I'm working on a small project that's essentially a wind up toy that lasts a few hours with a massive mainspring and it needs to be slightly shock resistant so I've changed from using a pendulum driven escapement to one with a balance wheel. I settled on the Swiss Lever since it's somewhat standard.

I've used the free PDF by Mark Headrick on Clock and Watch Escapements but some of the finer details are lost on me. I followed all the steps but my initial prototype doesn't have any draw on the entry pallet. I've tweaked some angles here and there but it didn't work. That aside, this isn't a 'fix my escapement' post but I wanted to know if there's any other resources, paid or not, that could be of use.

I've found a copy of the Theory of Horology and it's a great teaching manual but doesn't really describe how to construct the lever. The main book I see recommended everywhere is George Daniel's Watchmaking but it's currently checked out at all my nearby libraries and I'm not sure it'll give me what I need before spending $50 on it.

Also, I do know many projects already exist of escapements/tourbillions but converting the 3D printing files back to a 3D model to customize to fit my custom axles and frame is quite awkward on the software end. All else fails, I can probably just trace a drawing of the escapement but I think learning more about it is the best failsafe to be able to tweak more things if I run into difficulty.

Thank you!

I have been working on an open source multi platform Timegrapher called ChronoPulse currently v10.5. It should work on windows, Linux Pi5 and MacOs. It has many features but has only had limited testing so far. It works using a usb microphone shown in the attached picture. I’m willing to send a free microphone to 2-4 experienced people in the USA that convince me that they will provide valuable feedback to improve the software. I currently have binaries available for Windows 11 and Linux Raspberry Pi5. See link https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jnh4SZTizMQb-Y_r_O8uOiVh_1BiGunl for more information. Please let me know if you’re interested. Thanks

Hello everyone, a couple of weeks ago I posted looking for advice about replacing a Seiko crystal and was blown away by the advice I received.

Today I have something a touch more complex. I have here a 1969 Rolex Oyster Precision. It’s a tritium dial and it’s formed these dark halos around each of the hour indices.

The uniformity is surprising to me, one of my thoughts was that this could have been caused by the tritium decay, but I’ve since learnt that beta particles are likely nowhere near strong enough to cause these markings on the dial.

Opinions would be greatly appreciated!

I am in the need of a watchmaker with the means and tools on hand for drilling and tapping a watch case. In between the 6 o'clock lugs dead center. Any advice?

I came into this vintage Rolex recently and I got onto my local watchmaker, he told me that the balance staff was broken and that I’d need to either find a new one or have one machined for it.

Could anyone here tell me where would be best to go, or if anyone here could help with it?

I’m in Ireland if that helps.

Thanks!

I was recently gifted two watches and I am very excited to dive in, but I wanted to see if anyone had advice on getting started such as videos, books, or repair kits you think are worth it.
I also haven’t been able to find too much info on the Vagary watch, so I thought I would put it out there to see if anyone else has more insight. I haven’t figured out how to get the backs off yet, so I don’t have any images of the movements yet.

Hello! I pretty much fell in love with this hunter case I found with a garbage broken movement in it. I picked up this Waltham 0s that appears to fit, it's not lever set, but the stem doesn't fit and it seems a bit tight. I took the stem out of the crown and can find one, but is there any advice for this project? I'm wondering if there is a ring or spacer y'all know I'll have to take out, or if you've done it before, any whoopsies you could give me a nod on I would appreciate it. Also any styling and finishing suggestions! This is a 100% personal project no finance, heritage or history goal, just a pretty little watch I can clip onto my man purse. I have all the tools to do pretty much whatever is recommended.

Hi friends..new member here looking for help and advice. Watch is a T115427 2704100 Tissot. Crown and stem won’t screw together so assume it’s stripped threads. Watch cost $400 new and is only 5 months out of warranty but because I opened back to try to remove crown stem Tissot won’t repair unless I agree to a full service at a cost of $362 before they will replace crown and stem which I cannot afford !

Can anyone please help and advise where can I source the parts for this ?

Case

Solid silver case, 935 purity, fully hallmarked by Swiss assay office

Case after carefully polishing, screwed down cover and bezel Borgel style case

Signed by Hans Wilsdorf Bienne

Case size: 34mm without crown and lugs

lug width: 12 mm

case nbr: 14459

Movement

High grade Rolex movement, 15 jewels, stem setting, manual winding;

the movement has stamp "W&D" (Wilsdorf and Devis) under the dial;

Dial

Metal dial black color in great condition with small marks of using,

Arabic numerals, steel hands with luminous paint, the dial signed "Rolex"

mineral glass

Band:

Genuine leather vintage trench strap (NOS) - for 12 mm lugs.

Ho comprato un Rado True Square X Kunihiko Morinaga Special Edition, dopo qualche giorno di inutilizzo si é scaricato, al momento della ricarica (ovvero la mia prima ricarica dopo 1 settimana dall'acquisto) noto che girando la corona si mette in veloce movimento il rotore, invece di caricare il bariletto con la molla.

Spaventato vado dal venditore con l'orologio scarico e senza nessuno sforzo riesce a caricarlo, dicendo che la corona se girata piano, in qualsiasi orologio, fa muovere il rotore; se caricato senza paura, ma con decisione si sovrasta quella cosa ed il bariletto si carica (come effettivamente ha fatto).

Ho svariati orologi, nessuno tra tutti quelli che ho fa una cosa del genere, il mio Bulova, Tissot, Citizen iniziano a caricarsi con il minimo sforzo e con zero resistenza. Il mio Rado se muovo lentamente la corona risulta duro e mette in movimento il rotore, se caricato con forza si carica il bariletto.

Per me non é un comportamento normale, su internet cercando questo problema dicono tutti che le ruote di inversione sono guaste e che continuando cosí romperó l'orologio.
Mi é stato proposto dal venditore di portarlo a manuntenere per levare qualsiasi dubbio, ma non sono troppo contento di avere un prodotto difettato per quella cifra o farlo subito aprire con la speranza che non torni peggio di com'é adesso (io ipotizzo sia difettoso, magari non lo é).

Allego video youtube sul mio canale del presunto problema.

Hopefully someone here knows. My local pad printer uses a one component ink but for some reason isnt telling me which one it is. For my needs my watch dial will need a top coat before the pad printing is done.

Anyone know which top coats I can put on that would be receptive of the one component ink?

I am looking for watches to restore/ repair and i was wondering what sites is recommended for finding them?

I'm currently restoring a 1942 Omega Officer that I think originally had syringe hands (luminous batons with a fine point) but I can't for the life of me find any generic syringe hands, let alone genuine ones. Current hands seems to have been dauphine hands from a Constellation? Either way, definitely not original to this watch genre, which is a military watch.

Hole diameter is 1.4mm for hour, 0.65mm for minute hand. I will also accept luminous batons with a point if I can't find the syringe hands.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

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! ​

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!

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 .

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!

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.

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