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Comment by desine | Hacker News Reader

I recently fell into this rabbit hole. I bought a cheap automatic watch - a Seiko 5, for both practical reasons and otherwise (will work after an EMP attack/solar event, but it's also just cool as hell mechanical engineering using 200 year old technology). Then I started putting watch repair youtube videos on in the background as I did chores or wrote code. Then I started actually watching the watch repair videos. Last week, I got a box of books, tools, and expendables. Today, when I get home, I'll have a box of broken pocket watches to tear into and probably irreparably mess up.

When I was a kid, my grandfather and I tore down some old watches as a rainy afternoon activity one day. I was fascinated. It wasn't until I listened to the podcast Shit Town (S-Town) that I thought about horology as a hobby again.

One interesting thing I learned, is that if you're looking for a career change, you can become a certified watch maker for free. Many of the schools are sponsored by the big name watch manufacturers, and tuition is free. It's a full time education, so you'll need enough financial runway to survive for a year or two, but you'll come out with no debt as a certified watch builder/repairperson.

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That’s how it starts!

For me, my mechanical watch obsession started when I inherited my father’s mid-70s Rolex. Back then, they weren’t as insanely out of reach as they’ve become; they were a very robust watch that would Just Work for a long, long time, and which looked nice. (Remember, this was only about 15 years after Sean Connery wore a Submariner in Dr No; Rolex was even LESS upmarket in the 60s, which was a time when very few watches were waterproof AT ALL.)

Then the dot-com boom happened, and I had a little money, and I bought an Omega (which I’m actually wearing right now). It’s a late-90s Seamaster, like the one they put on Pierce Brosnan’s wrist for Goldeneye around the same time. (Incidentally, snooty jewelers do not think you are funny if you ask how to make the laser shoot out.)

There are others, too, but the Omega is the nicest one I own. They are all EMP-proof, spring-driven marvels. Most have dates, but none show days or months. I do enjoy that there ARE mechanical movements with perpetual calendars, though, even if they do cost as much as a cheap house.

About 5 years ago, I fell down the AppleWatch hole after buying one to use while running and biking, and finding it so useful that I wore it to the exclusion of all the other watches. I have a nicer Apple Watch now (titanium S6) that I wear MOST of the time, but several times a month I’ll pull one of the others out to wear. With this usage pattern, they’re all “oh, shiny!” to me, too, which is neat.

I too fell off my mechanical watch obsession when I added a smartwatch to my life. My current Fitbit keeps better time, is as waterproof as my dive watches, and give me so much more.

It makes me sad sometimes, as the mechanical marvel of watches is beautiful, but in the end, I had a Seiko SKX-007 that needed some maintenance, and I was quoted $600. It was a $200 watch and they were going to swab the movement. That watch has emotional value, but I can't keep it running at 3x the replacement cost.

Maybe someday I'll find a way to wear another mechanical, and get all the health tracking I appreciate otherwise. Or maybe, technology finally replaced history for me. The funny thing is, I almost never would have considered a quartz watch lol.

I think about this problem often. I think it's caused by economies of scale and is an escapee of Pandora's Box that we're not going to be able to put back. Instead, we need to think carefully about what we build and how we build it - educate consumers, regulate to price in obsolescence and recycling costs, and place greater value on long-term quality as a society - to prevent this from growing even worse.

I build industrial automation equipment, so I'm in part to blame for the problem, however, I'm also in a position to advocate for easier repair processes and more sensible assembly stackups. It's simply a fact that the six figures in initial equipment capital divided by, hopefully, a similar number of unit sales, plus the few dozen seconds of operator hands-on time per unit, always going to produce an end product which costs less than hours of diagnosis and maintenance by a local, high-skill repairman. The math simply doesn't add permit any other arrangement, no matter how standardized your tooling is, how open your repair manual is, or how efficient your aftermarket parts ecosystem is.

Repairing and maintaining something for more money than it cost to produce it puts those activities firmly in the realm of luxury goods. The better we get at producing useful things cheaply, the more we have to multiply the value of human labor, and the less it makes sense to repair cheap things with this expensive labor.

