Has anyone done an online watchmaker course?

[gasebah]

I have looked into this and I think I will try and take this hobby to the next level over the Christmas holidays.

http://www.timezonewatchschool.com/WatchSchool/

[Sogeha]

I've looked into that and will probably enroll as soon as I retire. Also planning to do a few courses with the British horological Institute.

[lumbee]

Just a word of caution. DOn't expect to become a qualified watchmaker from an online course. When I studied in the late 70s it was a two year full timne school. The labs are intensive and the tools/equipment needed are very expensive. You can learn a great deal from the online courses, but expect to spend a lot to get quality equipment and tools.

Aside from the above caveat, have fun and enjoy the course. Whatever admiration you might have for mechanical watch movements (the miniature machines they are) expect that admiration to grow as you progress in the courses.

 

[gasebah]

Thx for the motivation.

Your concerns are understood and expected. I would be happy after Level2 of the course if I can correctly service an 2824. They sell packages of all the tools you need for the course. It is all quality stuff like Bergeon. My motivation is that my excellent watchmaker around the corner is planning retirement. So what I am after is to case a watch correctly, set the hands, correctly and oil the movement, so I am not completely lost once he stops working. I have already built some watches but I suck. I want to learn the correct way to do it like holding the screwdriver correctly, use the movement holder the right way....all that stuff.

[Sogeha]

I'm not expecting to become a qualified watch maker either. This is just a hobby and I want to know and understand more. If I got good enough I would help friends out, but doing it for a living would defeat the purpose of early retirement:-)

A friend of mine was a watch maker and Rolex approved repairer until recently. He felt his eyesight was no longer up to the job and only does clocks now. I bought a ton of Bergeon and Rolex tools from him, some of which I have no idea what to do with currently.

[junbug5150]

Just follow this and you'll get tons of great info: 

 

[Sogeha]

Agreed, I found this and other online tutorials some time ago and although my practical skills didn't really improve, my understanding of how a watch works and what needs servicing did.

[louky]

I think Lumbee is right. Online course is for understanding how things work an are ok for basic knowledge.

But watchmaking is very delicate and requires allot of hands on practice!

Yes it a fun process as you progress more into it........and you need an eye for detail!!

[Sogeha]

Aged nine I was obsessed by robots and spent much time building them out of cardboard. It didn't qualify me as a doctor of robotics, that came much later, but it did develop my interest. Neither the OP nor I said anything more than hobby interest. Hobbies can lead to full time jobs with commitment to developing skills, but I really, really hope not in my case:-)

[freddy333]

The timezone course is very good & useful for getting your feet wet. But, as was said above, it is simply an introduction & does not make you a watchmaker. After successful completion of the course, you will be able to overhaul a working ETA movement, but diagnostics/repair will require much more.

[ILoveWatches!]

These courses are just courses for someone to learn just the basics and you wont be certified to work on any watches if you got a job at a jewlery shop. As someone who is self taught and has been working and restoring watches for over 6yrs ive applied to two of the top watchmaking schools in the US. Nicolas G. Hayek Watchmaking School – Miami. which i believe is asociated with SWATCH Group and I applied also to NAIOSW school in Dallas TX. These schools after the 2yrs and 3,000hrs of work you become a certified watchmaker C21 Certified. Hopefully by 2020 ill be certified and working on getting into one of the Rolex Boutiques.

[freddy333]

Welcome & good luck in the profession!

[automatico]

"The timezone course is very good & useful for getting your feet wet. But, as was said above, it is simply an introduction & does not make you a watchmaker. After successful completion of the course, you will be able to overhaul a working ETA movement, but diagnostics/repair will require much more."

Agree.

Online courses are Ok for learning how to take a basic movement apart, how to handle fragile parts (balance assembly), how to clean/assemble/oil a basic movement and this is all fine and dandy for hobby guys.  The hard parts are chronographs, balance staffs, installing jewels, making small parts (odd stems, staffs, pivots etc).  You can not learn this online, for this you need a teacher and believe it or not this is a large portion of what is needed on many watches not deemed 'throw away watches' that come into independent repair shops.  Something else to be learned is case work like being able to fit and install all the different types of crystals...snap in, armored, MG/sapphire, and being able to cut crystals to size on a crystal grinder to fit older 'fancy' type watches when an exact replacement is not available.  I say this because I did some of this type of work for a small shop and all they got for repair was quartz stuff needing batts/crystals/crowns/movements or mechanical watches that needed c/o plus services mentioned above, and parts...lot of omega, Bulova, Elgin, rolex, GP, Longines etc.  The problem was always NO PARTS and it is worse now than it was then (10 years ago) because we had a rolex parts account back then and most omega material was available.  Now I work only on ETA 28xx and rolex 15xx because that is all I have parts for.  I got extremely tired of chasing down hard to find parts, sometimes for months at a time. 

I left out the part about needing between $10K and $20K in tools and supplies.

One other choice is to work for a brand repair depot where you work on their products all day with no parts/customer hassles but with a guy looking over your shoulder wanting the work faster!, faster!, no comebacks! while he makes more $$ than the repair guys who do the actual work while doing nothing more than hassling the drones.  I know this is not very encouraging but imho watch repair is a hard way to make a living.  It's a pretty good cold weather indoor hobby though.