Why Watches ?

[rolli]

i would say, watches, especially pams are the daily bread for my soul.

I would like to explain with this song !!!!!

Amen.mp3

rolli

[baltic]

My Dad was/is a big watch fan and I received my first 'real' one (not quartz or digital) when I was 16 a manual Sekonda (no Swiss Made on the dial but USSR!) that lasted me through the years, it's still around in the bottom of a draw and when I remember to wind it it still works fine.

When I got my first job earning decent money I bought myself an Accurist quatz diver watch which although nice to look at had no 'soul'.

A friend bought a gen Rolex GMT and complained that rep watches were almost indistinguishable, that piqued my interest. A few weeks internet surfing brough t me to the original RWG and TRC and the rest is history.

One more PAM to go and then I think I'll rationalise my collection to 4-5 real keepers.

Edited September 12, 2006 by baltic

[fendushi]

Thinking back... I think it all started when I asked my late grandfather what he was doing when I was a young tot. He was winding his handiwind Omega. Even back then... I was fed up with devices running out of battery (walkmans, watches, hand-held games...etc). When he told me that it doesn't need batteries... i was in awe.

I then went to my dad and told him what my grandad told me... then he showed me his auto-wind Rolex and told me that as long as he wears it, he never needs to wind it.

You can imagine what was going on in my young brain at the time... it was like this... ...but times a thousand. I've always wanted a mechanical watch ever since.

I finally managed to save up and bought myself a genuine Omega SeMP when I was 19. That watch was the bomb... I only wore it out a couple of times. I gotta tell you guys that haven't owned a genuine... there is NOTHING like owning one!!

Sadly... I needed some funds as I was planning to live in Asia, so I sold it to a hock shop. I regretted selling it now..

My facination for watches didn't stop there though... I couldn't afford to buy mechanical Swiss watches at the time... so I bought large analouge quartz watches. My sister knew how much I love watches and she bought me a Jag titanium chrono watch that I still have today.

The passion for mechanicals started agan when I saw this at a shopping mall in Asia:

It was a fantasy Franck Muller with a display back... but I didn't care. It was the best looking of the bunch (the photo speaks for itself) and the fact that it was mechanical and costs peanuts sends endless endorphins to my brain. I stared at the watch in awe that night...

I only wore the watch out once... at my sister's wedding. It was a hot night... i was kinda dissapointed when I saw dew forming inside the crystal.

I hunted for higher quality reps and found some beauties... I also hunted on the net and found RWG1, bought watches from EL... and here I am today, enjoying high quality replicas that a majority of the public (even some watchsmiths here) doesn't even know they exist. They might know a cheap fake... but not ones that are sold here... till they open the caseback or inspect with a loupe. Not from a distance... not a chance...

I hope this post wasn't too long... I don't usually write long posts...

[fendushi]

Now I find myself when wearing a loved piece gazing at it at least 40 times a day....

Here's a cracker....

I have the same problem... and I always get asked: "Are you in a hurry?"

My answer to that question is always: "No... I'm just admiring my watch..."

Most times I get a laughing reaction... followed by a conversation about watches and reps.

I did get a "what a wierdo" look a couple of times though...

[crystalcranium]

There's a picture of me and my brother on the wall in my parents house. I'm about 2 1/2 years old and I have a wristwatch on. So it started early. I'm a Space Race kid so machinery has always held a facination for me both in the macro and micro sense. I've also been facinated for as long as I can remember by atomic clocks and the precision of being grounded in ultimate time.

I remember watching Walter Cronkite once during a moon shot, looking at his watch saying "we should be picking up Apollo 12's radio signal as they re-emerge from the back side of the moon in about 45 seconds or so" and thinking "Man, thst must be one accurate watch he has on!"

As a kid, I used to call the telephone company's time check number (TI6-1212) to hear the operator say "at the tone the correct time will be 10...23AM...and 10 seconds...beep.......at the tone the correct time will be 10...23AM...and 20 seconds...beep.

"KYW Newsradio time...at the tone....9 am.....beep"

Now time.gov has me by the throat!!!!!!

The fact that a mechanical wristwatch that has to keep track of 86,400 seconds in a day is only off by 5 seconds in 24 hours ,or an error rate of .0058%, still amazes me. I hope it always will.

Edited September 12, 2006 by crystalcranium

[Goochenbrau]

Because I need something to cover my hideous, 40mm birth mark on my wrist.

just kidding...

I dont know, I just like them. Like some other people here, I found replicacenter first, but I did not buy anything from one of those site. Luckily, I found The Replica Watch Collector before I bought anything off one of those scam sites.

[crystalcranium]

Makes me think of my other obsession, woodworking.

