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Watches

Started by Twed, September 01, 2018, 03:55:52 PM

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a duncandisorderly

#30
probably about sixty or seventy if I could be arsed to count them.

lots of seiko (7T32, 7T62 & 7T92 chrono/alarm movements, & the mechanical '5' series), which I used to pull apart & put back together with different combinations of case, dial, hands... until my eyes started getting too bad for the sub-dial work.
couple of the seiko 'magic hands' jobs, with no gear-trains. you can make them run backwards in timer mode. cool.
quite a few citizens (eco-drive) & casios (lineage, edifice) that are solar-powered, radio-controlled & otherwise gadgety.
several luminox/mondaine, including one that was over £700 & commemorates the blackbird spy-plane.
some of the cheapo al-queda casios which ironically seem to be bomb-proof. couple of g-shocks.
a thing I bought in the big railway station in rome for £10 that has LCD numerals an inch high, & keeps excellent time, & has a fortune-cookie mode.
one fake rolex given to my late uncle by ferdy marcos when my uncle was the austrian mabassador in the phillipines.

ah, swatches... I had about a dozen at one time, but now I only know where two or three of them are. one with tv colour-bars as its face, with the word 'devotion' mysteriously superimposed.
my first one, bought in 1982, is plain black & white, no date or anything, red seconds hand, loud as fuck & serial number 583. I've had offers for that one. there was a shop in graz that at one time had one of each model; they wanted it. told them they would get it in my will.

I work shifts & also split my time between london & madrid, so a gadgety watch that has the day displayed & can go back/forwards an hour easily is nice. don't need one at all, if I'm honest, with having several iphones about me at all times, but....

I like the idea of the engineering.

these things, along with the sony walkmans that I insist sound better than fucking MP3 players, are/were the last mass-produced electro-mechanical devices that required a combination of electronics & mechanical skills to make them work reliably in the hands (no pun intended) of the general public, after being cheaply mass-produced.

walkmans & watches. all solid-state now, no moving parts, not even hard drives. these are therefore the last examples of a skill-set that's being lost.

this was the swatch I got first in late 1982. the wife of a mate of mine had the same one but without the second-hand, & a slightly quieter tick. I used to have to take this one off & put it in my pocket in the cinema.



the colour bars one:



another favourite that now doesn't work, sadly:




Buelligan

Quote from: Jockice on September 01, 2018, 07:57:31 PM
And I have several given to me by a weird old bloke I used to work with. He was obsessed with watches and possibly me. Some of them were quite nice too. I never asked where he got them from. I really didn't want to know.


Ferris

I was wearing swatch watches before Lee and his ilk got in on them. Used to have one of these weapons when I was at uni and didn't need to look professional.



(Course you did you hipster prick).

I used this or my swatch watch when playing guitar in a band - echo pedal, reverb, small delay, watch face against the bridge single coil of my telecaster, made a cool ticking noise. That's my contribution to novel guitar playing and I contribute it here, free of charge.

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on September 02, 2018, 12:43:58 AM
I used this or my swatch watch when playing guitar in a band - echo pedal, reverb, small delay, watch face against the bridge single coil of my telecaster, made a cool ticking noise. That's my contribution to novel guitar playing and I contribute it here, free of charge.

oh, I'd forgotten about that- I used to do the same with my bass, until I got the fear that the pickup magnets were going to fuck the watch up.

Twed

Really lovely watch pictures and anecdotes, thank you all!

QDRPHNC

I used to have the Nixon Dictator - had a scratchy little voice recorder built in. Unfortunately, I've found Nixon build quality to not be so hot and the display got all funky after a year or so.



These are the two that I currently own. The Fossil is my everyday watch, smartish, counts steps via my phone and all, but to be honest I rarely use that, and just bought it because I liked the look of it. The Hamilton is my dress watch. The simplicity of it appealed to me very much.



The back of the Hamilton is lovely, has a little window to see the self-winding mechanism.




Twed

Automatics usually do! A lovely watch, that.

Ferris

Quote from: a duncandisorderly on September 02, 2018, 12:55:45 AM
oh, I'd forgotten about that- I used to do the same with my bass, until I got the fear that the pickup magnets were going to fuck the watch up.

Fellow right handed person who wears their watch on the wrong hand because they were raised improperly?

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on September 02, 2018, 05:06:14 AM
Fellow right handed person who wears their watch on the wrong hand because they were raised improperly?

not as a rule, but I found it useful with the band I was in at the time... a power-struggle was emerging, & I was sort of a hired-hand. eventually I left to concentrate on my own band, & they went down to a three-piece with the wife taking over the bass, after they'd failed to find anyone who could play the parts I'd written; she reworked all the songs to suit a far more rudimentary style.
j-pop, since you ask. I hated it, but it was good exercise.

the horror:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeerC7inz-Q

MojoJojo

Quote from: Replies From View on September 01, 2018, 09:02:35 PM
Will it work on superglue?  And might it damage the face of the watch?

