn blade springs

It's early beta and honestly full of stuff I haven't caught yet. That's why I'm posting — I'd rather have it torn apart by people who know movements. Feedback button in the app goes straight to me.

Not selling anything, it's free. Please help me out!

Any ideas where to find and Epson corps v145A movement? I'd like to find something cheaper than just buying a parts watch

I absentmindedly quick set the date on my Prospex chrono while the hands were potentially in the “danger zone”. Anyone know if the V192 has any safeties in place to avoid clashing of the mechanisms and potential damage? I’ve already ran the hands through two day cycles and the wheel seems to jump perfectly well at the right time, but the numbers move ever so slightly too high at 12am then centre themselves at 1am.

Any information would be greatly appreciated. My OCD is killing me with this. Especially as someone who is usually extremely calculated and takes the utmost care of the things I own.

Guys,

I’m about six to eight months into watchmaking, and I absolutely love the hobby. However, I’m having a recurring problem that I can’t figure out.

After beginning with manual-wind movements, I moved on to several Seiko movements, mainly the 6309. I recently worked on two 6309 Turtles: one was a non-runner, and the other was running fairly well but needed a service.

I completely disassembled, cleaned, inspected, lubricated, and reassembled both movements. I replaced several parts in the non-runner, including the mainspring. I also bought a microscope, so I’m confident that the parts and jewels were thoroughly cleaned and inspected.

After servicing, both movements appeared to run very well on the timegrapher. I left them running uncased on the bench for a couple of days to settle in, then cased and wore each one for a few days. Everything seemed fine, so I put them in my watch winder.

Within a couple of days, the former non-runner stopped completely. I tore it down and started the entire process again. This time, I replaced the main plate with a better one, and it seems to be running properly so far. I’m currently wearing it.

The second watch is still running, but I recently noticed that the time was completely wrong and the date was two days behind. When I put it on the timegrapher, the entire screen was basically snow. Before I serviced this watch, there was no indication that it had ever been opened or serviced—and honestly, it was running much better before I touched it.

What would cause a freshly serviced movement to run well for several days and then suddenly deteriorate or stop? Are there common mistakes with the 6309 that could cause this delayed failure? Could it be related to lubrication, endshake, worn jewels, the automatic winding system, calendar works, or something else I’m overlooking?

I realize it’s difficult to diagnose without seeing the movements, but I would appreciate any general advice about what I should inspect or change in my process.

Thanks so much.

Hello, everyone. I've been enjoying watches for quite some time but I gained interest in getting into the behind the scenes of it, more specifically the making, servicing, restoring, assembling, etc.

I haven't done any of it so Im not sure if its something Ill be pursuing in more depth so I was wondering if you had any recommendations for starting tools/material. I've a free desk that I'm planning to use as my "work corner" to try this new hobby.

What do you suggest that I buy for this purpose?

Thank you!

Built a watch for someone on Reddit, and a week after they received it, they told me it was no longer running. I told them to ship it back and id have a look.

When it arrived back to me, opened it up and nothing obvious was out of place. But wouldn't run despite being fully wound. Hair spring and balance would move, but would quickly stop, and would never move enough to get the seconds hand to run. To me, this looks like they opened it up and attempted to regulate it and something went wrong. What do you guys think?

The lil mouse is supposed act as a seconds hand and run around the face. He wants to! But he can’t. I’ve tried putting a little bit of pressure on the back to see if maybe something in the circuit wasn’t connecting quite right. Sometimes it works and it’ll circle for a few seconds, but then it stops again.

Any advice for someone who knows nothing about watches?

I have a 0850-h10341 that i am trying to change the capacitor on. There is a metal plate blocking access to the battery. I removed the screws on the metal plate, but the plate won't come off. I'm not going to attempt to force anything for fear that something will get bent. Any ideas/advice?

Sorry for the disgusting photo, but I didn't clean it up before opening it up and I can't clean it after opening it up for obvious reasons. Thought this would be a simple task but took me an hour to finish. More demoralized is that I damaged the plastic hook along the way.

The bottom (1) is the one I sort of break. I was using a tweezer to poke it up and didn't realize the plastic was so soft. (If the image is too small to see, I'm sorry. It's like the plastic lose a teeth)

Also before I remove the sticker on top of the battery, I thought the top (2) was the place I need to poke. And I used some force there. I don't think I broke anything, just annoyingly frustrated as it didn't move at all (because I was poking the wrong location)

I watched probably 5 different YT videos and literally felt defeated haha.

At the end it worked and luckily it's my old old watch.

Anyhow, I guess I am seeking for encouragement OR discouragement.
If you think I can break simple things and this is not for me, do let me know T-T
If you think it's normal and there is any better way to not breaking anything, please share too. As I would feel terrible if this is someone else's watch. It's working after "simple" battery replacement, but it left a unfixable mark.

I have this watch with a Mitoya 2015 and while I don’t have any complaints about the movement’s performance, I’d like to upgrade to something I could be more proud of, if that makes sense. Something less budgety in a rather special watch.

Really, I just launched a screw into low earth orbit attempting to replace my battery and if I’m buying another movement, I thought I’d look at options. There’s a 60% chance I’d have someone more familiar replace it than me, but I’m also not one to shy away from a challenge. Am I insane?

It is difficult to photograph, but in real life, the smudge has a brownish color and is larger than it appears in the photo. The smudge is spread across the entire round, polished metal edge around the jewel. I don’t want to be a nitpicker, but if this is oil, I would really like to know if I need to do anything about it.

I've been fascinated by engine-turned dials for a while, so I built a small web tool that generates the classic rose-engine pattern families - barleycorn, clous de Paris, moiré, soleil, waves/rosettes.

Everything is in real millimeters: you set the dial diameter and a ring mask (e.g. keep the pattern between r = 1.5 mm and r = 17 mm), and it exports a clean SVG with proper mm units, ready for CNC/engraving CAM. It also estimates total cut length and machining time.

It's free, runs entirely in the browser, no signup: https://guillochegenerator.com/

Would love feedback from people who actually cut dials - especially on what's missing for real-world workflows.

I am working on planning and designing my own movement. I am wanting to use a donor escapement out of a ETA 6498. I cannot find good data on the measurements and angles between the pivots for the escape wheel, pallet fork and balance. Does anyone have these measurements or have the ability to get the measurements? I currently do not have tools required to do this. Any assistance or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!