Last year I built an acoustic guitar. It was a beautuful experience learning about tone woods, spending more time building molds and jigs than on the actual guitar, resawing beautiful pieces of quartersawn mahogany and maple, sawing and setting frets etc. I learned there is no higher marriage in woodworking between the technical and art than instrumentmaking. When the instructional book, and a very good one at that, said "carve and refine the soundboard bracing until a suitable tap-tone is achieved. This step is at your discression", I said "What the f*&$k is he talking about. I still don't know but I managed to make a guitar that sounds as good as my Seagul (no relation to the Chinese watch company) acoustic. I have a fantasy that some day, I'll have the time to figure out what the instructor was talking about and I'll be a custom guitar builder, a luthier oh la la, to the stars!!!!

[crystalcranium]

Tap tones... you're looking for resonances in the body, and shaving the braces will let you move the peak resonance point of the braced pieces to let them work with the tuned cavity you've created with the volume of the body and size/placement of the soundhole.

The first time I took my D70 in to the luthier he did some taps and got all excited, then hustled it back into his shop, whipped the strings off and ran a light and mirror down inside. He whistled quietly when he saw all the shaving and custom work inside. I thought I'd never get it back again.

What finish did you use on your guitar? Mine are a french polish technique, with many ultra-ultra-light coats. That seems to complement the woods, size and bracing of my Guilds.

This is the book by Johnathan Kinkead I followed.

http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Own-Acous...TF8&s=books

The brace carving and tap tone refining he refered to was of the sound board alone prior to attachment to the body but I do remember him mentioning the use of a home made carving tool that allowed him to fine tune the bracing inside the assembled body if needed. The plans are for a version based on the Martin D4. This was a first and so far only attempt but I sure as hell could feel the rising waves of obsession starting. My wife did too and quickly put some restrictions on my outlandish plans to buy up all of the stocks of QS woods and sitka spruce I could get my hands on. There's a body and braced back of a second guitar sitting in a mold right now in a corner of my shop just starting to whisper to me again. The great thing about woodworking for me is that there are so many specialty nooks in it I can get lost in. I could easily see myself only turning bowls or carving Newport shells on Townsend reproductions or sitting in my shop building beautiful instruments without the space restrictions imposed by a bonet topped highboy and get a lifetime of satisfaction from just those little pockets of the craft

The finish he used in the book was a waterborne satin lacquer brushed (echhhhhhh) on. I used linseed oil to pop the grain on the q-sawn mahogany and spruce soundboard and then sprayed it with a gloss solvent based nitrocellulose.

[crystalcranium]

Here, to me, is the ultimate guitar. Stephen Stills and his 1935 Martin D-28.

How I'd love to have 10 years of free time to try and recreate the tone of that beauty with my hands and a workshop.

Sorry, the D-28 is what the book design is based on.

Actually, the workshop need are pretty minimalist with the availbility of presawn sides and bookmatched backs but there is nothing like putting a 12 inch wide three inch thick piece of quartersawn south american hardwood into a bandsaw blade and cutting off 3/16" slices like cold cuts in the deli!!!! Indian Rosewood, bubinga, mahogany are all soooooo sweet!!!!!!

An 18" wide drum sander with a conveyer belt feed doesnt hurt either.

And a 6" wide stationary belt sander comes in handy for shaping the curves in the braces just right and for shaping the neck.

Alright, I am bragging a little bit,....but a good supplier, some good chisels and rasps, WELL MADE JIGS!!!!! and the shop needs are not so prohibitive. As for the detail inlay work on the head and fretboard, lots of sharp Xacto blades are the only requirement.

Man, my juices are flowing again....this isn't good!!!!!

[Richard Tracy]

Hey... We've been Hijacked by hill billies.. Call the Air Marshalls....

[crystalcranium]

Okay, I apologize in advance, but THIS is what you need.......

http://www.exotichardwood.com/past_relived.html

Oh man.....I'm toast! I have paid as much as $1700 for a 10 inch wide, three inch thich 6 foot long piece of heavily figured birds eye maple. I used it in this pair of doors for a client commission as well as veneers of the same board for the drawer fronts. This would have made a few nice guitar backs!!!

And Mr Tracy, sorry. We can continue the discussion over at woodcentral.com!!!

[Richard Tracy]

Hill billys? Nah...

Just a joke...

I love all musical instruments,... just picked up a Martin Cornet on the bay...

searching for a Miles Martin Committee, have owned many guitars, saxes

and also I craft Shakuhachis by hand..

[crystalcranium]

Here's the back of my F50 ... no bracing at all, just a nice belly to it and some nice

figuring. Solid maple, no plywood thankyouverymuch.

