A little while ago my brother gave me a mechanical watch. Up until then I usually wore a calculator watch, which made me look even nerdier than I actually am. However, looking at my shiny new watch made me wonder how it worked, and so my adventure into the murky hobby of watchmaking began…

I read up on watchmaking, and I learned a couple things about watches like what a jewel is and means. However, I’m very much a learn-by-doing kind of a guy so I ordered some cheap watches off ebay. I managed to destroy every one, the carnage would have made a hardened soldier cry.

Unfortunately, there is no place I know of where you can buy unassembled watch movements (the movement is the gears, wheels, etc. all assembled into one amazing device), so I’m stuck with making a watch out of existing parts. I would have really liked to assemble a movement myself, but I suppose the time will come.

I have a movement, case, dial, and set of hands on their way. Supposedly, installing a movement into a case is a really hard process, but I have to learn somehow, and the amount of online documentation on watchmaking is minimal at best. Consider this my watchmaking war diary, entry number 1.