Skyhorse Practical Watch Repairing

The book is listed as “ from 2008” . That is not the case. This is a facsimile (scanned) reprint of a 1949-1969 book. And that is for watch repairing old. Some principles are the same, but things have progressed. But not in the book. And the facsimile (scanned) version is also no fun to read.

Good reading

This is a very detailed book on mechanical watch repairing, begining from how to set up your shop, the kind of tools you will need from start up and how to check if the tools are in good shape, and going through every part of a mechanical watch movement. It's as generic as possible because there are a number of different movements in the marked but you get to understand the concepts, which will allow you to identify those parts in any movement you are working with. If you are looking to understand mechanical movements without the idea to become a watch repairer, but serving different purposes, this book is also a very good start.

Keep in mind that this book was first written in 1946 and additions made to it up until 1963. With that being said, this has got to be the complete encyclopedia of watch making at the time of writing it. The author, Donald E. Carle is no doubt an authority of horology. The language he uses is old British and a little hard to understand in places and some of the equipment and materials he advises are no longer available or have been found to be health hazards in today's world. This book contains a wealth of information, but unless you are a professional horologist and willing to invest 10's of thousands of dollars in tools and equipment it has more information than you will ever use. But it does contain everything and I mean everything that you could possibly want to know about vintage mechanical watches. I guess the author assumes that the reader already has considerable experience in watch repair by the layout of the book. It starts out discussing needed tools and then by chapter 3 it explains completely disassembling a wrist watch movement. The steps he uses are not what I would recommend. The first thing he suggests removing on the back of the movement is the balance wheel assembly, which in my opinion has got to be the most difficult part of watch disassembly of all. Unless you have an extreme amount of previous experience, you will permanently trash your watch by starting at this point. The balance wheel assembly is very delicate and easily damaged. In the time period this book was written replacement parts may have been readily available. That is not the case today. The majority of the parts for these vintage watches are no longer made in today's market place and finding a replacement part can in some cases be close to impossible. He does explain how to make or repair some parts of a watch, but without the specialized tools needed to do this, it would be impossible to do today and finding those specialized tools would be a difficult task in itself and very expensive. Overall, I would highly recommend this book if you want to learn extensive watch repair.

A terrific read, BUT I'm an old retired marine engineer "stoker" who absolutely loves tinkering with fussy machinery and what can be more fussy than old mechanical watch movements. (Old typewriters are fun too). Be warned that this hobby is an acquired taste, but once it got you, you're Got!!