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Mechanical Watch

ciechanow.ski

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Re: Mechanical Watch

#401

Post by gambiting »

bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #396
gambiting wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To that point - yes, but it's less expensive than many people think. I got a vintage 1970 Omega Seamaster in very good condition some time ago, paid less than £1000 for it. It kept very good time, no issues with it, but I decided that since it turned 50 recently I'm going to treat it to a full Omega service with an authorized workshop, paid £495 - that included replacement original parts from Omega, which of course t…

Do be careful having your vintage watches serviced. I was lucky enough to inherit my grandfather's pre-COMEX 5513 in very good condition - one or two tiny specks on the dial and a light scratch on the case. The appraiser gave me the warning that I should never send it to a Rolex repair center for servicing under any circumstance. If I did, I'd likely end up having the original acrylic bubble being replaced with cryst…

>>Collectors want a watch that shows signs of life; they value a nice patina.

Yeah, but I don't. I don't have this watch as an investment - hopefully I'll use it for another 50 years and then someone else can use it again for 50 more years. In fact in addition to the service I paid £300 to have the dial replaced with a brand "new"(old stock) identical dial, because mine was showing very minor signs of corrosion. If a collector somewhere has an issue with that.....tough? Also I have no idea how anyone could ever even tell the dial was replaced, the new one is original Omega, just......flawless.

>> If I did, I'd likely end up having the original acrylic bubble being replaced with crystal, the case polished high heaven, new tritium applied, and it'd probably be worth $15k less.

That sounds perfect, if it were my watch I'd absolutely do that. Who cares how much it's worth at the end? If it's your grandfather's watch, then you probably won't ever sell it, will you?

Either way, I understand this is a personal choice.

>>for a watch that old, I'd strongly suggest you find an independent watchmaker or two and get them to give you an estimate before you do anything.

I did, both of them went "oh it's an omega, it's going to be about £400 for a full service mate" - so servicing it with Omega wasn't that much more expensive and it was a much better shout in my book, I know that whatever parts they replaced are original and brand new.

edit: just to add to the above - sorry, I realized I came across as very defensive. Yes of course your advice applies 100% if someone cares about maintaining the value of a vintage watch. Identical advice applies to maintaining vintage cars as well. But if you buy a vintage watch like me, to use it as....a watch....then just keep that in mind too.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#402

Post by bayindirh »

valtism wrote: post #218
panzerboiler wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He does it "the right way™". Use the platform. Don't use any framework or generic library. Go straight to the point and code what you need, when you need it. Don't minify or bundle anything, and let the people who are learning and courious a straightforward way to connect the dots, without forcing them into a github repository with 90% of the code unrelated to the thing and existing just to glue 1000 pieces written b…

I strongly disagree that this is "the right way". I think that the platform provides low level primitives that are _designed_ to have abstractions built upon them. Doing it like this has the potential to be the most performant, but it does so in the same way as writing your programs directly in assembly is potentially performant. I also don't think that the source code is particularly readable for me, and contains lo…

When there's physics, graphics and mathematics, there are magic numbers, which are results of formulas which needs to be computed once, or material properties, or nature's constants.

Also, nature and graphics works as an imperative parallel machine. So the code mirrors that.

This is not written deliberately this way. Code comes out like that when you strip all the libraries, fluff, and other less-related stuff.

I also write a scientific application, and yes, This is the way.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#403

Post by bad416f1f5a2 »

gambiting wrote: post #401
bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do be careful having your vintage watches serviced. I was lucky enough to inherit my grandfather's pre-COMEX 5513 in very good condition - one or two tiny specks on the dial and a light scratch on the case. The appraiser gave me the warning that I should never send it to a Rolex repair center for servicing under any circumstance. If I did, I'd likely end up having the original acrylic bubble being replaced with cryst…

>>Collectors want a watch that shows signs of life; they value a nice patina. Yeah, but I don't. I don't have this watch as an investment - hopefully I'll use it for another 50 years and then someone else can use it again for 50 more years. In fact in addition to the service I paid £300 to have the dial replaced with a brand "new"(old stock) identical dial, because mine was showing very minor signs of corrosion. If a…

No worries – and ultimately, you are absolutely right, it's all down to what you want out of it.

The two things I wanted to flag were

1) watches can have surprising value fluctuations, so they're worth being appraised professionally: just because you have "a model X from company Y dating back to Z" doesn't mean you'll get the valuation right if you try. If Papa were a desk diver at COMEX instead of Arthur Andersen I'd have likely ended up with a 5514 instead, and my six figure watch would be in a safe somewhere, not on my wrist.

2) many companies, when repairing, will not hesitate to add modern components. Rolex is apparently notorious for this, but others do it as well. In the opinion of Rolex, a watch is a watch: your GMT-Master with a Bakelite bezel is no different from a GMT-Master from 2022, it's just out of spec and needs a refresh.

The combination of this has lead to horror stories where people send their watch in for what they expect to be a fairly routine service (cleaning, oiling, etc.) and end up with an entirely different watch.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#404

Post by syncsynchalt »

hilbert42 wrote: post #398
bitcurious wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can understand it if the exercise was for training people but wouldn't most people who were interested in the internal workings of watches already be familiar with them? Most young people don’t even have access to a mechanical watch these days.

