Anyone else feel like a master watchmaker after changing a battery?
Just waiting on that call up from JLC……
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I've been doing it for so long that I feel it's just general tinkerer level. It's beyond casual knowledge, but removing the stem so the movement can come out feels like stepping to another level.
Sometimes I feel like I own the damn thing!
Never, just a madman with a screwdriver
To be perfectly honest, changing a battery can be tricky business. It's often very easy to break a plastic tab, or to bend something that was not meant to be bent. (Oh, look, the is a little screw on the other side.) Battery changes on Seiko Kinetics can be a pain in the rear, and are no small feat.
One slip of the screwdriver into a coil, and that's it. Battery changes are not a trivial matter.
So, long story short, yes:
https://www.watchcrunch.com/JBird7986/posts/it-s-alive-it-s-alive-the-skyhawk-saga-part-3-of-3-14789
But not as much as when I did this:
https://www.watchcrunch.com/JBird7986/posts/look-at-me-look-at-me-i-m-the-watchmaker-now-14306
Oh God no! Nothing as technically demanding as that...just changing straps at the moment. The Tag Heuer Link stumped me for a while. ☺
Master watch maker? Nope, not by a long shot. Competent hobbist possibly. 😉
One other comment. Anybody have any recommendations for a watch back press that actually works? My wife has lots of dead pressed back watches. The one press I bought just doesn’t have enough leverage to really work, especially with steel backs.
I put a gasket in properly in a g-shock once. The crystal stopped fogging up.
Surely Patek Phillipe will bring me in as a master watchmaker. The phone hasn’t rung yet. I’m guessing they’re just getting the funds together for my salary package. ;)
Batteries, crystals, hands, you name it. I can do it all. I found I have a knack for taking watches apart and putting them back together.
I know… it’s uncanny, really.
Batteries, crystals, hands, you name it. I can do it all. I found I have a knack for taking watches apart and putting them back together.
I know… it’s uncanny, really.
A little bit, after I did it for the first time this week.
Two days later, a job lot of vintage cheapos arrived from ebay, about £70 for the 4. I've put them on the timegrapher, and three of the 4 were between 90 and 150s per day in the wrong, to the 4th one it just said no. So, master watchmaker, are you going to open them up and service/regulate them, and fix the dodgy one? Hell, no!
I've limited myself to batteries and straps now but I'm itching to do a diy watchclub project next. After that, YouTube watchmakers and reviewers will be asking to interview me. 😂
Some are easier to do than others. I have a few that are far less annoying if I just have my watchmaker do them. You don't have to feel like you have to do them all.
One other comment. Anybody have any recommendations for a watch back press that actually works? My wife has lots of dead pressed back watches. The one press I bought just doesn’t have enough leverage to really work, especially with steel backs.
I have to plead ignorance here, but on first impressions I noticed that those tools look rather similar on amazon. On AliExpress there is more variety, at a much wider price range. If you require heftly leverage something like this looks promising.
Ever since I changed a battery Lange won't leave me alone. Sheeesh