Basic watchmaking tips - Hand removal and installation

mseamaster · Jun 10, 2024

@Archer Good intro. Thanks!

What's your opinion on these? I am very inexperienced and looking to save myself some hassle not wanting to risk my dials. So I figured to try:

As a funny remark, today while I was practicing opening/closing broken watches, I tried removing the hands with my fingers and putting them back in, all without touching the dial. It worked fine. Obviously I am not planning on doing that for real on non-broken/junk watches(dial stains/etc.), but after watching so many videos I expected that it wasn't possible at all.

Archer · Jun 10, 2024

mseamaster
What's your opinion on these?

Omega actually offers this sort of tool (for around $4,500 US) and they refer to it as "hand remover for delicate dials" and that is when it would be useful. If you are removing hands from fragile dials such as mother of pearl dials, aventurine dials, etc. where putting any pressure on the dial could cause damage, this is the tool to use.

For removing hands on regular dials, it's overkill.

mseamaster · Jun 10, 2024

Archer
Omega actually offers this sort of tool (for around $4,500 US) and they refer to it as "hand remover for delicate dials" and that is when it would be useful. If you are removing hands from fragile dials such as mother of pearl dials, aventurine dials, etc. where putting any pressure on the dial could cause damage, this is the tool to use.

For removing hands on regular dials, it's overkill.

This is a much cheaper clone, but it comes with very good feedback. I will post about it when I get my hands on it.

Deafcon · Jun 13, 2024

I have the Horia “Hand Snatcher” for use on watches with fragile or skeleton type dials, like the Apollo 8. It works well, but not better or with less risk than hand levers when you have a dial you can use levers on.
Normal methods could have been used on this Speedmaster, however I wanted to try the tool out after I got it.

Basic watchmaking tips - Hand removal and installation

mseamaster

Archer

mseamaster

Deafcon

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