DIY Watch Club

DoctorEvil · Apr 30, 2022

I recently said to my wife that I thought my watch collection needed something that was a bit "dressier" than my current ones. So, she got me this for my birthday:

It's from a company called DIY Watch Club. Basically, you have to assemble your own watch using the parts and the simple tool kit supplied, following video instructions on their website. It was a great gift as I now have a relatively inexpensive watch that I can tinker with and a much greater appreciation of the watchmaker's skills. Setting those hands in place was fiddly as! And I had to do it twice as the first time around the second hand kept catching on the minute hand when I tested the watch.

The watch itself is called the "Mosel". It's easily customisable with different handsets, dials and movements available online. My wife got me a movement upgrade to the Miyota 8315 and I'm so glad she did. Accuracy straight out of the box was +4 secs a day. Most impressed and full marks to the person who regulated it at the factory as the stated specs for this movement is -20/+40 secs per day.

My experience was not without it's glitches though as the kit originally came with parts for a two handed watch! Fortunately the customer service was first class and after an e-mail to them, the correct hands arrived via FedEx 5 days later.

Overall, I had great fun with this little project. Just wondering if anyone else has a watch from them and what was their experience?

Thanks for reading my post 😀

Evitzee · Apr 30, 2022

That's certainly a different approach, truly 'hands on'.

blufinz52 · Apr 30, 2022

Looks great! Well done 👍

studeb · Apr 30, 2022

Well done, and that is a neat business concept.

Pascal S · May 1, 2022

That's a very cool gift. I especially like the "hand assembled" engraving on the caseback. 😀

DoctorEvil · May 1, 2022

Pascal S
That's a very cool gift. I especially like the "hand assembled" engraving on the caseback. 😀

Thanks. I like the "hand assembled" inscription too. I had to have a laugh when I first saw it, as it's so obviously true! 😁

Walrus · May 1, 2022

Really cool I signed up for one but they had a waiting list and I have yet to hear back. I like the look of yours and it’s giving you a little more “hands on knowledge I really like it.

DoctorEvil · May 15, 2022

Just want to say a quick "thank you" for all your kind words and encouragement.

Also want to provide an update on my experience so far with this watch. In my original post, I mentioned that the watch was running at a rate of +4 to +5 seconds a day out of the box. I should clarify that this is with the watch running "dial up". On the wrist, I found that it was actually running at -3 seconds a day. Not bad, but as I prefer my watches to be running a bit fast rather than a bit slow I decided to fiddle with the regulating arm a bit to see if I could get the average daily rate to be where I prefer it to be. After a few days of trial and error, I've managed to get it running at +10 seconds a day on the wrist, resting it dial up on my bedside table for about 8 hours every night. I'm quite happy with this and I think it's more than acceptable for a watch with a low cost workhorse movement. What I've found most interesting is the effect of dial position on the average daily rate. I might try experimenting with different resting positions overnight such as crown up or down and see what the effect of this is.

I also have a black French calf leather strap on order so that I'll have a strap which pairs better with a tux. I think the brown strap is better for neat casual wear. Will post pics when it arrives.

DoctorEvil · May 16, 2022

Black leather strap arrived today for a new look...

kohster · Oct 15, 2023

I just learned about DIY Watch Club via a random (well as "random" as the algorithm allows I guess) YouTub video. Your watch turned out better than the one I saw since the YouTuber had admittedly not very steady hands and scratched the crap out of the hands of his watch, but aside from that, his and yours look like the base watches can turn out pretty well, and the overall finishing of the parts seems to be nice. I too think the "Hand Assembled" note is cool, and apparently now you can even get some custom design / text / logo put on the rotor of an automatic movement.

It seems to me a relatively inexpensive way to get some tools at the very least, and a bonus would be as you said getting a watch that you would feel totally (or at least more) comfortable with messing around with to learn stuff on.

DoctorEvil · Oct 16, 2023

kohster
I just learned about DIY Watch Club via a random (well as "random" as the algorithm allows I guess) YouTub video. Your watch turned out better than the one I saw since the YouTuber had admittedly not very steady hands and scratched the crap out of the hands of his watch, but aside from that, his and yours look like the base watches can turn out pretty well, and the overall finishing of the parts seems to be nice. I too think the "Hand Assembled" note is cool, and apparently now you can even get some custom design / text / logo put on the rotor of an automatic movement.

It seems to me a relatively inexpensive way to get some tools at the very least, and a bonus would be as you said getting a watch that you would feel totally (or at least more) comfortable with messing around with to learn stuff on.

Thank you for your kind words. I'm now in my 50s and my hands are not as steady as they once were. My near vision is also shot to pieces so this project tested me. Still, I had a lot of fun with it. 😁

The watch is still running well. On the watch winder recently, it gained only 6 seconds in 14 days! Typically, these days when I wear it and rest it dial up overnight, it's +7 to +8 seconds a day.

