October 21, 2011 – 6:16 pm
Sadly, one of the greatest watchmakers of the 20th century, George Daniels, OBE, FBHI, FAWCI, has passed away today, at the age of 85. Born into a poor family in London just two years before the Great Depression, Daniels overcame great odds to become one of the most renowned and respected watchmakers of the past [...]
October 21, 2011 – 10:10 am
I see it way too often. The Rolex Sapphire crystal is hard but not indestructible. I always perform a full service on the watch when the crystal has shattered. Inevitably the customer complains. The risk of a small piece of sapphire inside the movement where it can do hundreds of dollars of damage is just [...]
October 19, 2011 – 10:10 am
That’s right. I haven’t been contributing much here on my blog because I have been working hard to compile data for my first book. It isn’t a great read but it is an extremely handy reference for anyone who does watch repair on a professional basis. The book is Electrical Test Values for Quartz Watches [...]
October 15, 2011 – 10:10 am
Do you ever see a tool in the catalog that just looks gimmicky? I do, all the time. I say to myself, “that tool looks cool, but nobody really needs that.” So, for years I’ve resisted buying these fancy Spring Bar Tweezers from Rolex but the die has been cast and I was required to [...]
October 13, 2011 – 8:04 pm
After a long reprieve, I’m back and I’m going to try and write more frequently again. I’ve been working on a pretty big project for the watchmaking community (you’ll read more about it next week) but it is pretty much wrapped up for now. Sometimes a watch presents you with a terrible problem that you [...]
October 12, 2011 – 1:30 pm
Roger W. Smith, the sole apprentice of legendary watchmaker George Daniels, has brought to life yet another gem of experience from Daniels’ masterwork Watchmaking. You may recall the series of 10 short, tutorial videos from Smith that we featured previously here on Tick Talk, which detailed the careful work involved in finishing a set of [...]
September 18, 2011 – 8:31 pm
When it comes to servicing fine timepieces, there is nothing that delights a client more than receiving their freshly serviced timepiece back looking and operating as new as the day they bought it. One of the multitude of characteristics that make Rolexes so desirable is the attention to detail that the company invests in making [...]
August 29, 2011 – 7:45 pm
Some really neat projects are starting to pop up at Rolex backed watchmaking schools in the States, which include Lititz, OSU, and NSCC. One of the most notable I’ve seen recently is Oklahoma State University’s Calibre 23-11, which is a faculty designed ebauche (rough watch movement) that is finished and assembled by each of the [...]
I’m headed home from the AWCI 2011 Annual Convention and Educational Symposium. I just wanted to let all of our readers know that it has been a wonderful event. The future of the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute is strong. The level of education taking place at this convention is very high. It has, as it has [...]
One of the things I really like about working on watches is discovering the hundreds of ways different companies have used to accomplish exactly the same end result. I mean for the most part these are little machines that tell time, yet there are thousands of different watch calibers which have been produced over the [...]
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