I fully accept your point that 'most young people don’t even have access to a mechanical watch these days' but I'd contend that that ought not be relevant (as I'll explain in a moment). First, I should say that I was perhaps a little harsh in my above comment and I didn't convey what I actually wanted to say. Unfortunately, I was distracted by the somewhat irritating fact that I couldn't view any of those drawings on…

I might be an outlier in how I learn, but I find that learning happens in multiple passes.

First, I learned a concept in school, and probably forgot it. Later, I heard about it again, and hung the concept on the skeleton of what I remembered from school. Only much later, when I'm actually applying the concept (in my career, during home repair, when doing my son's homework), do I connect the dots and really understand the concept front to back.

When talking to people I'll say I learned the concept {of gearing, of escapements, of the behavior of springs} in school. But it's probably just as accurate to say that exposure to experiences like this site were what truly cemented them in my mind.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#405

Post by lupire »

duderific wrote: post #191
soheil wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be 100% honest I found it very intimidating to even begin reading it. It's such a time sink (no pun intended) and a huge wall of text (with figures and interactivity nonetheless).

I usually get about half way through his posts, see how much is left and just give up. Nonetheless I get a lot out of them.

Dont give up. Pause between sections and come back tomorrow.

Put a reminder on your calendar.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#406

Post by lupire »

pcurve wrote: post #131
avestura wrote: post #3

This man is marvelous. Even though I know how top-notch he is at writing interactive blog posts, he surprises me with his quality every time I open his new blog posts. Bartosz is a huge inspiration for me.

I don't make this comparison lightly but I'm reminded of Leonardo DaVinci. How much talent does one need to create something like this? It's not enough to be just 'good' at engineering, design, watchmaking, and writing... you have to be amazing at it ALL of it. AND have motivation to do it. I'm just in awe.

You don't have to be watchmaker, just need to read and learn about it and understand it.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#407

Post by mr_gibbins »

jseban wrote: post #324
kaba0 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abstraction is the only thing that makes any of our advancements possible. Not even the simplest of math theses could be proves without a “framework” of relevant lemmas, nor could you write even a single hello world without the layers upon layers of abstractions written carefully over the decades. Sure, there is also bad abstraction, but the problem is the bad part, not the concept itself. Without abstractions you wo…

Well, if the abstractions were peer reviewed and put through the same rigour as mathematical proofs, that's a whole different topic. The equivalent would be a mathematical services company, who created "free" abstraction packages that required you to rewrite all your math, away from the scientific community standards, to fit their abstractions, and who also made money on consulting and selling books. And the big bene…

Ooo, you're giving me LaTeX vibes!

Re: Mechanical Watch

#408

Post by JohnBooty »

rkangel wrote: post #164
_fat_santa wrote: post #2

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 keep considering a mechanical watch, but I think I'd find the accuracy a bit tedious - having to continually adjust it every week so that I didn't arrive late to appointments. I like a watch that gets out of the way - it just works. I've got a Citizen watch a little like this: https://www.citizenwatch.co.uk/stiletto-ar1130-81a.html It's a quartz watch, powered by solar power through the face. It has 'just worked' f…

This is of course a matter of personal taste, but:

I usually set my watch a few minutes fast on purpose. I just use it to get an approximation of the time: "oh, it's nearly 5"

When I need the exact time I look at my phone, and naturally that's where my calendar reminders and such live as well. So I'm not missing any appointments if my watch is off, and if I did rely on my watch I'd be a few minutes early.

The two work well in tandem for me.

Of course, I also know lots of watch owners who prioritize accuracy from their wristwatches. If I was one of those people, I really couldn't imagine wanting to deal with a mechanical watch. They are wonderful, wonderful little machines and it's a miracle they're as accurate as they are... but, they are not as accurate as a $10 digital watch.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#409

Post by JohnBooty »

eganist wrote: post #262
Prcmaker wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lot of microbrands offer sapphire glass and very decent Miyota or Seiko automatic movements for $300-$500. Prices have crept up the last few years.

Orient has a few automatic models (Kamasu, etc) that can be had for under $300 with sapphire.

Re: Mechanical Watch

#410

Post by JohnBooty »

rauhl wrote: post #397
_fat_santa wrote: post #2

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…

> 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. I don’t know how many mechanical watches really will last a lifetime, but they will easily last longer than a so-called ‘smart’ watch. Six years ago I seriously considered purchasing a ‘smart’ watch. Eventually I realised that they were just another money sink and attention leash, an…

    The minus side is that I don’t wear one of those two 
    every single day because … I gotten bitten by the watch 
    bug, and now I have a pile of other watches, and I wear 
    those too!
This was a big part of the fun for me. Different watches for different days. It's ridiculous, even embarrassing to admit this but -- I feel like the richest, luckiest man in the world when I look at a drawer full of watches from which I can choose each day. As a child I would never have dreamed of it.

In reality they are all very modest watches, most under $100. The entire collection is not worth more than a nice laptop. But whatever.

As a bonus mechanical watches, unless I'm mistaken, will last longer if not running 24/7/365.

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