It's also great that there are so many different options available now. Even a GMT watch using the Seiko NH34 movement.

JimInOz · Oct 16, 2023

Be careful, you're approaching a steep slope into watch tinkering.

😉

kohster · Oct 16, 2023

I know, right?!? Obviously there's a huge step from assembling a watch with a black box movement vs actually getting into the guts of the movement itself, but it sounds like just taking that first step of assembling the watch itself is a big one (especially aligning the hands), and like most things, just taking that first step is the key.....or gateway.... 😀

sheepdoll · Oct 16, 2023

I just got new glasses last week. I ordered a second pair with the cheapest frames wallmart had with near vision enhancment. I thought this was called continuim. Now it seems to be called workplace optimization. I wanted something that had the near vision on top. Partly for when I do the welding classes a the local makerspace.

These are still progressives. The upper part focuses on the monitor and the lower part on the keyboard. (or reading distance.) They also seem to work well with the clip on loupe I have. They also have some blue light filtering for extended screen time.

In this day and age with optical aids like digital microscopes. One can can continue to work with small things such as watches. Or an 8mm cine film scanner.

Now if I could just figure out some micro robotics for assembling watch movements ...

ErichKeane · Oct 16, 2023

I ended up doing the Ceramic "Coke" diver of theirs about a week ago and had quite a bit of fun! The seconds hand was a pain in the butt, but otherwise I did alright.

I ended up ordering 2 more sets of parts off ali-express I intend to play with (A Pepsi style and a Explorer 2 Polar), to at least get the moneys worth out of the tool kit. The ali-express setups end up being MUCH cheaper, with both being ~$100, but I'll see how that goes.

DoctorEvil · Oct 16, 2023

ErichKeane
I ended up doing the Ceramic "Coke" diver of theirs about a week ago and had quite a bit of fun! The seconds hand was a pain in the butt, but otherwise I did alright.

I ended up ordering 2 more sets of parts off ali-express I intend to play with (A Pepsi style and a Explorer 2 Polar), to at least get the moneys worth out of the tool kit. The ali-express setups end up being MUCH cheaper, with both being ~$100, but I'll see how that goes.

Do you mind posting pics please? Would love to see how yours turned out.

ErichKeane · Oct 16, 2023

DoctorEvil
Do you mind posting pics please? Would love to see how yours turned out.

Well, my photography skills are worse than my watchmaking skills, but here are some I took.

I have it on a cheap NATO, as part of my goal is to figure out how I feel about them. The hand install was REALLY a pain, and the bezel insert was very much a 'by eye', so it is off ~1/4 second, and is looser than my Omegas, but I'm told that is pretty expected.

Overall, its a good watch of about the quality I'd expect. My movement was out by a BUNCH (3 ms beat error, more than a minute fast), but I'd picked up a timegrapher a little before, and was able to get it to about 0.1ms/+3spd.

kohster · Oct 16, 2023

I think that looks cool. Nice work!

What's involved in putting the bezel insert in place and aligned? I'm assuming it's glued down somehow? How much of a margin of error do you have to do that part over?

ErichKeane · Oct 16, 2023

kohster
I think that looks cool. Nice work!

What's involved in putting the bezel insert in place and aligned? I'm assuming it's glued down somehow? How much of a margin of error do you have to do that part over?

The bezel insert is held in with a piece of double-sided tape. So you just peel it off the back of the insert and put it into place, then push it down. You get a bit of extra ability to re-set it before you push it down, which I thought I was quite close at the time.

You can buy replacement pieces of precut doublesided tape, and you can pull the whole bezel off (just requires a case knife), which makes pushing the insert off pretty easy from videos I've seen. So at that point, you break the 'tape', clean the bezel and insert, apply a new piece of tape, and try again!

However, when you buy the watch, the bezel itself is pre-installed on the case.

DoctorEvil · Oct 17, 2023

ErichKeane
Well, my photography skills are worse than my watchmaking skills, but here are some I took.

I have it on a cheap NATO, as part of my goal is to figure out how I feel about them. The hand install was REALLY a pain, and the bezel insert was very much a 'by eye', so it is off ~1/4 second, and is looser than my Omegas, but I'm told that is pretty expected.

Overall, its a good watch of about the quality I'd expect. My movement was out by a BUNCH (3 ms beat error, more than a minute fast), but I'd picked up a timegrapher a little before, and was able to get it to about 0.1ms/+3spd.

Thanks for the pics. Good job! I think that NATO suits the watch quite well. May I ask what sort of bezel it is? 24 click? 60 click? Friction?

DIY Watch Club

DoctorEvil

Evitzee

blufinz52

studeb

Pascal S

DoctorEvil

Walrus

DoctorEvil

DoctorEvil

kohster

DoctorEvil

JimInOz

kohster

sheepdoll

ErichKeane

DoctorEvil

ErichKeane

kohster

ErichKeane

DoctorEvil

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