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How Watches Work

fratellowatches.com

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Re: How Watches Work

#91

Post by quickthrowman »

JohnBooty wrote: post #73
Cd00d wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too fell off my mechanical watch obsession when I added a smartwatch to my life. My current Fitbit keeps better time, is as waterproof as my dive watches, and give me so much more. It makes me sad sometimes, as the mechanical marvel of watches is beautiful, but in the end, I had a Seiko SKX-007 that needed some maintenance, and I was quoted $600. It was a $200 watch and they were going to swab the movement. That wa…

I had a Seiko SKX-007 that needed some maintenance, and I was quoted $600. That price is awfully high. They were either trying to rip you off... or simply drive you away, which is possible if they were a shop that prefers to work on high-value watches for wealthy customers. Maybe they are an authorized Rolex service center and prefer to collect those hefty prices. But, there's definitely not $500+ of labor involved a…

I’ve looked into this and the only recommended tools were a hand puller and hand press, otherwise it’s pretty straightforward to replace the movement with another stock one, or switch it out to 4R36/NH36 to add hacking and hand winding. I plan to swap the movement for one of the hacking/handwinding ones when the movement when my SKX009 dies.

Re: How Watches Work

#92

Post by JohnBooty »

desine wrote: post #77
JohnBooty wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love mechanical watches too, but surely some cheap digital watches stashed in a shielded box would be the more effective post-EMP timekeeping device, right?

Shielding itself is not perfect. Probably enough for the simple circuitry of an analog quartz. But it's not guaranteed. It's a buffer that reduces a wave by a few to a few dozen dB. A EM pulse through even a properly grounded faraday cage will still replicate another smaller wave internally. Just let me collect my tiny mechanical toys, dammit, don't ask questions.

Oh, I didn't mean to rain on your parade. I love my diver's watches. In a similar vein I love having 200M of water resistance even though I'll never take them any deeper than the bottom of a small swimming pool, lol.

Re: How Watches Work

#93

Post by canadianfella »

xcambar wrote: post #62
emodendroket wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair automatic watches drift substantially over time.

Yes, they do, and that is a very poetic thing to consider. On one hand, you can marvel at how little they drift during a single power reserve. Could be seconds, which is barely noticeable in everyday life. On the other hand, some others (Seiko 5...) can drift minutes in a single reserve... And so what? In a day and age when we measure everything with maniac precision even during a random person's day, it's beautiful…

What is beautiful or poetic about that?

Re: How Watches Work

#95

Post by emodendroket »

desine wrote: post #68
emodendroket wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair automatic watches drift substantially over time.

To be fair that's like half my love of them. Like a fresh blank canvas, perfection is boring.

What's the point of an imprecise measure of time as a backup in case of EMP attack?

Re: How Watches Work

#96

Post by technothrasher »

desine wrote: post #25

I recently fell into this rabbit hole. I bought a cheap automatic watch - a Seiko 5, for both practical reasons and otherwise (will work after an EMP attack/solar event, but it's also just cool as hell mechanical engineering using 200 year old technology). Then I started putting watch repair youtube videos on in the background as I did chores or wrote code. Then I started actually watching the watch repair videos. La…

I fell sort of sideways, after tearing apart a bunch of old pocket watches and working my way in various directions, I've ended up in love with 18th and early 19th century tall case clocks. I've got about eight of them now, and spend much of my weekends at a little local clock museum sucking all the knowledge I can out of the curator there.

Re: How Watches Work

#97

Post by tintt »

JohnBooty wrote: post #63
tintt wrote: post #50

Mechanical watch is a mesmerizing device. Makes you wonder though, why there was so little progress around mechanical technology (not only watch specific) lately? My car can talk to me, steer, retain speed by following other vehicles, but the most amazing mechanical innovation it has is a frustratingly slow, whining seat memory function. It’s not only boring, it also relies on a century old tech. Watch are the same,…

but the most amazing mechanical innovation it has is a frustratingly slow, whining seat memory function What do we mean by "lately?" The humble old internal combustion engine has made some really impressive progress in the past several decades. Engines are roughly 2X better now in the categories that matter: power output, fuel efficiency, and expected lifetime. Some of the fuel efficiency gains have of course been ca…

Excellent point! Combustion engine did see a fair bit of progress.

Re: How Watches Work

#98

Post by Cd00d »

JohnBooty wrote: post #73
Cd00d wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too fell off my mechanical watch obsession when I added a smartwatch to my life. My current Fitbit keeps better time, is as waterproof as my dive watches, and give me so much more. It makes me sad sometimes, as the mechanical marvel of watches is beautiful, but in the end, I had a Seiko SKX-007 that needed some maintenance, and I was quoted $600. It was a $200 watch and they were going to swab the movement. That wa…

I had a Seiko SKX-007 that needed some maintenance, and I was quoted $600. That price is awfully high. They were either trying to rip you off... or simply drive you away, which is possible if they were a shop that prefers to work on high-value watches for wealthy customers. Maybe they are an authorized Rolex service center and prefer to collect those hefty prices. But, there's definitely not $500+ of labor involved a…

It was definitely a high end watchmaker. A large part of the issue is what they considered the service requirements, that they wouldn't budge on - things like polishing all the scratches out of the band, and whatnot, when all I really wanted was maintenance on the movement. I didn't want to swap the movement, and that wasn't an option either.

Re: How Watches Work

#99

Post by cameronh90 »

lexicality wrote: post #84
desine wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as the world ends, I will enjoy a few last perfectly soft boiled eggs over my camp stove, and contemplate the meaning of existence. And a major US metropolitan area, near several military bases, airports, and missile launch sites. So more than most of the population. On a more serious note, as a bit of a "prepper" - it's not hard to cover the essentials. Once past that, working timepieces greatly simplify coordi…

I live near the centre of a very large city (London) so I feel like the best I have to look forward to in that kind of scenario is to set up some environmental storytelling in the form of wall graffiti and then die in some comical way like having a black cab fall on me

I too live in inner London. I figure the only way you have a chance of surviving if stuff really went to hell is to bicycle as far away as possible - probably towards Wales.

Re: How Watches Work

#100

Post by ggm »

unethical_ban wrote: post #21
martinkraft wrote: post #9

For those who are interested in superior technology, start reading about quartz movements and the piezoelectric effect. Citizen Watch Company recently release the most accurate quartz watch ever, accurate to 1 second per year . Contrast that to the mechanical watches that Rolex—one of the best mechanical manufacturers—produces and the best they can do is an accuracy of about 1 second per day . Hundreds of times less…

I respect Quartz watches. In fact, I've thought about getting a Citizen eco-drive. I've had a timex for years. But I got into mechanical watches earlier this year - a Hamilton Pilot and a Field. There is a beauty in the combination of accuracy, complexity and the lack of reliance on electricity that I find fascinating, just as someone can appreciate a sailboat or a record player for their amazing engineering. I haven…

Got a Citizen Eco/RadioSync. Never been happier. Had to use an RPi to fake the YYJ/WWVB signal (I live outside the reception area for any radio timesync signal)

Sunshine for watch power is gods gift. I have a minor-brand Seiko mechanical with a self-winding mechanism, love it to death but it loses time like a grandfather clock from the victorian era.

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