I just bought a small lot of vintage watchmakers tools and gadgets. Most of these are self explanatory, all are interesting and useful, but this first one I’m not sure what it’s used for (to be honest).

I just found my roller table clamp, now another one ends up on my bench…sweet!

Glass tube oilers. I’ll have to soak them to…

New old watch tools!

Hi.

I am on a project of making a custom watch, that would resemble old/vintage pieces.
I’ve found a nice suitable case, but would really like if it had domed crystal.

There are many sapphire crystals on sale on ebay (surprisingly affordable), with options to choose the diameter and edge width. I would be happy with an acrylic one as well.

Does anyone have experience with affordable ebay sapphires and cases, whether they could be swapped? Are those crystals any good?
Any logic in…

Flat to dome crystal swap

Tonight I’m getting ready to finish up this fine Longines dress watch from 1959. 17 jewels, no shock protection, movement 23Z according to the markings. The parts are fresh out of the cleaning fluids and are ready to be joined together again.

Next is a Sandoz, with another 17 jewel AS 1890/92 shock protected movement. Also as you can see it has “Henri Sandoz & Fils etched onto…

WOTB for 3-2-25 a couple of dress watches

To keep it brisk, my main attraction to horology is the mechanical aspect. A mechanical aspect that I’m semi knowledgeable in, but want to dive into as deep as possible.

Anyone got any recommendations on a fully comprehensive kit/combination of kits? Not just a few screwdrivers and some rodico, I mean everything from that down to crystal pushers and pressure testers.

The end goal is to restore vintage pieces myself, for my collection and my friends/colleagues (and hey, maybe some of you…

Where do I even begin…

I’ve been wanting to try curved tweezers for awhile, and to be honest I held back because The cost, and I already have multiple pairs of regular straight ones.

I finally get the chance to see how they feel, and I hope they are worth it. I found a set of brass curved tweezers from Italy.

Does anyone else use curved, and how do they feel compared to straight? I know the huge difference will be how to hold them and grip small items (of course). Guess I’m feeling a bit leery about my first…

Curved tweezers?

Dear community,

I’m very new to this universe of watch making/restoring. I’m getting my hands fixing and restoring simple movements and i have a situation recently that I cannot find the root cause and would love to get some advice from experienced watchmakers from this forum 😉

I’m trying to fix an automatic Tissot Seastar.
The watch works totally fine when the hands are off. Ticks very well and very precise.
As soon as I mount/attach the hands again, the balance weeks slows a lot and…

Tissot Seastar stops working when hands are attached

Hello all!

I have been building “Seiko mods” of late with AliExpress sourced parts. (Successfully, lol)

Stupidly, I got a dumb idea in my head to build a watch based on a VK67 mechaquartz….but unfortunately there are no dials available. Let’s make one, “how hard can it be?”, lol

I’m an engineer by trade and have a nice home workshop/machine shop…but it’s not exactly tailored to making small stuff.

I’ve spent the last few weeks messing about with my CNC router and came up with this…

Help me finished my half baked dial?