Excerpt: From vintage Elgins and Bulovas to pocket watches, donor movements, and railroad projects, eBay has become a major part of my watchmaking education. Some watches will be restored and sold, some will stay in my collection, and two are being built for Union Pacific engineers. Not every purchase has been a success, but every project has taught me something about sourcing, repair, value, and knowing when to walk away.

My first NH35 build was anything but smooth. I ruined the first dial by cutting off the wrong foot, had to figure out an unlabeled movement holder through trial and error, reopened the watch to fix hand clearance, and even had to reglue the 9 o’clock marker. Add in a noisy $30 movement and a purely decorative 24-hour chapter ring, and it turned into a much better watchmaking lesson than I expected.

Excerpt: I bought an ST36 to learn mechanical watchmaking the hands-on way—disassembling it, rebuilding it, and getting it running again. Instead of leaving it as a practice movement, I ordered a case, dial, and hands from AliExpress and turned it into a complete watch I could actually wear.

Before I could start learning watchmaking, I needed the right place to do it. This post covers how I built out my workbench, started buying tools and equipment, and began creating a workspace where I could learn mechanical watchmaking hands-on.