Finished my custom AliExpress watch!

Looks clean, good job! 👍

You have no idea! The seconds hand is going to be the death of me one of these days! My hands aren't the most steady, and it is so frustrating trying to get it on!

Very nice! The trick I found to get stems right the first time, at least most of the time, is to cut 1mm less than the measured excess. With a little filing you'll have it. I'm wondering if the case back alone is not accomodating your custom rotor. It may not be the fault of your movement holder clearance. That watch would look great on a Nato strap as well.

That's what I did on the last one. Needed to trim 6.1mm, actually trimmed 5.9mm. Then like you said file, file, file. This one was probably a tricky one, because of the crown lock thing going on. Just took a couple tries leaning how to cut it right in the first place. First one, I cut 6.4mm, just missed the mark.

Looks fantastic.

Job well done.

Work with them at noze level and hold the hands with rodico or sticky-tack. Ali has hand setting tools that are cheap and better than the cheap red hand press they sell.

I'll look into trying that. I've been using tweezers, maybe Rodico would be a little easier.

Congrats. Nice build. Installing sub-dial hands are even worse. Almost too small for tweezers.

I don't even want to think about subdial hands! In fact, I was just looking at this watch, and the hour hand is way out of alignment. Like the minutes hand was at 12, and the hours hand was at 8:30 instead of 9. So now I get to take it back apart and do it again. Sigh.... Maybe I can get the black skeleton rotor to fit this time.

Awesome job congrats on this nice build and 👌🏾

I like it!

Nice build 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I think I'm going to try a different minutes hand when I pop them off to realign the hours hand. The orange on this one is a little light, but one of the other sets I bought has one that's more orange-red, and a little more vibrant. Might even try a lollipop seconds hand and see how it feels.

Re-post when you get the hands changed. Interested in seeing the final product. Good luck.

I will absolutely do that!

I want to do the same as you. Order parts and make them into a watch I'll admire. I imagine the task to be of great personal satisfaction.

However I am an absolute novice in this aspect. I have never even opened a watch or done anything related to watch repairs or modding. So could you suggest where I could start? What tools do I need and where do I find them? How do I go about searching the parts and and making the watch?

It's really not too difficult, but it takes patience. Finding the right parts was actually pretty easy. I knew I was going to use a Seiko NH35 movement, so that was easy. Bought everything for this from AliExpress, of course. After finding a movement, I did a search for NH35 cases, and just picked one that I liked. The case said it was for an NH35 movement and a 38.5mm dial, so I next searched for an NH35 dial, and made sure the one I found was 38.5mm, which seems to be the standard dial size for the NH35, so that was easy. Then searched for NH35 hands, and picked through them until I found the right combo I liked, super easy. And you'll need a strap or bracelet, just figure out the lug width and pick whatever strikes your fancy. Also, get a few extra stems, since you'll need to trim one down to correct length, and you WILL mess that up. Took me 3 stems to get it right. At least they are cheap. That's really all there is for parts needed.

For tools, you don't need a whole lot, especially since the movement is complete and basically just drops in as-is. You will need a caseback tool, a hand press tool for installing hands onto the movement, hand removal tool since you'll probably need to take them off and redo them. I use a pair of hand levers, simple and easy. A pin vice for holding the stem while cutting and filing is nice to have too. And tweezers with plastic tips for manipulating the hands without scratching the dial or paint on the hands. You'll need some flat snips for trimming the stem, and a file to deburr after you cut it.

As for how to do everything, watch videos on YouTube. Especially stuff where people are servicing and rebuilding watches. I really like Wristwatch Revival, but you can do searches for each individual part of the build. It's really not too hard. Dials it's onto the movement with a couple feet that hold it in place, super easy. Roll the crown around until the date changes, the pull the crown all the way out to stop it from running, then start installing the hands at 12:00 so the date change happens as close to midnight as possible. Hours and minutes hands are easy, but seconds hand vexes me every time! Take out the stem, drop the movement into the case, making sure it's in all straight and lined up, and pop the crown and stem thru the case and into the movement. Then put the caseback on, put on the straps or bracelet, and you're done! I think this one took my about an hour and a half to do, and the seconds hand and stem trimming was probably half the time. I've done modifications on a couple watches before, but this was the first time I ordered a pile of parts and put them all together. It's pretty fun, except for the seconds hand, lol! Stress and cold sweats every time!