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Tutorials by Alex Hamilton


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1 hour ago, Kalanag said:

There is a new channel called „It‘s About F*****g Time“ by watchmaker Alex Hamilton (known on Youtube by his channel „The Watchsmith“) . The new channel is dedicated to watch repair tutorials for beginners and worth watching imho.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCXV8h3I9pnfZuDpg6xEM_8w

He's a great guy and has a brilliant sense of humour. He goes into quite deep detail as well. Hehe, he even gave me a shout out in one of his videos 😛

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Subscribed on my computer but was unable to find using search on the Fire Stick/TV where I watch most (so I actually had to log-in on the TV). Will run through what he's got posted to date...

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We can remove the balance- cock assembly  safer than the bearded guy.

Do not remove the cock screw, just loosen it enough to loosen the cock, once you have partially unpinned the locating pins,  proceed with removing the cock screw. 

With this approach you have the cock secured on the mainplate by the cock screw( not fully unscrewed, not removed) , preventing cock from falling off as you are unpinning it. 

                Better safe than to look pro.

 

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45 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

We can remove the balance- cock assembly  safer than the bearded guy.

Do not remove the cock screw, just loosen it enough to loosen the cock, once you have partially unpinned the locating pins,  proceed with removing the cock screw. 

With this approach you have the cock secured on the mainplate by the cock screw( not fully unscrewed, not removed) , preventing cock from falling off as you are unpinning it. 

                Better safe than to look pro.

 

That’s a very good tip, thank you. Suffice to say I’ve had the cock jump off the plate when trying to lift it off the steady pins, only for it to land next to the movement with hairspring attached. And a few more grey hairs in my beard 🤣

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My watchmaker used to say " hairspring is the first part newbies ruins and spend most time on to sort out often with poor results". 

Bunch of good advice from Alex though,     don't ruin it to begin with.

 

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On 6/21/2022 at 4:25 PM, gbyleveldt said:

Hahaha no ways, I thought you knew from the Tissot video?

Nice one bearded buddy👍. Call me number 246. Lol 😆 

3 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Nice one bearded buddy👍. Call me number 246. Lol 😆 

Maybe I'll send you this. It seems quite apt now i know you also have a mass of facial hair. (As well) 😆

16559152244372036939529477045648.jpg

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10 hours ago, gbyleveldt said:

Hahhahahahaa awesome!

So you are the man to talk to about Seikos, cool. Its good to specialise, my forté is being a lazy good for nuthin 😄. Nah this is my gym top 

16559575213922589202267376599419.jpg

8 minutes ago, gbyleveldt said:

I can pretty much taste the irony. Gorgeous George🤣 He is a big one though . Wow

Actually a big softy and was prancing around with 5 other little dogs. When you are this big and dominating you dont need to be aggressive, life is sweet. Anyway love your channel 👍 watched a couple and will watch the rest as well. All power to you matey for having the bottle, something I've been considering for a little while. I hope you do well, lets get you up to some big numbers subs. 

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1 hour ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

So you are the man to talk to about Seikos, cool. Its good to specialise, my forté is being a lazy good for nuthin 😄.

I wouldn't call myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination. It's just easier to find parts for Seikos than for the average swiss watch so that's what I gravitate towards. That Tissot was a classic example of what a typical swiss movement costs to repair vs what it's worth. It's doing pretty well video wise but outside of that it's still worth maybe $100-$150 after it was restored. A nicely restored popular Seiko is worth more and costs less to repair for the same effort (I'm talking divers here). The point may be moot as I don't sell any of the watches I get going again haha.

Lazy, nah, any guy that works with his hands the whole day is far from lazy. At the end of the day, you can stand back and see what you've made with those hands. I know you said it in jest but us "works with our hands" types are a dying breed. My son turned 18 now and he couldn't be bothered (nor can most of his friends) working with his hands. They all want the cushy jobs; I guess it's my fault for being soft with them. Whew, that went dark quick...

1 hour ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Anyway love your channel 👍 watched a couple and will watch the rest as well. All power to you matey for having the bottle, something I've been considering for a little while. I hope you do well, lets get you up to some big numbers subs. 

Thank you very much Rich, I really do appreciate it.

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I really liked Alex's video on dressing your tweezers and screwdrivers and ordered a rolling screwdriver jig yesterday.

I'm not that enthused about having him walk me through the mechanical disassembly/re-assembly of an ST36 where there is (or hasn't been yet) ANY mention of lubrication. 

To be fair he's only put up 7 videos so far and they've been well done. If nothing else, I'm planning to dress my (brand new) tweezers and screwdrivers and practice picking stuff up.

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I suspect he will be dedicating a video solely to lubrication, hence why he hasn’t brought it up yet. I get the impression that he’s compartmentalising each subunit of a movement per video and focusing only on that. Would be a great resource as well down the line: “I’m battling with a balance, oh yes it was such and such video”. Easiest way to get to the important stuff, as opposed to skipping through an hour long video with every thing in it.

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1 hour ago, gbyleveldt said:

I suspect he will be dedicating a video solely to lubrication, hence why he hasn’t brought it up yet. I get the impression that he’s compartmentalising each subunit of a movement per video and focusing only on that. Would be a great resource as well down the line: “I’m battling with a balance, oh yes it was such and such video”. Easiest way to get to the important stuff, as opposed to skipping through an hour long video with every thing in it.

Just finished watching the 7s26/36 seiko 5 sports restoration, cracking video and the finished watch and end display made it look bloody gorgeous 👍. Need more subscribers matey a lot more.

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Thank you Rich! Those were my first ones so feeling my way in the dark then. I’m still sitting with a dilemma as to format. Do I talk and try and be informative (boring you to tears in the process). Or do I just keep my trap shut and get on with it? Looking at the analytics, it suggest people prefer me quiet. Which is fine as it’s less work. But then it’s no longer informative and only entertaining. Hmmmm

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