
DIY makers who build their own watches - raleighm
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180316-the-people-who-make-their-own-watches
======
EarthIsHome
As a watch enthusiast, I've wanted to build my own watch in the past. However,
as I got deeper into watches, I realized I could never really make the watch
my own creation unless I developed and manufactured the movement myself.
Otherwise, I'll be dressing up a generic ETA movement [0] with a personal
dial, hands, bezel, etc. This is what most of these DIY watches are. With that
said, ETA movements are some of the most solid movements out there with
decades of support. They're also capabale of COSC [1] chronometer timekeeping
if adjusted properly. For me, the DIY magic dies with the movement because I'm
limited to the dimensions of the ETA movement. It's the heart of the watch.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ETA_Movements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ETA_Movements)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSC)

~~~
foodislove
I've been making my own movements for fun for a while. Most of the parts you
can print/order, but for accuracy purposes I tend to use an existing balance
spring (generally sourced from any old Seiko movement).

I recommend 2 books if you want to make your own movements

1) Watchmaking by George Daniels 2) Practical Watch Repairing by Donald de
Carle

The first is a textbook and second deals with repairing, but actually taught
me the more practical side of how to assemble & regulate a watch, and what
makes a movement accurate.

I've made my own hand-winding movement. It is within COSC specs but only when
it's more than 75% wound, perfectly flat, and in a cool place. Oh did I
mention it's the size of a ping pong bat. It makes me appreciate ETAs and
their reliability even more now. It's time consuming and drives me nuts at
times but totally worth it.

~~~
wepple
This is cool, do you have any recommended blog posts on the end-to-end
process? I’d love to build a movement but would like to gauge the
effort/cost/time involved

~~~
grp
It's a never ending thing!

You could start by sort of reverse engineering movements (disassemble and
reassemble).

Start to build your own tooling.

Then make a copy of the bridges and baseplate.

Try to change the geometry of the bridges and baseplate, keeping the same
moving parts.

Then build your own moving parts.

Start from massive clocks to "table clocks" to marine clocks to wristwatches
movements.

And it could be very expensive, wood clocks are cheaper, less time consuming.
There is great stuff and ideas online. For example, see the timer from Ugears
there is mind-blowing tricks hidden in this model.

~~~
convolvatron
super interested. i do machining on the centimeter scale and have no idea how
to work on those parts.

do you buy gears? if not what is your gear cutting rig look like.

it seems pretty clear you need a jewelers lathe and some decent files. what
else is indispensable?

~~~
grp
It's not possible to buy gears due to the _" module"_ (I don't know how to
translate it), it's a factor of scale that influence the spacing between
gears.

The hardest parts are the springs (balance spring and mainspring) and the
screws (there are so small, it's a specific norm, see NIHS for _Normes de l
'Industrie Horlogère Suisse_). For the gear cutting, there is an example here
[pdf link]:
[http://www.cowells.com/docs/cutter.pdf](http://www.cowells.com/docs/cutter.pdf)

There is a lot of custom machine tools, many of them are needed to resolve
problems that an individual doesn't care. But there is always alternative ways
and it's the fun and watchmaker's task to find them!

So there is not really indispensable tools as it depends a lot of the project.
Expect if you want to make specific watch decorations, like _perlage_ ,
_guillochage_ , _soleillage_...

I can't find links but there is an operation named _roulage_ where the guiding
parts of the pinions are hardened, it's not indispensable if you don't want an
industrial grade, kind of.

The simplest design is the roskopf movement.

~~~
zokier
> "module" (I don't know how to translate it)

fyi, it is called module in English too.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear#Standard_pitches_and_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear#Standard_pitches_and_the_module_system)

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colin353
Hey, that's my hobby! Here's my most recent watch:

[https://imgur.com/gallery/uFxcK](https://imgur.com/gallery/uFxcK)

~~~
libdjml
This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. Do you work in a
machine shop to have access to that type of tooling?

~~~
colin353
I work at Google, we have a hobby machine shop for engineers to play around in
:D

~~~
libdjml
Ughh I’m totally not incredibly jealous.

Really cool to see it being used for interesting projects, kudos!

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jacquesm
That's got as much to do with watchmaking as putting decals on your car has to
do with engine fabrication.

If you want to make watches for real you should start by making clocks and
work your way down in size as you get more experienced. It will likely take
you a lifetime to master the skills unless you can find a watchmaker to train
with (and not a movement packager).

~~~
anfractuosity
I don't know anything about watch making, I'm just wondering are the gears
etc. these days mainly milled with a CNC machine?

I assume there's a lot of skill in assembling as well.

I'm very curious how they made gears etc. say a 100 years ago too considering
they're so tiny.

~~~
grp
It depends of the quantity you need, but there is some that use stamping to
make gears.

But you can also saw the profile manually.

Assembling is hard but doable, the hardest part is the adjustment!