One interesting option today is that you can get an electronic watch and get access to all the internals as well:

https://open-smartwatch.github.io/

However, its operation depends on electrons and bits instead of springs and escapements, and you can see those bits moving about in PlatformIO code instead of under a magnifier.

I got into it after my smartwatches, oddly enough. I didn't wear a watch between the mid-90s young kid with a Timex Expedition and the late 2010's adult with an Apple Watch. It was getting in the habit of the smartwatch that made me desire to wear something different again.

    I had a Seiko SKX-007 that needed some 
    maintenance, and I was quoted $600.

That price is awfully high. They were either trying to rip you off... or simply drive you away, which is possible if they were a shop that prefers to work on high-value watches for wealthy customers. Maybe they are an authorized Rolex service center and prefer to collect those hefty prices.

But, there's definitely not $500+ of labor involved at any reasonable market rate.

Those Seiko 7S26 movements are something like $50 new and even an amateur can perform the swap in a short amount of time without specialized tools (edit: well, maybe a hand puller, but that's cheap) and there are plenty of videos showing how.

There's no actual watchmaking knowledge required. That would only be required if trying to repair a module rather than simply swap it out.

The SKXxxx models are something of a classic but are hard to find now that they've been discontinued for a while; if you still have your broken model it may be worth more than you paid for it.

I’ve looked into this and the only recommended tools were a hand puller and hand press, otherwise it’s pretty straightforward to replace the movement with another stock one, or switch it out to 4R36/NH36 to add hacking and hand winding. I plan to swap the movement for one of the hacking/handwinding ones when the movement when my SKX009 dies.

It was definitely a high end watchmaker. A large part of the issue is what they considered the service requirements, that they wouldn't budge on - things like polishing all the scratches out of the band, and whatnot, when all I really wanted was maintenance on the movement. I didn't want to swap the movement, and that wasn't an option either.

I once serviced a Rolex Datejust with diamond dial and gold bracelet for almost the same price. (Depending on exchange rate)

I got a Seiko 5 as well, non-sports model. SNK809. I absolutely adore the little thing, it blows my mind just how little energy it needs to operate. Even when fully unwound, the slightest nudge gets it ticking at exactly the right speed. What an incredible work of engineering for so cheap.

in the event an EMP knocks out all your electronics, is having a functioning watch something that really matters?

also, where are you that an EMP is a realistic concern?

If you are the only one with a working watch, is your time definitionally correct, off by a bit, or completely incorrect?

As long as we haven't lost the sun too, we can sort it all out again reasonably quickly.

Now you have introduced an additional variable (location) to the equation.

Especially as mechanical watches drift a few minutes each day.

It must be exceptionally bad mechanical watches you are used to

The drift is affected by movement right? I imagine sitting on a table they are much more accurate than swinging around on an arm all day.

Perhaps, but they're engineered to minimize such effect. I noted in another comment I started with a Seiko 5, one of the cheapest, most inaccurate movements (being the name for the timekeeping mechanism itself), and I see multi-minute differences after weeks without adjustment. I'm not a daily runner or anything (in which I'd use my smartwatch anyways), but my job does involve a fair amount of getting up and walking between places, as well as the temperature shift of controlled environment rooms for computers and SoCal outdoor heat.

A few seconds each day, unless you have a really bad or poorly maintained watch.

Even as the world ends, I will enjoy a few last perfectly soft boiled eggs over my camp stove, and contemplate the meaning of existence. And a major US metropolitan area, near several military bases, airports, and missile launch sites. So more than most of the population.

On a more serious note, as a bit of a "prepper" - it's not hard to cover the essentials. Once past that, working timepieces greatly simplify coordination and other group efforts. Additionally, I would expect decent trade value out of them, should the unlikely but tragic circumstances occur.

You can make a solar clock in your fictional scenario.

not precise enough to soft boil eggs, and not as easily as remembering to wear my automatic for an hour a day, or wind my manuals once per day.

I'm failing to understand why this is so contentious outside of "anti-prepper" attitudes.

I’m just saying that if you’re choosing a lower-tech time piece so that you’re ready for an apocalypse you might as well know all your post-apocalyptic options like a sand timer for your boiled eggs.

