I just wanted to share some pics from a Watchmaking 101 class I took this week, held at the Horological Society of NY. The class is limited to just 6 students with one on one instruction from watchmakers which included 3 professional watchmakers from Rolex. They have the class disassemble and then reassemble an ETA 6497 movement and provide a lot of additional education on the inner workings of the assembly and watchmaking in general. I was thoroughly surprised how I could do it with so little experience and my relatively unsteady hands, albeit with great instruction. It was pretty amazing to wind it up at the end and see the movement come to life and hear the escapement tik-tok-ing away... It was a real blast, if you live near NYC, I highly recommend attending. Classes fill up quickly when they are made available: http://www.hs-ny.org/education/
Wait, does this mean there are members who actually want to have proper training before they try to DIY?
The class is sponsored by Hodinkee, initially it was free and offered once a month, but they had so much demand from their first post about it, that they filled up a wait list for an entire year. Now they offer it once a week, and ask for a donation of $100 for the watchmakers time. Still quite a steal if you ask me...
@ulackfocus , what does this "proper training" mean? I've been a member here for almost a year, what else is there?
To me, that looks like work...not that I don't enjoy it, but it's still work... Many "watchmakers" out there disagree with you I think, based on some of the shit work that comes across my bench. Case in point this Panerai that was "serviced" in February last year by some "watchmaker"...first thing I noticed is screw damage to the ratchet wheel screw (I've even seen this crap from the Panerai service center here so this could be from them for all I know): I guess it was too difficult to put down the screwdriver he happened to be holding to pick up the right one...after all it would have taken what, 5 seconds extra? Escape wheel covered in tiny oil droplets: On set of balance jewels were oiled fine, the others not oiled at all - left completely dry: The real kicker is when I opened the mainspring barrel and found this home made tongue end butchery: Hey if your mainspring breaks why spend $35 on a new spring if you can take 1/2 an hour and cobble together some crap that sorta works, eh? Oh and that's not all - I'm guessing this guy wound the spring in by hand since it's coned - will cause rubbing on the barrel lid and drum: This spring should be sitting perfectly flat, but it's raised up at both ends off the bench: No wonder the balance amplitudes were all low. And that's not even the reason it came in - the cannon pinion was so loose the watch couldn't always drive the hands, so it would lose big chunks of time when worn. Okay, time for a beer...