What I’ve been doing this week… I got my hands on some old watches with mechanical movements and took them apart to get at the gears. Watches are really interesting. For one, it’s really hard to get a screwdriver small enough for their tiny tiny TINY screws. I ended up buying a (bargain) $1 precision (and by that, they mean ’small’) screwdriver set and filing the tip down with my metalworking files. It worked pretty well until I realized that by filing the tip down I was basically making it sharper.
I realized that when I stabbed myself. Oops.
On a prettier and less bloody note, watches apparently have ‘jewel bearings’. They use synthetic stone (back in the day they used real ruby or sapphire) to make the bearings because it can be polished to a super-smooth finished and the material will not wear away. And apart from that, they just look cool.
Below, pictures of some of the watches and some of the innards once disassembled. For the actual jewelry made from said parts, you’ll have to wait! (Although I’ve already made some, I’m just keeping them secret).
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