21–30 of 63 posts
Watched a few of his videos just last week - the YT algorithm must love him. Really, really good photography and narration - worth a watch IMO.
The YouTube algorithm always seems to find cool stuff - I've been suggested (and watched) this, LockPickingLawyer and Mentour Pilot.
I collect watches, and have an interest in them generally. This is a pretty thorough example of how a watch is disassembled and "restored". (Retitled, against policy, because the original one doesn't summerize it appropriately.)
Why the quotes? Is it similar to other collectibles like coins where you must keep the patina or it loses value? Personally I love these channels where they fix old stuff be it electronic, mechanical or paintings
That's exactly it, especially among vintage rolex collectors. They have a bunch of slang for describing different ways things have aged eg the tritium paint on the dial having faded into a desirable cream color (creamy lume!), the hand's lume matching (implying it is the original paint on both the dial and hands), the dial itself could have any variety of sun damage like spidering or spotting, and on the GMT's in particular the color on the insert can fade so you might find yourself looking at a "fuchsia GMT". There is also a huge aversion to polishing of any kind.
This also can end up creating a lot of drama with Rolex itself if they send the watch in for factory service with instructions that end up not being honored. If you poke around on forums you'll see some very angry customers who specified no polishing, no replacing of worn/patina'd components like hands or dials, who got their watch back with a bunch of factory new parts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not sure where you’re looking but every brand offers no-date watches in pretty much every style you might want
There’s a few very expensive purely mechanical no-date watches, but I haven’t been able to find an affordable one.
When people desire cheap watches I tend to recommend some of the old USSR pieces, they were made in the millions and so they're very available, and they're cheap and reliable too.
These days there are new options available, so you might consider searching for things made by Vostok, or similar.
(Half my watch collection is Swiss-made, the other half is mostly Soviet vintage pieces.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not sure where you’re looking but every brand offers no-date watches in pretty much every style you might want
There’s a few very expensive purely mechanical no-date watches, but I haven’t been able to find an affordable one.
I have a question while I'm watching this video: How thick are those gears? (Not necessarily those very gears but gears typically used in watches.) I have experience cutting 0.3mm and 0.1mm brass. The second is just wobbling everywhere like a reed in the wind, while those gears seems to be solid.
Accutron is where the really small engineering comes in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XugX5zb1rG8 the wheel is about 25mm across (I think) but you can't really see the teeth with the naked eye. (https://www.watchdoctor.biz/accutron/ has more details) but the level of accuracy and detail needed to machine that far outweighs the stuff that rolex do even now.
These index wheels were mass produced, and I still don't know how they did it.
I don't know why, but I find watch mechanics super fascinating. Few favorites for people with spare time (and lots of money if one wants to buy these): Tourbillon: a watch complication where the main mechanism is mounted on a rotating wheel so that gravity doesn't affect the watch in a single direction. Spring drive: A very recent mechanism that produces a perfect sweeping motion of the seconds hand. It combines both…
I don't know why, but I find watch mechanics super fascinating. Few favorites for people with spare time (and lots of money if one wants to buy these): Tourbillon: a watch complication where the main mechanism is mounted on a rotating wheel so that gravity doesn't affect the watch in a single direction. Spring drive: A very recent mechanism that produces a perfect sweeping motion of the seconds hand. It combines both…
I hope you've seen this then: https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/