Dissecting Watches

When asked what I wanted for my birthday this year, I promptly asked for old broken watches from the thrift store. Yup. 

I got my wish. :)

Why did I want busted watches, you ask? 

Because I was interested in harvesting the innards for some projects. :)

At first I was only going to do a post on the finished projects, but I quickly became enthralled with the tiny inner workings of these watches. So I am dedicating this post entirely to the dissecting process, and will hopefully come back later with gear-and-watch-face filled projects.

I started by opening up the newest of the watches, which was a Jaclyn Smith.   

Finding a screwdriver small enough was impossible. Even the babiest screwdriver seemed massive compared to the screws! Finally my brother had to sand down the tip of a screwdriver until it was practically a knife on the end. So thin! 

Then I moved on to the next newest watch, a Bulova.

This one was old enough that it didn't have any digital parts, that I could tell. The gears were so incredible looking when I popped the back off that I decided to leave it the way it was. I knew if I pulled it apart I'd never get the gears back together, and I loved the way it looked! 

And finally, my favorite. This old broken down beauty, an Ingersoll Junior pocket watch. 

 I can't really explain how fascinating it was to pull these apart and examine them. I'm excited to play around with the parts! We'll have to see what I come up with ... I'm thinking necklaces. :)