Hill billys? Nah... woodworking, intonation, tones, hand-finishing wood... it all has to do

with getting in with both hands and appreciating the touch and feel of the piece you're

working on, and enjoying it for more than how it looks. Like a watch.

God...just fu&%ing gorgeous figured maple. I made a highboy out of this $25 a board foot tiger maple a few years ago and it was like working with a gift from God. One of my biggest motivators in the project was to pathologically minimize waste. Not much of it was in the form of solid stock.

And yes the root neurons for this stuff is a common place in the brain for the watch beauty stuff. I would love to live in a 25X magnification world with micro tools and screwdrivers but unfortunatly by sie 13 fingers probably would make that difficult.

I'll stick to medicine where my big clumsy hands are not important!!!!

[flavor flav]

There are no AD's where I live, I'm sure there must be some in the city (Melbourne) though I have never come across them, but when I was a little boy my family used to live in Woolongong (hope I spelt that right) NSW and we used to go for day shopping trips to Sydney.

Now I can't remember very much of those days but i do remember that one shop that my parents used to visit a lot was next door to an AD, I have no recollection of the name of this AD but I do remember that it had one of those large see through watches in the window and I also remember that my parents would have to leave me there glued to the shop window whilst they went next door to do whatever shopping they had to do.

I could literally watch the gears in that display watch turning for hours but also there was many lovely watches in the window to gaze on too with their intricate dials and shiny cases, not to mention the beautiful straps.

So anyway life as it often happens took me away from the area, if it hadn't I would probably be one of those stuffed shirts on the gen forums by now, anyway I have done many things through my life but sadly for most of it I have had a $10 digital on my wrist and then I found this site and.......................end of story

Ken

there is a watches of switzerland in melbourne....i was in there a few years ago.

[fotoman]

I have a compulsive personality which kicks in during times of stress (some sort of ruff upbringing or something)

This is a great obsession. Expensive but great.

i think i need to up my meds.

[jeff g]

Funny, I never wore a watch much when I was a kid. Perhaps a Timex cheapo.

In the service I wore a service watch..when I had to.

For most of my entire adult life I NEVER wore a watch, but for most of my life I have loved beautiful watches. Every chance I had when travelling, I would seek out the best shops, and go look at watches.

My wife still thinks I am nuts.

Don't wear a watch, but look at them everywhere I go. Then I found replica's.

Now I have 20 (+) reps, but funny thing, for the most part they all look the same.

Black dial sport watches. Each of course is different,... and thats the draw.

For the most part I mostly wear the Black SMP Pro, but to have the choice of 18 others, is rather nice.

Different mood, different watch. Kinda like male jewelry. My lifestyle prohibits wearing complications for the most part. That side of the watch coin would produce another 20 reps I'm sure. So many moods...so many watches.

[crystalcranium]

Funny, I never wore a watch much when I was a kid. Perhaps a Timex cheapo.

In the service I wore a service watch..when I had to.

For most of my entire adult life I NEVER wore a watch, but for most of my life I have loved beautiful watches. Every chance I had when travelling, I would seek out the best shops, and go look at watches.

My wife still thinks I am nuts.

Don't wear a watch, but look at them everywhere I go. Then I found replica's.

Now I have 20 (+) reps, but funny thing, for the most part they all look the same.

Black dial sport watches. Each of course is different,... and thats the draw.

For the most part I mostly wear the Black SMP Pro, but to have the choice of 18 others, is rather nice.

Different mood, different watch. Kinda like male jewelry. My lifestyle prohibits wearing complications for the most part. That side of the watch coin would produce another 20 reps I'm sure. So many moods...so many watches.

Jewelry....exactly. When people look at me like I'm nuts when I tell them I have 20 watches and say "For God's sake, it's a watch. You can tell time with your cell phone" I just chuckle. What the hand position conveys is the least important aspect of these micromachines. They are incredible works of engineering, art, technology and beauty.

[Waxon Waxoff]

What the hand position conveys is the least important aspect of these micromachines. They are incredible works of engineering, art, technology and beauty.

Wow, perfectly stated. Like others have stated, on my favorite watches, I can just stare at the dial and watch the sweep of the second hand and be perfectly happy.

[MJP]

The thread got wood there for a while.

3 watch reasons:

I was like 9 when all those cool Casios started coming out with more and more functions. That kind of facination dates back to like [censored] Tracy and Batman stuff, watches that do crazy [censored]. All the functions that can be crammed into a wrist-worn appliance is cool. I kinda want a GPS Suunto.

The design, the asthetic, the line between function and form. The more expensive and better designers usually got it.

As far as reps, it's nice to go out a flash a multi-thousand dollar watch, and not have to worry if you drop it.

Edited September 13, 2006 by MJP