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Mechanical Watch

ciechanow.ski

261–270 of 425 posts

Re: Mechanical Watch

#261
This is lovely! While there's a lot of watch content on YouTube, I'm amazed that no one has called out Clickspring's skeleton clock build. It's also a masterpiece, just in a different medium:

Full build playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsETq9h35dgQ...

Direct link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Y146v8HxE&list=PLZioPDnFPN...

Re: Mechanical Watch

#262

There's something magical about mechanical watches. Maybe it's just knowing that you have this perpetually winding machine on your hand (in the case of "automatic" mechanical watches). Also knowing that the thing will last forever, take care of it and it will probably outlive you. Can't say that about an Apple Watch. If you want a good mechanical watch that won't break the bank I suggest picking up a Seiko SKX (thoug…

I've been using the same mechanical watch, more or less every day, for a little over 12yrs now. Miyota movement, stainless body, Sapphire window, about $300. In years of machine shop work the movement survived fine, and has one scratch on window from some tungsten carbide. Has kept brilliant time, maybe a minute a month, and taught me that my watch being accurate to the second was something that, for me, just didn't…

> one scratch on window from some tungsten carbide.

Checks out. Tungsten Carbide and Corundum (sapphire watch crystals, the hardest watch crystal in use) have the same Mohs hardness of 9 and will scratch each other.

And I'd guess that a $300 watch probably doesn't use Corundum but rather mineral glass.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#263
Wow, I didn’t expect I would read all that but the visualization was so great and made it easy to follow, I learned more about mechanical watches than I ever thought I would!

If every subject could have visualization like this I could learn anything!

Re: Mechanical Watch

#264

There's something magical about mechanical watches. Maybe it's just knowing that you have this perpetually winding machine on your hand (in the case of "automatic" mechanical watches). Also knowing that the thing will last forever, take care of it and it will probably outlive you. Can't say that about an Apple Watch. If you want a good mechanical watch that won't break the bank I suggest picking up a Seiko SKX (thoug…

A mechanical watch needs regular service which is usually just cleaning, lubricating, replacing seals and springs. Eventually it will need replacement parts and that is probably the end of life for the watch. There are a some brands that will service every watch they've ever made, fabricating new parts as needed. Few of us can afford one of those.

I have seiko automatic which kept great time when I first bought it, but not long after, it slipped off my wrist and fell on the tile floor. Since then it has been losing time but no so much as to be a huge problem. Would service easily fix this or is it just something to live with?

Re: Mechanical Watch

#265

I was curious how he did those visualizations so I looked at the source code. Turns out he codes everything by hand in WebGL [1]. Absolutely impressive stuff. Source code is non-minified so you can have a look and understand everything as well. [1]: https://ciechanow.ski/js/watch.js

Are you sure about the by hand part? There's a lot of repetition, it feels like at least some of it must be generated.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has one on the ICE actually, though I don't have the link handy.

https://ciechanow.ski/internal-combustion-engine/

Wonderful! Showed this to my wife who, bless her, hates stuff like this and she’s captivated.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#267

Mechanical watch nerd here. This describe an ETA (swiss) movement, I really prefer the Japanese movement (I know mostly seikos). The mechanism are more simple and more robust. For instance, on ETA the crown mechanism is really sensitive, a lot of tiny fragile parts with a lot of tension in them, it go wrong easily. Also, seeing this web page I got frustrated by the fact it doesn't tackle what got me the hardest time:…

Hi where can I learn more about the Japanese movements?

Re: Mechanical Watch

#268
post #73

Wow very comprehensive & well done. If mechanical watches tickle your fancy, there is a ton of watch repair video on YT. I particularly enjoy wristwatch revival ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD80T1s2Za4K682CQDGwEKQ ). A warning though, if you consider to get into that hobby. I tried, it's really hard, expensive (I spend close to €1k and that is with b-quality stuff. Good stuff is 5-10x more expensive.) and can b…

Love Marshall's stuff! I also suggest their Magic: The Gathering podcast [Limited Resources]( https://lrcast.com ) for those int TCGs.

I shared this blog post with him and he said "That's the coolest thing I've ever seen". I can't say I disagree with him.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#270

There's something magical about mechanical watches. Maybe it's just knowing that you have this perpetually winding machine on your hand (in the case of "automatic" mechanical watches). Also knowing that the thing will last forever, take care of it and it will probably outlive you. Can't say that about an Apple Watch. If you want a good mechanical watch that won't break the bank I suggest picking up a Seiko SKX (thoug…

I've been using the same mechanical watch, more or less every day, for a little over 12yrs now. Miyota movement, stainless body, Sapphire window, about $300. In years of machine shop work the movement survived fine, and has one scratch on window from some tungsten carbide. Has kept brilliant time, maybe a minute a month, and taught me that my watch being accurate to the second was something that, for me, just didn't…

> I started working around pulsed high voltage last year (100kV+) and now it loses a couple minutes a week.

Are these two things somehow related to one another?

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