Dear Readers, we haven’t posted a lot lately, as you can always see what we are working on by going to https://watchguy.co.uk/cgi-bin/library?action=current – that makes it a bit obsolete to write posts about individual watches, as you can follow the repairs as we are carrying them out.
We have a new addition to our workshop – a 60W Fiber Laser!
We bought it mainly to cut parts more accurately and faster than with our CNC milling machine, but as a side effect, we can now also engrave.
We are using LightBurn instead of EZCad as our software of choice, as it offers more settings and allows for the correction of the thickness of the laser beam when cutting parts.
It took a bit to get the first parts cut successfully, as there are a fair amount of setting to get right. The speed of the laser, the frequency, the power, … so we started off with quite a few deep fried parts before getting anything useful out of the machine.
After 3 days of tinkering around, we finally managed to get decent parts cut out …
Continue readingWe have held back for 4 years, but inflation hits us just as much as it hits you.
The UK CPI has gone up by 25% since we last changed our prices! As we don’t want to be the ones to stoke inflation, we will adjust our prices by 15% at this moment in time, but we will have to see how that pans out for us, as that’s a real decrease of prices by 10% …
The new prices as shown on our price list will apply to all repair and service jobs approved on and after 1/8/2023.
We’ve just joined the cool kids on Instagram! We hope to post content over there for you when we have the time between servicing your watches.
If you guys could head over there and make us feel welcome by liking, following and sharing our posts that would be much appreciated. https://www.instagram.com/watchguy.co.uk/
… at least I thought so!
https://www.fratellowatches.com/why-dont-some-watchmakers-like-to-service-vintage-watches/
Dear Customers,
Firstly, I hope you are all well, and that you are still able to earn a living in the current circumstances. If you are running into financial trouble and have a watch with us, please don’t worry – we can put that to the side until you feel that you are in safer financial waters.
As for the workshop, all three of us are working, our benches are over 2 metres apart, and we are all healthy at the moment, so work here will continue as usual as far as we can predict the future.
We wish all our customers and readers continued health and well-being.
Christian, Johannes and Ray
We do see the odd fake here at the workshop, but as we don’t accept them knowingly, it doesn’t happen too often.
This Submariner came in, and on first sight, nothing was wrong with it…. Continue reading
Dear Customers and Readers,
The team at Watchguy wishes you a happy festive season, a merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and all the best for a happy, healthy and successful 2020.
Christian, Johannes & Ray
We’ve had one of these before, and quite some time ago… These are quite rare, and were used in the British nuclear submarine fleet. As you can’t have luminous compound there (it would set off all sorts of radiation alarms), they have no luminous compound, but a while dial with black markings and hands, so that the watch can be read nicely in the low light conditions in a submarine.
It’s always been a thorn in my side that old BestFit catalogues go for a lot of money (I paid £60 for mine), and that they are hard to get.
Finally, I got around to cut mine up and scan them in. I also ran some ocr software over them, so they are searchable.
Update – there is a US company that holds the copyright for the Bestfit catalogues, and they have asked me kindly to remove the download link – no problem, and I wasn’t aware of the fact that someone had acquired the copyright to the catalogues. Please go to https://mccawcompany.com/featured-products/bestfit-encyclopedia-books-111-111a-digital-download-pdf-version.html of you want to buy their copy at a reasonable price.