I live near the centre of a very large city (London) so I feel like the best I have to look forward to in that kind of scenario is to set up some environmental storytelling in the form of wall graffiti and then die in some comical way like having a black cab fall on me

I too live in inner London. I figure the only way you have a chance of surviving if stuff really went to hell is to bicycle as far away as possible - probably towards Wales.

    in the event an EMP knocks out all your electronics, 
    is having a functioning watch something that really
    matters?

If you know what time it is, you can use your watch as a fairly accurate compass in an emergency.

https://www.citizenwatch-global.com/s/support/exterior/direc...

I do a fair bit of camping. One solo trip, I opted to leave behind all the normal gadgets and discovered I had no chronological tooling with. Skies were overcast -- and I suspect I ate breakfast early, lunch by 8, and supper by noon. Was surprisingly disquieting to have a few days in a row without knowing where the sun was in the sky.

My go to practical watch is the casio terrorist watch. Only costs a few $, gets 10 years on one battery, can take a beating. And I don't care if I break it.

On normal days I just wear an Apple Watch and I can't ever bring myself to wear one of my fancy watches because I love the fitness tracking features.

I was in the hole about 3 years ago, I bought a book, some tools, and a couple of broken movements off of eBay with the thought that I’d just “ dive in and learn how they work “, but I stalled out. Without a set direction I found the space of things that could be wrong with my sample broken movement to be too large. Hell, I didn’t even know if all the components were there.

It’s something I’d like to get into, hopefully with some hand holding. I’m curious what resources you’re using, and if there’s some kind of loose curriculum to ease the beginning efforts.

A bunch of youtube, a strong mechanical sense, and the book "watch Repair for Beginners", which was not noted in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28116525

So I'm likely down the same path as you, eventual "failure", if looking at it as a career choice. But I'm also ~a year behind you, starting a similar path with no handholidng and likely no profit. I watch this guy on youtube, occasionally, and his paid series has been mentioned here and elsewhere, as being worthwhile, but I have not paid for those videos (yet). https://www.watchfix.com/ (formerly known as http://watchrepairlessons.com/ )

“ One interesting thing I learned, is that if you're looking for a career change, you can become a certified watch maker for free. Many of the schools are sponsored by the big name watch manufacturers, and tuition is free. It's a full time education, so you'll need enough financial runway to survive for a year or two, but you'll come out with no debt as a certified watch builder/repairperson.”

Side note: you do have to relocate yourself/your family to the school’s location.

To be fair automatic watches drift substantially over time.

Yes, they do, and that is a very poetic thing to consider.

On one hand, you can marvel at how little they drift during a single power reserve. Could be seconds, which is barely noticeable in everyday life.

On the other hand, some others (Seiko 5...) can drift minutes in a single reserve... And so what? In a day and age when we measure everything with maniac precision even during a random person's day, it's beautiful to lose some control and gain back some leeway with regards to time.

I love that it is "about 22:00" rather than 22:03:37.

>I love that it is "about 22:00" rather than 22:03:37.

Agreed. I view myself as a pretty casual person, someone who's not overly concerned with the minutae of modern life. But with a digital watch, it's "12:47" and not "a quarter to one", which to me sounds infinitely cooler. With a slightly inaccurate mechanical movement, I fall into the latter manner of speaking, which is more what I want to be. Weird psychological preferences, but something that counts, to me.

I don't really find it beautiful being 15 minutes late because I haven't adjusted my watch in a while. This is really a big thing that put me off.

In this modern age, you'll often come across synchronized digital clocks. Whether on your computer, phone, workplace, bank, etc. For me, it has become second nature to adjust my watch's time once every few days. I end up comparing my watch vs a clock a couple of times per day, and deciding the difference is great enough to fix, once a week or so (on a cheap, inaccurate Seiko 5, I would expect less frequency with a better timepiece)

I suppose it depends what you want out of your watch, but to me having a time I can't trust is frustrating. Even the best automatic watch is less accurate than quartz (which itself can eventually drift too...).

The watch I have is rated to +-2 seconds a day. It'd take 15 months of not adjusting my watch to be 15min late.

That's pretty amazing to me that basically a spring and some gears can be that good at keeping time.

Yeah, I don't deny there is a certain natural fascination to them.

