About
Destruction can be beautiful…
I’ve always been fascinated by watches: they may be small devices, but they have all the components to mechanically keep the time without electrical reliance (in the case of mechanical watches, at least). At a Mini Maker Faire in the East Bay, I came across Compass Rose Designs, which had small $6 packets of watch parts for people to buy and design with. When busing home with my loot of small, broken mechanical watches, I decided to stop at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse and of course, what would I leave with except a few larger broken watches (some quartz watches as opposed to the mechanical ones).
It was my chance to open up watches to understand the inner workings, but admittedly I was a bit skeptical to start: I’ve seen the expansive set of tools at watch repair shops, and at best I merely had a standard set of screwdrivers. The first watch I opened was a test run, and it was surprisingly simple. Because I didn’t have to worry about damaging the parts, unlike someone repairing a watch, I really didn’t need the specialized hands remover: just tweezers, 1/16″ screwdriver, and a small blade were enough. I also didn’t need to worry about jewels as much as I though I’d need to, which greatly simplified things.
Skills
Profound knowledge on screwdriver usage, Persistence (in researching), Luck