Nail polish remover will dissolve superglue. Probably main risk to the watch is you could dissolve some glue holding it together - maybe apply carefully with a cotton bud?

Blue Jam

Quote from: mothman on September 01, 2018, 11:25:16 PM
I inherited it from my grandfather. No idea how old it is, that page says 1990s which is possible, I know among his effects there was a box of old watches most of which which went to my cousin (fair enough I suppose, he was biological while I'm really his stepdaughter's son), as well as a box of old cameras that went to my brother (and, er, several handguns which went to the police).

Gunny?

shiftwork2

I've always wanted one of these



and inspired by the thread I've just dropped £7 on one.  To me at least this is utterly beautiful, clear and uncluttered.

I'm obsessively fussy about the clarity of dials and displays I'm amazed that it seems so hard to get right.  One of the reasons I still drive my decrepit clown car is that all newer vehicles present me with a load of fucking useless information on the dashboard - I only need to know speed, revs, outside temp, fuel and oil temp.  Everything else is a distraction.  The time is just about allowed but why would I need the date in front of me?

studpuppet

Quote from: shiftwork2 on September 02, 2018, 12:41:08 PM
I'm obsessively fussy about the clarity of dials and displays I'm amazed that it seems so hard to get right.

Struck me that you might like Braun's watches. Even their relatively cluttered faces look uncluttered in comparison to similar spec watches:




Replies From View

Quote from: shiftwork2 on September 02, 2018, 12:41:08 PM


My wrist is sweating and itching just looking at that strap.

shiftwork2

Quote from: studpuppet on September 02, 2018, 12:52:46 PM



That is rather wonderful.

Quote from: Replies From View on September 02, 2018, 12:54:50 PM
My wrist is sweating and itching just looking at that strap.

Well yes, it does scream contact dermatitis, but probably not for everyday use. 

Replies From View

You could get a black metal strap quite cheaply if it came to it.

Sebastian Cobb


Elderly Sumo Prophecy



This is my watch. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Skagen are pretty good if you're going for the whole minimalist look actually. None of that garish shit on these lads. As an added bonus, they look far more expensive than they actually are. Mine only cost £110, but at a glance, to all but the most ardent watch enthusiast, it could be one of those dead expensive ones that fighter pilots or MI6 agents are meant to use or whatever.

Replies From View

Really useful to have a watch that everyone thinks you have spent loads of money on.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

I have incredibly low self esteem. Validate me.

Replies From View

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on September 02, 2018, 07:09:02 PM
I have incredibly low self esteem. Validate me.

Alright then your watch is spiffing and I hope it brings you all the happiness your heart desires.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy


checkoutgirl

Quote from: Replies From View on September 02, 2018, 07:05:27 PM
Really useful to have a watch that everyone thinks you have spent loads of money on.

Not if you're in a rough area at night.

Replies From View

Quote from: checkoutgirl on September 02, 2018, 07:20:15 PM
Not if you're in a rough area at night.

Just fold your skin over it, like some kind of "sleeve".

Ferris

Everyone going for minimalism. When are those massive ones with a million inputs that look like mini-transformers going to come back into style? I'm talking Casio G-shock Air Force calcula-tron with built in chronograph, range-finder and atmosphere-reentry resistant to 55 cubits per square nanometer. Just like Action Man would wear.

Replies From View


Ferris


Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on September 02, 2018, 07:51:32 PM
Everyone going for minimalism. When are those massive ones with a million inputs that look like mini-transformers going to come back into style? I'm talking Casio G-shock Air Force calcula-tron with built in chronograph, range-finder and atmosphere-reentry resistant to 55 cubits per square nanometer. Just like Action Man would wear.

Sadly never. I think the zenith of the digital watch movement was those ones with a remote control built in so you could keep changing the channel on the TV that the teacher rolled in at school to put an educational video on. After that it's all been downhill.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on September 02, 2018, 07:58:50 PM
Sadly never. I think the zenith of the digital watch movement was those ones with a remote control built in so you could keep changing the channel on the TV that the teacher rolled in at school to put an educational video on. After that it's all been downhill.

Aye that was the zenith.

One of my slightly more eccentric Computer Science lecturers used to have one of the calculator watches, in the late 2000's so it was probably about 15 years old at that point. I never actually saw him use it; he did once watch us fling something up with a motor and do some maths 'that's about a metre and it happened in about a second so it's probably going 2 and a bit miles per hour' but better than that, much better than that.

He was a good guy. He used to wear a big fluorescent waterproof jacket like the lads from the highways agency wore when they were fixing the road. Had a beard but shaved his moustache for some reason.

a duncandisorderly

this is the most expensive watch I own, one of the many SR-71 themed jobs by luminox. I think you'll agree it's a bit action-man.
I never wear it- far too heavy... it hangs on the corner of my bed. you can hear the alarm from about a mile away.