Another member introduction

mbwatch · July 5, 2022

Hi all - I live in the north central USA. I've worn watches since my parents gave me a little manual wind Timex for my 7th birthday, but the pandemic turned me from "a guy with this or that quartz watch until it breaks" into "a watch guy." Occasionally browsing watch review videos led me to Mark's mesmerizing repair videos, which led me to watching probably 300 hours of his and other watch service videos. A few months back I finally took an 8 hour course with a local watchmaker to service a ST36/6497 clone movement and assemble a watch, in hopes of getting some hands-on practice before attempting to fix a broken HMT frankenwatch. (I succeeded! even replaced its crystal after ruining the original with isopropyl alcohol) And eventually to attempt service on my malfunctioning Vostok. I managed to disassemble the grinding automatic wind on a very cheap Tongji-based watch to lubricate it, and want to work on a couple more junk automatics before tackling the Vostok I actually care about.

Ultimately I'd like to be restoring pocket watches, but I've already discovered I'll need to learn to replace a balance staff to really open up that realm, with its requisite equipment investment. I already have a time consuming day job, time consuming chores, and already have somewhat time consuming practice & performance commitments as an amateur musician, but there's still a free hour in the week so I've gotta make some tiny machines tick tick tick. I look forward to participating here - I promise to research as much as I can before asking novice questions, but I am a novice and I've got a million questions. Cheers!