Did You Say Oops ?

[frenchie]

The idea in the thread is to post your best watch related "Oops" moments (parts in underwear count, you know who you are !!).

 

Here is one of mine :

Not only do I (try to) fix watches, I also make bread. From scratch of course and don't even get me started on bread machines. And I'm NOT in bread country right now... They actually sell rectangular loaves of bread with no crust. NO CRUST !!!! Anyways. So I'm in the middle of a watch disassembly and my buzzer goes on to shape my weekly loaves. I do my bread shaping and get back to the disassembly not noticing that I have a tiny bit of flour on the back of my wrist. That accidently falls into my cleaning lotion (lighter fluid) while I'm swirling it around to clean the balance. All of a sudden I notice that the fluid is no longer transparent, but kind of milky looking... And that I have bits of stuff floating in there... Oh dear... Well let me tell you one thing : wet flour is a pain in the backside to get off watch parts ! it's very fine and sticks like it's glue !!

Lesson learned : Clean your hands AND your wrists before playing with your watches !!

 

[Mark]

19 years ago when my wife told me she was pregnant :D

 

Sorry - not watch related :)

[Geo]

I don't know if this qualifies for a watch oops moment.............but I did "watch" it happen!

Back in the eighties I was heavily into photography and was asked by a friend who owned his own joinery business to take some pictures of the most ornate and expensive door that they had ever made. I was delighted to have been asked and arranged to take the photos.

The heavy door was brought up to the directors office and laid against the wall to be photographed. I wasn't happy with the way it was positioned, so I asked it to be placed against the wall in such a way as to make it look like the door was open. Looking through the viewfinder I witnessed my worst nightmare, the door sunk slightly into the heavy pile carpet, overbalanced, fell forward and demolished the directors coffee table and took lumps out of the door.......OOPS!

[WillFly]

Back in 1964 I bought my first guitar. It cost me £5 and was probably made of plywood. I got it home, together with my copy of Bert Weedon's "Play In A Day", tuned it up to pitch - and the whole tailpiece snapped and sent the strings flying past my head!

 

"Bugger!" thought I...

[Vich]

Hello Will,

 

I started with Bert Weedon, I think playing the Grand Old Duke Of York,  I seem to remember having a plastic attachment for the top of the guitar that you pressed buttons for the chords as well.  I then graduated to Irish Folk Tunes (Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers ?) that seemed to require a max of 4 Chords and then I found my level with Status Quo - same four Chords but with my little finger bouncing up and down :rock:  .  Halcyon days, well actually no, they were quite noisy..

 

Cheers,  Vic

[bobm12]

Watch related....mmm, does WATCHing my mother-in-law first thing in the morning counts? :D

 

In any case, my first hairspring, when I finished with it, from regular spring it had become a "multiple Breguet overcoil" if you know what I mean!....

[mwilkes]

Re. parts in underwear - recently i was looking at a watch, noticed that the end of the winding stem had broken off. Couldn't find the broken bit anywhere in the watch.

 

 

I found it a little later. Between my teeth.