What time is it? Watches and horology

Madman. Good luck.

I wasn't that keen when I first got mine but now I've changed the strap it's one of my most worn watches

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I find it super comfy for such a hefty watch now it's on the Erikas strap

It does take a while for those CUDAs to break in. Totally relate to that.

I think I just don't like the look of rubber straps. They may be the practical option but unless you're actually diving with it I find it a bit much. (Although I did quite like the look of the Tropic strap that someone on here posted recently.)

For those whom are too impatient to create their own wear and tear / patina.....

https://outoforderwatches.com/collections

Maybe the distressed Jeans look is over, and they use their expertise on watches now?

That’s a cool project and I can see the balance spring being the most critical part - is it all made of the same material? Can’t really tweak it once it’s made either I guess.
Look forward to progress shots please.

Afraid so..

There's a trade off between durability and ease of printing. The chap who made that design used PLA which is very easy to print but it is very susceptible to warping or even melting in direct sunlight so longevity of the model would be a problem.

If I'm putting this much effort into something I'd rather it survived for a while so I'm printing it in ABS, which is durable but a bitch to print. The main reason for this is that it tends to warp while being printed so peels itself off the print bed. To counteract this I have built a heated enclosure around my FDM printer to maintain an air temperature of about 45 degrees and am using a special adhesive called 3dlac to hold everything flat.

Its likely that a lot of tweaking will be necessary. In order to get ABS to stick to the print bed you need a very high temperature. I'm going for 105 degrees which is the glass transition point of ABS. A 3d printed part that has sat on 105 degrees will develop something called "Elephant Foot" where the bottom layer sags under the weight of the rest of the part so I'll probably need to hand finish each part to make sure there are no lips or deformities. Lube will be required too. Thankfully have a large range of inert watch making lubes so I'm not so worried about that.

Sure, will post photos as and when there is something interesting to see. Will turn on the timelapse camera inside the printer too.

Just placed an order for the 77 necessary nuts, bolts and washers.

Imagine having the skills to actually design a model like that. Its like black magic to me.

If anybody is interested in how you control a 3d printer, there are a few simple steps.

1) Design your model in CAD or similar, or get a design from somebody else

2) Closely inspect model to identify potential print temperatures, application of cooling fans and generation of support material to hold overhangs and bridges. You also need to decide how to handle the interior of the model, which pattern and what density of material to use.

3) Use slicer software to divide your model into slices of a certain thickness. 0.3mm in this case. The slicer software then generates a GCODE file that contains simple Cartesian coordinates, how much filament to extrude and at what rate and your pre-chosen temperature/fan/bridging settings. I've attached the GCODE file for the hair spring. You can open it in Notepad.

4) Preheat printer, send GCODE file to it, click print, wait 5 hours+ and either find a perfetly printed part or a waste of plastic. If the latter, rinse and repeat.

Gcode is pretty versatile. Its the language used by CNC machine, laser cutters etc etc too.

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• 21.gcode

Have we had this yet? Woof!

The watch-makers watchmaker...

that is lush

This sound so sick. Keep us posted!

This is like the watch equivalent of this:

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Have we had this yet? Woof!

Amazing how they get it to balance upright like that!

Is liek fixie pic.

Dude at the side let's go just for a split.

Nah, you just wear it loose on the wrist and then super quickly whip your hand out and snap before it falls

Shout out to the mentalists who make shit like this but 1/10th of the scale using only hand tools and metal blanks!

And not only escapements but the whole damn movement... Its insane. Youre insane. Theyre all insane.

Scratched my Zenith itch

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Manual movement? The proportions look nice.

Having said that, the fantastic JLC you have would fill all my needs as a dress watch.

I fancy a stainless steel g-shock (I don't really know why).

They're ~ £400 though and second hand seems not far off that which is more than I want one.
Has anyone tried a mod set such as this one https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33042715860.html Is it going to be shit?

Yep, manual.

Sorry, what a brainfart. Auto.

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Lovely...

right size for you? Looks good.