Last fall I started looking into making my own watches. I was inspired by a lecture given by a local watchmaking student. His school project movement was an ETA 6498. The lecture covered his process for making a 3/4 plate for the watch and was quite interesting. But what got my attention was that he had found a case online, along with a dial and hands, to turn his watch movement into a wristwatch. This was the first I’d heard of a modern movement and matching cases available to the public. And that is what got me thinking about making my own watches.
It turns out there are many other individuals and companies doing similar projects. I decided to start by building a few watches using parts available from supply houses and the internet, just to see the quality firsthand and to find out how difficult the process would be. One thing I knew from the beginning though was that instead of buying new movements from Switzerland or the cheap copies from China I would use recycled Swiss pocket watch movements that I would inspect, clean and test myself.
There is a lot more to the story and I’ll talk about that in the weeks to come. For now, here is a preview of the first two watches.
