Complete Beginner Watchmaking Tool Buying Guide

hello there and welcome back to another video here on wrist watch revival my name is marshall and today we are going over all the tools you'll need to service a watch movement a quick note when shopping for watchmaking tools you'll often find yourself facing down two broad options one option is the high quality stuff from switzerland from companies like bergeon and horatek and the other are generic low quality tools mostly from china that cost as little as 1 10 the price so it can be tempting to go that direction as a beginner but it's often not a good choice and as we go through the tools today i'll tell you when you can get away with the generic version and when you can't so let's get into the basics the three most fundamental tools you'll need to take apart a watch movement are screwdrivers tweezers and some form of magnification these tools will allow you to take apart a watch movement if your goal is to dip your toe into the watchmaking pool to see what a movement looks like inside or to just try the hobby out a set of screwdrivers contain screwdrivers with sizes ranging from about half a millimeter up to two and a half millimeters the generic versions will be of very low quality and they will cost about five dollars if you just want to try things out they will do in the short term however but if you want to try things out with the nicer screwdrivers but don't want to spring for the full set you could probably get away with three screwdrivers think small medium and large the small one about point eight millimeters the medium 1.2 millimeters and the large two millimeters which should cost about 12 each but mostly you'll want to get a set of 9 or 12 so that you can have all your bases covered the set of nine that i use are from bergeon and they were about 120 dollars one big advantage of these nice screwdrivers is that the blades are replaceable so that you can basically use them for a lifetime for tweezers you'll need one pair to start with i recommend a number two or number three as they are good for all-purpose use the higher the number the finer the points on the tweezers and they go down to double zero which are quite beefy most tweezers that you'll find are stainless steel but of course there are also dozens of specialist tweezers that you can explore further down the line things like tweezers that are special to picking up hands or brass tweezers or titanium tweezers that are anti-magnetic there's a whole lot to choose from but for now you can stick with one i would go with a number two tweezer good dumont tweezers are about thirty five dollars the generic ones well they're about three bucks now there is a huge difference in quality here but the cheap ones will definitely let you pick up small objects for a while they'll just wear out quickly the third essential tool is some kind of magnification watches are too small to work on reliably with the naked eye as you won't be able to see patterns of wear proper oil placement pivot alignment etc the most common and cheapest method of magnification is the loop most people get two of them a regular magnification and a higher magnification i recommend a loop that magnifies at about four times for your regular magnification and one that's 10 times for your higher magnification there are other options for magnification like a visor or a magnifying glass or even a microscope but a loop is a great option as it's the best combination of function and price as a beginner you can just get the four times loop the one i have was about 39 dollars from horotec and then i also have the bergeon higher magnification one which is about 10x and it was 22. but generic loops are very cheap at about three dollars and they'll do if you're just dipping your toe in the pool so these three basic tools will let you take apart most watch movements and do most of the work to getting it back together even these will let you experiment around and try your hand at the hobby to see if it suits you if you go all generic you'll have spent about 11 to get the tools to take the watch apart now if you find that you're enjoying the hobby and want to take it a bigger step towards actually servicing the watch movement which by the way means taking the movement apart cleaning it then reassembling it and lubricating it you'll need actually quite a bit more which we'll cover now in order to hold the movement while you work on it and keep it steady you'll need a movement holder the bergeon 4040 and 4040p are kind of the industry standard used by many watchmakers the 4040 is the metal version and the 4040p is the plastic version they are reversible so that they can take many different sizes of movement and they cost about 27 and they're well worth it however generic ones will cost you about eight bucks and they work okay i still recommend the bergeon once though you'll also want to get a casing cushion to lay the movement on while you're casing it putting on the hands or just need to set it down for a minute they come in a few varieties like leather and gel cushion but most any will do a nice bergeon one will go for somewhere between 29 and 36 dollars and the generic ones are about nine bucks this is a good place to get the generic one if you're on a budget as all they're really doing is providing a soft place to to set down the movement as you work on the movement you'll need a tray to keep the parts together as well as a cover to keep the dust off of it bergeon makes high quality ones for 19 dollars but you can definitely just get the generic one here for five bucks as they do exactly the same job you also want a good work surface to work on and a work mat is just what you need they come in three colors black white and this special green color which is said to be easiest on the eyes over long periods of time i don't know if that's just marketing nonsense but it's become the default for watchmaking for whatever reason you can get nice ones with adhesive backs from bergeon for thirty nine dollars but it's fine to go generic here for five to ten dollars but they probably won't last as long next you'll need a way to get the hands off of the watch there are two main ways to do this hand levers or a presto tool hand levers are my preferred way you can get a variety of high quality ones from bergeon or horotec for about 57 or generic ones for 15 i would go for the bergeon ones if you can afford it as you really don't want to scratch the dial of your watch the other popular method is using a presto tool which is a special tool actually originally made by bergeon but it is widely copied they are very quick and quite effective at removing hands though they don't offer the same level of control as the levers do the real bergeon ones are about 58 dollars and the generic ones are about 12 the generic will work but they won't last very long in my experience and they're not very well made now in order to refit the hands to the dial