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81074

'Initially set to the same time, these identical battery-powered clocks will eventually fall out of sync, or may stop entirely. Conceived shortly after Gonzalez-Torres’s partner was diagnosed with AIDS, this work uses everyday objects to track and measure the inevitable flow of time. When one of the clocks stops or breaks, they can both be reset, thereby resuming perfect synchrony. In 1991, Gonzalez-Torres reflected, "Time is something that scares me. . . or used to. This piece I made with the two clocks was the scariest thing I have ever done. I wanted to face it. I wanted those two clocks right in front of me, ticking."'

Ah, yes. Gonzalez-Torres. I first saw his work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It was a string of dollar-store Christmas lights stapled to the wall. I think there were 24 lights, to represent the age at which is partner died.

I'm usually the guy willing to defend contemporary art, but there's not much I can do here. The work lacks any craft and the insights are shallow, better expressed by the label than the piece.

Clearly the curators of these very famous museums disagree with me. But when people mock "modern art" (which this technically isn't), this is what they're thinking about.

Sure, you could trace this meaninglessness back to the obvious Duchamp Urinal example, but I could read it as being forever haunted by a specific number to the point where even the banality of dollar-store Christmas lights takes on a new and painful meaning.

If I glimpse another consciousness and walk away a different and more empathic person, then who am I to mock it?

To be fair that's like half my love of them. Like a fresh blank canvas, perfection is boring.

What's the point of an imprecise measure of time as a backup in case of EMP attack?

Precision is relative. It's more precise than me looking at the sun, for instance.

How many office meetings do you have after an EMP attack?

Not many but I’m not the one who proposed an automatic watch for this situation.

I love mechanical watches too, but surely some cheap digital watches stashed in a shielded box would be the more effective post-EMP timekeeping device, right?

Shielding itself is not perfect. Probably enough for the simple circuitry of an analog quartz. But it's not guaranteed. It's a buffer that reduces a wave by a few to a few dozen dB. A EM pulse through even a properly grounded faraday cage will still replicate another smaller wave internally.

Just let me collect my tiny mechanical toys, dammit, don't ask questions.

Oh, I didn't mean to rain on your parade. I love my diver's watches. In a similar vein I love having 200M of water resistance even though I'll never take them any deeper than the bottom of a small swimming pool, lol.

It's OK collecting them but "protection against an EMP" does sound a bit weird as a reason :)

Really interesting to hear that last bit about the certification. As a high school I joked around with the idea of being a watch maker despite not caring about watches at all but just being interested in the mechanics, but a few mechanical engineering degrees and a burgeoning photography hobby later I'd realistically consider learning camera repair.

I fell sort of sideways, after tearing apart a bunch of old pocket watches and working my way in various directions, I've ended up in love with 18th and early 19th century tall case clocks. I've got about eight of them now, and spend much of my weekends at a little local clock museum sucking all the knowledge I can out of the curator there.

I seriously considered this as an exit strategy at one point too. Also S-Town was fantastic, highly recommended.

Is there any mechanical watch like the Seiko 5, but thinner and hopefully not much more expensive? I have a 5 and like it, it does feel a bit chunky at times.

The Seiko 5 movement is reasonably thin but often packaged into a large case. You might not have the thinnest Seiko 5.

Seiko 5 is probably the cheapest, worthwhile mechanical watch. You can always get cheap Chinese and Russian watches as well but they will be of lesser quality and reliability than the Seiko. So to answer your question directly - probably not. But I would recommend checking out Orient watches. They have a decent set of mechanical watches of all different styles, not much more expensive than the classic Seiko 5, but definitely a step up in quality. https://www.orientwatchusa.com/

Thickness is always going to be an issue with automatic watches. You can get thinner watches if they are manual wind since they don't have a rotor. Usually, the thinner they get, the more expensive they get though, so keep that in mind. You can get super thin manual wind watches but they will cost hundreds to thousands of dollars usually.

This is funny because Seiko has notoriously terrible quality control, from misaligned bezels and/or chapter rings to dodgy bracelets across their entire lineup, even the more expensive ones.

About Orient: they are pretty much poised to take the spot that Seiko has occupied for entry level mechanical watches, as Seiko themselves move further up market. I love the design of their Bambino and some of the OrientStar offerings but they have a few quirks I'm not fond of.

