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Greetings from sunny Southern California USA

Saldog

By Saldog
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Saldog Member

Saldog

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Hello and thanks to the forum for accepting my join request. I look forward to interacting with fellow watch lovers.

I have been fascinated with watches since I was in high school, circa late 70's. That's when I bought my first watch. Our family had a retail store selling mostly groceries but with some mercantile goods as well, including Seiko watches, believe it or not. All I knew of Seiko was what was in our single rotating display case, which was filled with quartz watches, mostly analog and a few digital ones. I knew little of what "made them tick" back then, but I was still fascinated with them. I have worn a watch on my wrist ever since then and did not stop when cell phones became the norm.

I didn't really appreciate mechanical watches until I was in my 30s, after I had worked in design engineering for about 10 years. My exposure to machine design in that time really allowed me to more appreciate just how special a watch is. I bought my first "nice" watch in the late 90s, an Omega Deville Prestige Automatic. I think I paid $900 for it from a shop in downtown Los Angeles. I went back downtown for a second Omega a few years after, this time getting a Seamaster Pro 300m Automatic, costing me $1400, a princely sum at the time. That watch is probably the finest one in my collection today. By the time I reached 40-something, I had the start of a collection, mostly of fairly inexpensive watches like Seikos, my first love.

For a while, I wore a couple of Apple watches and I really like them for their usefulness, but I got bored of those and went back to vintage watches, mostly Automatics but also manual winders, electronic hummers and early quartz watches. I never dared to do much to them other than replace a battery or a strap/bracelet.

It wasn't until the last year that I mustered the courage to actually try and make a watch that was not running run again. I was inspired by YouTubers like Mark Lovick and Marshall Sutcliffe, whose videos made it look much easier than I thought it would be. Of course, everything Mark does looks easy because he is so good at it and I know for sure I'll never be THAT good, but for simple things like disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling, I have had enough success that I have become hooked, with the hope that one day, I'll actually be able to do more advanced things like change a balance staff or a jewel or re-plate a case.

I'm still working full time in an unrelated line of work and a few years from retirement. I hope to be able to take this hobby more seriously one day. My wife is not enamored with my hobby or how I have taken over one end of the formal dining room table. I really need to find a more appropriate place to work and stash my tools and parts. Hopefully very soon.

If you've read down this far, wow, you really have too much time on your hands! Get a life FFS! Thanks for that though and see you around!

Dave S. "Saldog"

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grsnovi Distinguished Member

grsnovi

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Howdy Dave,

Made it all the way to the bottom. I'd rather see an intro like yours than one that just says: "thanks for letting me in"...

It's sunny this afternoon in Oregon too, I just mowed the lawn (I'm already retired). I have another Buren Grand Prix on the bench but haven't really spent any time on it yet (I had another previously that was cleaned and ready to re-assemble but I saw that the setting lever spring had broken between my disassembly and taking everything out of the wash). Of course, although they are both the same size they have different keyless works.

Anyway, welcome to WRT - it's a good place.

- Gary

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Saldog Member

Saldog

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51 minutes ago, grsnovi said:

Howdy Dave,

Made it all the way to the bottom. I'd rather see an intro like yours than one that just says: "thanks for letting me in"...

It's sunny this afternoon in Oregon too, I just mowed the lawn (I'm already retired). I have another Buren Grand Prix on the bench but haven't really spent any time on it yet (I had another previously that was cleaned and ready to re-assemble but I saw that the setting lever spring had broken between my disassembly and taking everything out of the wash). Of course, although they are both the same size they have different keyless works.

Anyway, welcome to WRT - it's a good place.

- Gary

Thanks Gary! See you around.

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