Little talent, lots of ambition

[dirkdiggla]

Hi all my names Luke but everyone calls me Digs or Diggla. 

I've always been mechanically minded and worked on cars and motorbikes for most of my life, I've also been really into watches (admittedly for looks) but the movements always fascinated me. However, the thought of working or repairing a watch had never crossed my mind, until that fateful night, 3 weeks ago.

I was just minding my own business watching some YouTube videos and up pops "The Watch Repair Channel" I thought, 50 minutes, about watches I'm sure I won't watch it all. How wrong I was! 

 

The history, the engineering, the innovations, the precision, the ingenuity and thats just the watches themselves. The repairing and servicing of watches opened up a whole new world I had never even thought of as being that interesting. 

 

3 weeks later, £100s in tools, a desk full of old broken movements, some books and far too many hours on YouTube..... Here I am. 

 

If you've got this far good on you! I will try to be regularly active and the vast array of movements I have to tinker with means I will no doubt be bothering lots of you with questions! 

 

Luke 

 

*Current movements working on: BFG 866 (anyone know how to swap a balance out lol), AS970 and ETA2452 (who doesn't love a joblot)

 

[watchweasol]

Hello and welcome to the forum. You have quite a cross section of watches there to keep you busy/     a little addition to get you started.  I should look at the "watch fix " site for the online courses run by our administrator. They will give you a good  grounding in the repair of watches.

TZIllustratedGlossary.pdf

[Drew]

Hi Digs, 

welcome to the forum. You and I are alike.. Lots of ambition.. so little talent.. for now. I have to tell you that this hobby is a lot of work, but very rewarding. Looking forward to hearing more about yours. 

-Drew

[Nucejoe]

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

[Shane]

Enthusiasm, that's what I needed to see after a long hard day at work.  Great to have you involved.

5 hours ago, dirkdiggla said:

BFG 866 (anyone know how to swap a balance out lol)

There is an excellent write up that was posted here on the 866 here.  I don't think I found all the instalments but read every one I did (thank you Jon for all the effort).  Search on this forum for "Baumgartner BFG 866".  Sorry I don't know how people link shortcuts to other pages.  If this doesn't answer your question, let us know and someone will be glad to help.

Shane 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Shane

[dirkdiggla]

Thank you for all the replies, feel very welcomed already! 

I am currently reading Mechanical Watches a Practical Guide by Mark Wiles and trying to read Practical Watch Repair by Donald De Carle (but his writing style is quite challenging I'm finding), next payday MArk's courses are next on my list! 

Yes the challenging nature of the hobby is what fascinated me I've actually managed to take apart my BFG 866 and put it back together but the hairspring was damaged when I purchased, so waiting on some new tools and a bit of courage for hairspring disassembly & re-assembly lol! 

Thank you Shane, I actually used Jon's guide to strip the watch down, and it motivated me to join sp here I am :D. 

Any advice on good movements to cut your teeth on (I'm a little addicted to finding movements/watches on eBay)

 

Digs