Taking care of my watch on my own?

X x0x0

I hope anyone here will tell me to just take it the a watchmaker haha

MtV

I completely get the desire to learn how to do your own repairs. But maybe consider starting with some cheap 20€ manual watch instead of your SM600?

Dan S

In general, changing a crystal is potentially a DIY job, and certainly one you can learn how to do. However, by the time you've purchased the tools, parts, and supplies, you certainly won't have saved any money, and you may break some parts along the way. Most watchmakers already have a pretty comprehensive supply of generic crystals, and it's not an expensive job.

If you are looking to replace it with the correct authentic Omega crystal, then getting he actual crystal could be a challenge. If that's the goal, then I would wait until you are going to have the watch serviced, and then look for someone with an Omega parts account.

Fritz

As with many other technologies little bit of knowledge can go a bloody long way towards destroying said technology.

this is especially true for such fine machinery as a watch. I will do some jobs on my own timepieces but but only if I know I can afford to trash the item I’m working on up front. Needless to say my Omegas don’t fall into the home service group.

so ask yourself this before you open the watch, will it bother you if you f*** it up? Because the odds are not in the watches favour.

just being realistic.

X x0x0

Thanks. It's not about saving money, it's about gaining knowledge (I love learning, what can I say)

X x0x0

I actually have some cheap manual watches. That's a good idea and I'm gonna do it. I wanna know my watch and the parts better, that's exciting imo

ChrisN

Start with a book about watchmaking and then try an ETA 6497/6498 movement to see if you can take it apart and put it back together. Then try fitting crystals and the like.

It's good to learn but taking apart and re-assembling a movement is only a small part of the work as is fitting crystals without breaking them. I wouldn't recommend learning from YouTube, for example, as you tend to get a superficial understanding of what is going on.

Enjoy your journey.

Cheers, Chris

perenowell

That the best choice you could make. You won't ruin your SM and have some fun learning on a cheap watch. 👍

Donn Chambers

I thought I could learn to do some simple watchmaking and decided to try taking apart the movement on an Alpha watch that cost $100 or so. Bought one of those beginner watchmaker kits on Amazon and set to work, figuring it couldn’t be that hard.

Stripped a screw head, then lost a couple, and something went snap - all in the first couple of minutes.

tossed all in the trash and learned my lesson.

😀