you'll need something like this this is a bergeon hand fitting tool it has two different ends on it a wider opening and a smaller one there's actually three different versions of this tool each with two different openings cool part about this is that the tips are actually replaceable so if they were out you can put in new ones you can also pick up generic versions of these for about seven bucks and these ones are about 22. you'll need some peg wood for various uses like cleaning scraping manipulating holding things this is just shaped pieces of wood you then use like a knife to make it in the shape that you want it's very handy and it's about five bucks now in order to clean the watch movement you'll want a watch cleaning machine but those are out of scope for this video as they're very expensive and kind of a specialty item however you can effectively clean a watch movement at home with an ultrasonic cleaner though it does take a lot longer to do so ultrasonic cleaners are also useful for cleaning cases bracelets and your tools as well thankfully ultrasonic cleaners are widely available for a reasonable price while the professional ones will run you from say 700 to 1200 dollars you can get a generic one from amazon for about 88 bucks or even a small one for 35 dollars i have one of the amazon ones and i've had great results with it for a long time to hold the small parts while they're being cleaned in the ultrasonic cleaner some cleaning baskets are useful the bergeon ones are expensive but very high quality the cost is about thirty seven dollars per cleaning basket if those are out of range however you can get low quality brass ones for about six dollars you'll also need some consumables to clean the watch movement things like isopropyl alcohol and lighter fluid but those are relatively inexpensive and you can figure those out at the local grocery store now radical is a kind of putty that doesn't leave residue on things and it's used for all kinds of things from cleaning to holding to picking up parts to wiping excess oil away it's extremely handy stuff and thankfully it's only about five bucks there are a lot of ways to get the case back off of the watch up to like a 700 caseback opener from bergeon but for most of them you'll want to use a rubber ball or a jaxa tool i highly recommend the rubber ball as it's inexpensive they cost six to nine dollars and will open up a lot of the watch cases that you come across if that doesn't work the jaxa tool is a handheld tool for opening tougher cases and the bergeon runs for about a hundred and eighty dollars with the generic one coming in at about twelve dollars the generic one won't last long but it will do the trick in the short term another tool that you'll need to get into certain case backs uh basically the ones with snap on backs is a case knife this one was made by bergeon it was about 30 dollars maybe 28 bucks something like that and it's a simple well-made tool basically it's just a flat blade that you use to pry open the back of the case in order to properly handle the movement after it's been cleaned you'll want some gloves or finger cuts cots are the industry standard and they cost from say five to fifteen dollars depending on the material and the brand you can get whatever's comfortable for you next you'll need an air blower to dry off the parts and to make sure that there isn't any dust under the crystal or on the dial before you re-case the watch these are simple devices that range from 34 for the high-end bergeon ones to five bucks for the generic you can definitely get away with the generic one here if you don't have one already you'll want a spring bar tool to take the watch band or the bracelet off bergeon offers two one in metal one in plastic and they're 18 and they also feature replaceable tips so basically the tool will last you your lifetime or you can get a generic one for about four bucks that probably won't last very long okay in order to lubricate the watch after it's been cleaned you'll need three things you'll need oil you'll need a place to keep the oil and you'll need a way to apply the oil as for the oil you'll need four types to properly lubricate the watch you'll need mobius 9010 which is about 30 dollars for light viscosity applications like the train wheels you'll need mobius d5 or mobius hp 1300 the d5 is 48 the 1300 is 30 dollars though those are different sizes the hp 1300 is much much smaller so it's actually more expensive those are used for medium viscosity applications and you'll want mobius 9501 which is 70 or molly coat dx which is about 13 these are grease that you can use for heavy viscosity applications the last you'll need is mobius 9415 which is about 39 for the pallet jewels nobody ever said watchmaking was cheap as you can see even if you go with the less expensive option you're looking at about a hundred dollars just for the lubricants to do the basic oiling on a watch now to keep the oil clean and accessible you'll need an oil cup which you can get a full setup for about a hundred and fifty dollars from bergeon or a really nice knockoff for about forty two dollars which is what i use or you can even use single plastic cups for about four bucks any of these options will be fine and lastly you'll need the oilers to apply them the really nice version ergonomic ones are about 35 dollars and the regular version ones are about four dollars either will work i've used both but the ergonomic ones are actually better in my experience still as a beginner you gotta go for the four dollar ones so that's it these are the most basic tools that you'll need to do a full service of the watch movement now as you might imagine there are many many other tools that you can get to help make this process easier or more efficient and of course that will open up all types of different repairs and things that you can address going forward but if you're looking to take your very first steps into the hobby you can get those first three tools that i mentioned at the top and then if you really want to dive in and see if you can service a watch movement this is what you're going to need for the bare bones basics and then you can start building out the other types of tools that you'll want as you go as always i want to say thank you so much for taking the time to watch my video and hang out with me i also want to thank my patrons who helped make this video possible kelsey stan dustin brenton adam caleb russell james samuel tony max mitchell adrian drew kyle jake erica trevor and robert thank you so much for supporting the channel if you're interested in doing so and getting some cool perks as you go along you can check out patreon.com wristwatch revival and with that we'll see you next time

Channel: Wristwatch Revival

Views: 28,766

Rating: 4.9769993 out of 5

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Id: 4tl7xNPvmyM

Length: 14min 13sec (853 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 19 2020