What's your bench like?

I don’t dare any surgery. Change straps and modify bracelets tops. Your setup looks impressing though.

Thanks it's mostly budget tools. For every watch I fix I make another one worse. Lol

I guess it’s a learning curve also for this🤓

my tool is sheeit, bought it for 30 bucks. mostly just for strap/bracelet change😂😂

No worse than mine. Even budget kits get the job done.

You got enough tools but need an elevated work area so the watch is almost touching your nose. That table would force you to lean down to it getting in your own light. Its fun to tinker with them and alter them to your taste.

sure, at certain level 😂

Invicta starter kit??

I just wear my watches and change/size bracelets.

Everything else-I have a guy.

Basic tools to change bracelets/straps. I have one watch I did surgery on and that was my mom's seiko. It was running slow so I opened it up and made a minor adjustment after some reading and it's great. I have a couple of quartz's pieces that I change the batteries on them from time to time, but that's it. My lux pieces...um no. They go in for service or to my AD (who is fantastic).

My office is slowly being taken over by tools for watch building and restoration. Individually no one is uber expensive, Time Grapher was likely the biggest hit, and all together I don't want to think about what I've spent on tools for this hobby.

We have a spare room I could move this into but my desk is a rising desk which comes in handy when trying to get a good close look at something and don't want to mess up your neck and back. So when I work on a watch I just slide the work mic back and keyboard over and go.

Can't really see it in this picture, other than the arm by the coffee cup, but likely the best investment was a clamp on LED light right over the work space, it makes seeing and keeping track of insanely small screws and gears a lot easier.

Wow, that gear all looks terrific! I've been thinking about a time graphed, but for now the money is needed for other luxuries... like food and rent!

Wishing you well in your hobby.

I got mine on AliExpress for a pretty good price I think $170 CAD so likely $140-150 USD. I debated about that buy for a long time as I could buy a fairly nice a watch for the money (at least a really solid beater). However, I'm starting to work more on old movements and it's pretty much essential in order to see if you actually got it running right or just running.

Not sure I can do without a timegrapher much longer!

I use this shareware with a phone hands free set microphone, and a laptop. The instructions are really good and once set up it's great! Certainly transformed my tinkering and calibration 👍🏻

https://tg.ciovil.li/

Thanks for the link.

its a mess until I goto build then i literally wipe everything down and vacuum the surfaces, set everything out like a surgery cart and start fresh. 

I try and up my tools whenever I can, its totally worth it. Granted you can get by with some very minimal cheap tools, but having the good stuff makes everything a lot smoother. 

Hi,

This is my bench. It's a real Ikea one ;) Adjustable in height, so it's perfect for the job.

The staking set, the case and crystal press and the watch cleaning machine are upstairs.

That is the real deal there my friend! Does it make coffee too??!

No, it doesn't. How awesome would that be? It does double as a timer for the washing machine 👍 These vintage Elma machines aren't hard to find in Europe, but I suppose they're not as common in the USA.

Got exactly the same kit, but now in a case. 👍😃

nice, its more safe in that case

The "machines" are on another table 😀

Wow! Amazing setup! Well done!

Thank you for the link to that open source timegrapher.  I was actually messing around with building my own from a NodeMCU (esp8266 microprocessor) while waiting for parts on a cheap Westclox I'm working on.  I might still do it - I'm only at the point of detecting the beats, though, so a long way to go.

You're most welcome. The instructions for calibrating using a quartz watch to sync with the laptop internal clock take a bit of patience but so worth it - more information on it than a commercial weitshi timegrapher and you can save your before and after service results 😊

Ha, I see the same wooden tool organizers from Cousins :)

yep 😀