I definitely recommend also trying a hand-wound watch because the slimness is wonderful and the winding has a charm to itself as well. I have RSI issues so the lightness and slimness is certainly a big plus, combined with the fact that most vintage or vintage-inspired manual wind watches have small dials and cases too.

It seems to me that the the QC issues are largely cosmetic, but are mostly with the Prospex models (some of their priciest models!) and seem to have intensified in the last few years.

I've heard from watch geeks with friends in "the business" that Seiko is aware of the issue thanks to the negative online word-of-mouth these issues have generated, but I don't know how reliable that hearsay is. (Really, though, Seiko would have to be blind not to be aware of the issues...)

We'll see if Seiko is actually aware and if that actually results in an improvement. If so I suspect that it will take some time for results to be seen given the lag time between manufacture date and watches winding up in consumers' hands.

> mostly cosmetic

Agreed, but then again much of the point of wearing watches nowadays is cosmetic. Plus, their terrible hollow rolled-link bracelets and press-clasps aren't really cosmetic issues, just poor quality that they haven't bothered upgrading. The movements themselves though seem to still be solid, and they are a huge provider of movements (eg the NH35/36) to several microbrands.

> Seiko is aware of the issue

Yeah, it's weird. They not only seem to be aware of it, but also say they have "hand-checked" units sent out to reviewers or units that are purchased from boutiques if you ask specifically- only for them to have the same issues as always. Not sure what it will take. The Just One More Watch YouTube channel does a ton of Seiko reviews but he's been extremely jaded because of these issues.

At this point is probably anything they produce except Grand Seiko. Not sure why would they choose to ruin their reputation that way. Yes, SKX007 or 009 were cheap, but their Prospex line replacements aren't really.

I'm baffled by their choices as well. I'm no manufacturing expert but the misaligned chapter rings seem so comically easy for Seiko to avoid - why not design the case and chapter ring with a notch or something so it can't be misaligned? If that's not feasible, how is this stuff passing even a cursory QC inspection?

It's not like they're a public company being squeezed for profit at the cost of quality by a private equity firm or something. I have some faith they will right their ship but who knows.

QC does cost a lot because it's not also about checking but rebuilding your manufacturing to avoid it. So they probably prefer to close their eyes on it.

Perhaps some vintage manual wound watch? For example Seiko 6300-8009. There are models from other brands, too. Just look for a steel case.

You can usually find used Hamiltons for less than $500. They're a solid watch with an ETA movement and a sapphire crystal.

Also, some of the microbrands are pretty interesting at the $500-$1500 range. I like many of the designs Farer is doing.

Christopher Ward is another good value mechanical.

Be warned I was looking at a sub from them, and got sucked down the rabbit hole and now have a Tudor BB58 Pepsi GMT.

Tudors the feeder brand for Rolex BTW.

This is definitely not cheaper but just wanted to share this link on the Piaget Altiplano Watch so people can see how thin it can be:

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/piaget-altiplano-ultimate-...

The degree mechanical watches push the boundary of miniaturization (outside of lithography) is amazing.

I’m very fond of this watch, I picked mine up during a Macy’s sale for $300: https://www.hamiltonwatch.com/en-us/h69439931-khaki-field-me...

There are few different dial and strap combos, I just ordered a steel bracelet for mine.

It’s a bit thinner than the Seiko 5 SNK803 or SKX007, is a reasonable size (38mm) and the hand wound movement reduces the thickness since there’s no rotor. There isn’t a day/date complication either, just a three hand watch.

My understanding is that NH35-powered watches are generally 13mm minimum (the divers at least) because the Seiko movements are generally on the thicker side as far as three-handers go. I'd look for something PT5000-powered on AliExpress like the offerings from Escapement Time [1].

[1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001053227921.html

Vintage soviet watches tend to be pretty thin, from what I've gathered. They also tend to be less well made/reliable than modern equivalents, and many of the ones you see on ebay are maxed out on their typical adjustments to stay reasonably in time.

My SNK807 feels thin at 11mm, but there are Seiko 5's that go up to 14mm. The flatness of the field watch design probably makes it feel thinner too.

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