~~~
zokier
> But you can also saw the profile manually.

That is something I've wondered; until what scale is that really feasible?
Because fancy indexing lathes, gear cutters and CNCs bring in kinda high
barrier to entry, but a jewelers saw (presumably?) and a vise are far more
approachable for a hobbyist.

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tgb
I looked into this a year or so ago with the idea of making my own mechanical
watch _movement_ , not just a kit watch. I could only find one source of a
hobbyist doing this themselves: [https://ashtonwatch.com/2012/01/04/its-alive-
and-a-bit-of-a-...](https://ashtonwatch.com/2012/01/04/its-alive-and-a-bit-of-
a-monster/)

~~~
grp
It's still a work in progress but there is an initiative at openmovement:

[https://www.openmovement.org/?konzept](https://www.openmovement.org/?konzept)

I'm a watchmaking engineer and I know two people on the project, I'll be
pleased to tell them any feedback.

By the way the watch you linked is a clone of Unitas 6497, the work is awesome
nonetheless.

~~~
justinclift
This is the English link, as it seems to default to German:

[https://www.openmovement.org/?konzept&lang=en](https://www.openmovement.org/?konzept&lang=en)

That aside, this looks pretty nifty. :)

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hownottowrite
Reminds me of Dan Spitz (Anthrax lead guitarist) who left back in the 90s to
become one of the watchmakers in the world:
[https://vimeo.com/161489498](https://vimeo.com/161489498)

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diego_moita
After the sad end of Pebble I've dreaming of, someday, making my own
smartwatch. All the other existing smartwatches don't compare to Pebble's
simplicity and robustness.

The nRF52840[0] seems to be a very interesting chip for this use, with lots of
resources and low power consumption. An e-paper display[1] seems also quite
interesting since its power requirements are so low.

Do you know any interesting project on DIY smartwatches?

[0]
[https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/nRF52840](https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/nRF52840)

[1]
[https://eink.com/product.html?type=productdetail&id=14](https://eink.com/product.html?type=productdetail&id=14)

~~~
wepple
This may not be your idea of a smart watch, but is a lot of fun and has cool
hardware: [https://goodwatch.org/posts/introducing-the-
goodwatch/](https://goodwatch.org/posts/introducing-the-goodwatch/)

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Hasz
I think a low cost EDM would be perfect for fabricating small watch parts.
Stupid accurate, no forces on the cutting head, could easily be desktop sized
(at least for a work area of a few cm) and very quiet. Can only cut metal, but
that's a pretty decent compromise I think.

~~~
anfractuosity
I just found
[https://www.geartechnology.com/issues/0610x/edm.pdf](https://www.geartechnology.com/issues/0610x/edm.pdf)
which seems to confirm that EDM has been used for watch gears - "Wire EDM can
be used for micro- machining applications, including the gears found in
watches"

Do you know of any low cost EDM machines out of interest?

~~~
Hasz
I've actually been playing around with designing one, but lack the free time
to do so. I have a couple of Fusion360 models set up with commercially
available parts, but I don't have a physical prototype yet.

I'm planning on setting one up this summer.

I know of nothing available commercially at a reasonable price and size.

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sehugg
This reminded me of the book "Longitude", a tale of truly epic clock-making:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_\(book\))

~~~
pacaro
It’s a good book. The story is more nuanced than people often realize. Most
definitely Harrison was treated poorly, however, while he created chronometers
that met the latter of the challenge, he didn’t really help with this spirit
of the problem. A true solution needed a mass produced chronometer.

It’s also often misrepresented that he was the person who solved the “how do
you measure your longitude“ problem. It was well understood that you needed to
be able to accurately measure the difference between local time and time at a
known meridian. The questions where about how to accurately and practically
measure that.

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jimmies
Clocks and watches, like old/homebrew computers, are very cool. They are hard
but not too hard to the point that an amateur can't do it. I always envy the
amount of ingenuity someone has that went into making a watch.

There is an exceptionally good podcast about a vintage clock restorer's life I
listened to last year called Shit Town. It describes how the life of someone
so brilliant, so smart could be so bizarrely and tragically dysfunctional. I
think the story rung a bell to myself, and I couldn't be more sympathetic
after listening to it. It has to be my favorite podcast of all time.

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neverartful
The article and this thread is simply amazing to me! I had no idea that were
so many who are doing this. I've always had a fascination for clocks of all
kinds. Building your own mechanical watch from scratch seems like it would be
one of the ultimate achievements for a hobbyist.

And here I am trying to decide whether I should build shelves in the garage
myself, pay someone else to build them, or buy shelves at Home Depot.
Downright embarrassing to mention in a thread like this.

