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

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.

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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.

With a brand spanking new fourth axis unit, I’m getting closer to my goal of cutting watch wheels….

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I’ve been busy with my CNC milling machine, and anything flat (minute recorder springs, setting lever springs, etc.) is no problem at all.

The final frontier are of course wheels and pinions. The fourth axis motor that came with the milling machine wasn’t very accurate, so I had to modify it in order to be usable for watch parts.

A good indicator how small you can machine is making a small pinion. The one in the photo measures 2.5mm across, and has 18 teeth, so that’s not bad for a start. Continue reading →