Aug 21, 2013

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. :)



8 comments:

  1. these photographs are amazing! i love the pocket watch.

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  2. Awesome. So glad you're back to blogging again because you do stuff like . . . this.

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  3. Wow. I just got a new item on my bucket list: destroy a watch. That is SO. COOL.

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  4. Just think where those watches have been. People used those to catch trains, and to go to Ladies Aid. Women used these to count seconds until their grandchildren came. Perhaps a few years later, one of those grandchildren fingered that same watch while waiting for a handsome somebody.

    You'll have pieces of families and gatherings and eternal elements of time - all in your hands and projects.

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  5. These pictures are awesome! I'm curious about what you're gonna come up with to do with these interesting pieces :)

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  6. Wow, I love this! You clever girl, can't wait to see what you come up with!

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Thank you for commenting!