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It helps when you make gearing regularly and have a massive stock of cutters and a profile projector and all the other gear ready to go! I was in boogie mode, maybe 2 hours start to finish.

I always advise someone who is just starting, start on a pocket watch movement (not the fusee type) The movements are the same as as a basic watch, you don't need to bother getting it to work, it gives you good practice on how to hold tweezers, watchmakers screw drivers and using your eye glass.

It's best to start with a movement that is functioning, so you know once you have it back together whether you have assembled it correctly. Mark's watch repair course uses a chinese ETA 6497/6498 clone, I believe

Buy old working watches off eBay or ETSY. They usually come in batches and are cheap. Then use these to disassemble and reassemble. You can wind them with a screwdriver over the mainspring ratchet wheel. That way you will know if your reassembly worked. Take your time.

FYI if that is the movement inside your watch than it is not a marlin.....rather it is a 21 Jewels automatic. You can try the 'dunk and swish' as you so call it since it requires little effort. But know that those cap jewels need to be oiled too.

Pointing out that most watchmaker lathes use cone bearings does not address the precision and speed difference between cone bearing spindles and ball bearing spindles. The reason most watchmaker lathes used cone bearings is, until manufacturing technology improved the precision and performance of ball bearings (around WW2 and post WW2) cone bearing lathes outperformed ball bearing lathes. Once the manufacture of ball bearings produced high precision and ultra precision bearings, (ABEC 7 and ABEC 9) the situation reversed. Ball bearings now had tolerances measured in millionths of an inch and could outperform cone bearings. . Both Levin and Derbyshire produced high quality cone bearing watchmaker lathes. Both companies switched to ball bearing spindles for their watchmaker size lathes; but later stopped producing watchmaker lathes altogether. Now they only produce instrument size lathes. The major reason for this was a drop in watchmaker size lathe sales due to the availability of factory replacement watch parts. Ordering a replacement staff from the watch factory was easier than making it. At this point in time watchmaker lathes were no longer required to repair watches and were seldom if ever used. They were reduced to the role of display items in the store windows of watch repair shops. Now that watch factories have stopped selling parts to independent watch repair shops, the role of the watchmaker lathe should gain in importance. If replacement watch parts are, once again, made in the repair shops instead of being ordered from the watch factory, the role of a person who repairs watches should also be upgraded from part replacer to watchmaker. david

Hi Tony Mine is built on the webster design but has a jacobs chuck so will fit any barrel arbour. Designed to fit in a vice for stability. It uses the shells like the baker style and has a moving tailstock once its finished I will post it but its anly half done at the minute, otherthings take priority. I did build two others based on the joe Collins design both work well enough.

It looks like a simplified Ollie Baker mainspring winder. Here is mine, mine takes the different sized clock letdown keys and works very well for removing and fitting strong mainspring springs safely. Does yours take different sized letdown keys too? Watchweasol this ebay listing will show you the detail you want and you can find them cheaper than this one. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/372492081883 Cousins sells them too https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/mainspring-winder-ollie-baker-style

The movement looks like a Enfield F1 and the Made in England on the movement makes the date around 1932-c.1944 other's with more information will correct me if i am wrong .

When workng on vintage watches look out for the 'hollow center wheel pinion' type of cannon pinion where the fit is obtained by interference between the center pin and the cannon pinion. These cannon pinions are hard steel and break up if an attempt is made to squeeze them. The correct adjustment is to flatten the centre pin. If you are fortunate enough to have a copy of Fried it is all explained in Book III Chapter V.

Well said.

Other than English I also speak "Cheap", and this lovely Benrus was that. It was from my "Dresser Drawer Auction" and has a Benrus FK 43/AS 1194 17 jewel movement. It was a non-runner but other than a damaged canon pinion it just needed a cleaning and a spare bracelet. Actually, it does need a crystal gasket which I still need to sort out.

Hi LWS so true, once cocked up lesson learned its tough but life.

I have found it easier to reduce the height before installing the bushing into the plate. For this reason I try to purchase the correct height bushing. If the purchased bushing does not have a oil sink then I fit a bushing just a little thicker than the plate and reduce it down while creating the oil sink which helps hide the new bushing.

Hi have a look at this document and see if you missed any. 1612608791_ToolsfortheHobbyist (2) (1).pdf