Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Hi everyone,

My name is Timothy, and I'm from The Netherlands. I've been interested in watchmaking and repairing for a long time now. I have been following the courses for a few years,

 and have always been interested in doing them, but never had enough time to dedicate a lot of time into following them. The time has come however, I do have some more spare time now.  I'm still reading on the forum here and haven't started any of the courses yet. 

I  do have a few questions though which I hopefully can ask here. Does anyone know what tools you'll need in course 1 & 2? What kind of budget would be needed to buy the tools? And in regards of a watch, does it need to be brand new or could you also practice with older watches? 

Thank you, 

Parrot. 

Posted (edited)

Hi Timothy 

Mark's level 2 course will allow you to work along with him by purchasing an inexpensive movement for about $35. The benefit of using the same movement of course is that in the event that you get "lost" or "confused" you can back up the video and try again.

As far as tools go, you can go crazy but Mark has a list of suggestions here.

Usually, the big stumbling block is oil. Mark also has some suggestions here.

Minimally you'll need two or three good screwdrivers, a good set of tweezers and some optical enhancement. Depending on how serious you think you may be you may be able to get by initially with 3 basic oils.

Watching some YouTube videos will give you examples of what is used by "the pros" - or at least by those who take the time to post their work on YT.

Also, depending where you are, Mark has a list of vendors (here are some in the USA go up a level to see vendor in other countries) where you can get "the good stuff" (of course Amazon has most of it too, just realize that you usually get what you pay for - a $10 set of 10 screwdrivers won't be equivalent to a $110 set of 9 screwdrivers).

Edited by grsnovi
Posted

Hi Timothy,

Welcome to WRT forum and good luck with your forey into horology.

You don,t really need expensive oils to learn watch repair, any cheap watch oil would do neither does the movement have to be new, in fact I recommend starting with a scrap movement, better yet to  get your hands on two movements of the same caliber and  build a runner out of the two, needless to say you will have extra parts left over and can do without buying spare parts. 

Some newbies here even show us what they have found and ask for advice which ones to buy.

Regs

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Topics

  • Posts

    • it would be nice to have the exact model of the watch the or a picture so we can see exactly what you're talking about. this is because the definition of Swiss watch could be a variety of things and it be helpful if we could see exactly the watch your dealing with then in professional watch repair at least some professionals they do pre-cleaned watches. In other words the hands and dial come off and the entire movement assembled goes through a cleaning machine sometimes I think a shorter bath perhaps so everything is nice and clean for disassembly makes it easier to look for problems. Then other professionals don't like pre-cleaning because it basically obliterates the scene of the crime. Especially when dealing with vintage watches where you're looking for metal filings and problems that may visually go away with cleaning. Then usually super sticky lubrication isn't really a problem for disassembly and typically shouldn't be a problem on a pallet fork bridge because there shouldn't be any lubrication on the bridge at all as you typically do not oil the pallet fork pivots.  
    • A few things you should find out before you can mske a decision of what to do. As Richard said, what is the crown and all of the crown components made of . Then also the stem .  The crown looks to have a steel washer that retains a gasket. So be careful with what chemicals you use to dissolve any stem adhesives or the use of heat. You might swell or melt the gasket unless you are prepared to change that also . The steel washer maybe reactive to alum. Something I've just used to dissolve a broken screw from a plate. First drilled out the centre of the screw with a 0.5mm carbide . Dipped only the section that held the broken screw in Rustins rust remover. This is 40 % phosphoric acid. 3 days and the screw remains were completely dissolved, no trace of steel in the brass threads. A black puddle left in the solution.
    • I suppose this will add to the confusion I have a roller jewel assortment. It lists out American pocket watches for Elgin 18 size and even 16 size it's a 50. But not all the various companies used 50-50 does seem to be common one company had a 51 and the smallest is 43. American parts are always interesting? Francis Elgin for mainsprings will tell you the thickness of the spring other companies will not even though the spring for the same number could come in a variety of thicknesses. But if we actually had the model number of your watch we would find it probably makes a reference that the roller jewel came in different dimensions. So overlook the parts book we find that? So it appears to be 18 and 16 size would be the same sort of the arson different catalog numbers and as I said we don't have your Mongol know which Log number were supposed to be using. Variety of materials garnered her sapphire single or double but zero mention about diameters. Then in a section of rollers in this case rollers with jewels we do get this down in the notes section Roller specifications but of course zero reference to the jewel size. I was really hoping the roller jewel assortment would give us sizes it doesn't really. But it does show a picture of how one particular roller jewel gauge is used  
    • Seems to still do it through my mobile data, I use an android phone almost exclusively, but I'll double check it. Thanks mark Strange, I'll try my laptop that utilities edge. I've been on site half hour since I got home, it hasn't done it yet. Thanks John
    • At work, I'm on MS Edge, not through chose, on my phone, chrome, no issues with either. 
×
×
  • Create New...