Introduction

At the beginning of 2011, I took up watchmaking/repairing as a hobby not only to make some money towards my very first watch, but to better understand the inner workings of these mechanical wonders. Taking up watchmaking was truly when my passion for watches began. I've come to appreciate the incredible finishes of haute horlogerie along with the numerous complications that the world of horology has to offer because I began to realize the sheer amount of time that goes into each and every hand-made timepiece.

I decided to create this blog to share my passion with my fellow horology enthusiasts and to document the projects that I will undertake on the path to my very first watch.

Thanks for taking a visit and I hope you enjoy what I've done!

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Another Repeater - Almost Done

Complications are by far the most time consuming repairs but definitely my favorite. I was lucky enough to find a cheap repeater on eBay and after about six or seven hours of work, I have (almost) the final product! In the pictures below, I don't have the dial fitted, nor the hands, because I am still waiting to purchase one last piece - a gong. The gong that came with the watch was horribly soldered by some previous watchmaker. The wire part was stuck to the base leaving no room for vibrations when the hammer struck. I sanded the sides down and tried gluing it back together, but to no avail. Super glue works occasionally with some parts (though far from the ideal method, it's cheap), but for something as delicate as the gong, it just wasn't sufficient.
 
Regardless, I have a video posted below of what the first chime sounds like. As for the rest of the watch repair, I took every piece out and polished the inner-workings of the repeater from the dial side - pictured below. I'll post a final video once I find a suitable gong.


UPDATE: The calendar dial I wrote about earlier will still need about 3-4 weeks to restore, unfortunately... but again, once I receive it, I'll post pictures of the assembled watch.






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