Reader Jeff wanted to make a coin-face watch using his own coin. I basically suggested hitting 47th Street in New York with the coin, a cool watch, and a plan and a few months later, he sends me this image of the finished product. It’s amazing what a good jeweler can do when working with a knowledgeable customer. Congrats, Jeff!

Here’s a great NOS Gruen redone by Dennis Brooker, a custom watchmaker.

I just put one of my custom dials in my 1st mechanical watch - A NOS Gruen I got off of Ebay with an ETA 2824-2 - I used a reallllly nice piece of Awabi shell.

Quite striking, non?

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I love watching custom pieces take shape. This one is no exception:

First, a friend of mine fabricated a case modeled after the MM20 with a custom broze crown tube and a sterile stainless steel back. He also fabricated a sandwich dial from a brass blank and modeled it after the MM20 minus the seconds sub-dial. Next, I finished the top sandwich dial with a flat black and flat clear coat to give it a vintage look. I also relumed the dial and hands with a custom blend of lume to give it a nice pantina look. The final steps were to polish the whole case and use the “wabi” technique to rough it up a bit. This was followed by putting everything together to make the Unitas movement fit and pressing on a new plastic crystal, which was done by my watch maker.

New to the Board and wanted to share my project watch… [BIG Watch Forum]

KrazyDad reviews a super cool wooden clock kit made of pressboard, dowels, and not much else. Very George Washington Carver.

Here are the components spread out. Most of the parts are laser cut plywood. There are also some dowels, screws, nylon washers and string. The kit comes with a detailed and helpful 43 page instruction manual, that is *much* better than the terse instructions that come with IKEA furniture. Jeff is very careful to navigate you through most of the potential “gotchas” that will occur during the construction process. I started working on the clock about 2 and a half weeks ago, working mostly on weekends. All in all, I’ve probably spent about 20 hours on it thus far.

The Ascent - A Wooden Clock Kit [KrazyDad]

Blancier just created a new in-house manufacture, the Regulator. It’s essentially a big minutes hand movement with seconds and hours at 9 and 3 o’clock, respectively, and it’s all done in-house. Blancier - Lottermann & Söhne

Billy at the BigWatchForum posted some shots of his RWC 1938A - a generic “big” watch that these guys love - and the various mods he’s done to it, including scouring off all the manufacturer info, changing the crystal and face, and adding wear and tear aka “wabi” to the steel. The result, while a bit of overkill, looks great.

RWC 1938A … more modification / vintage wabi [BigWatchForum]

Ummm… are you thinking what I’m thinking? My own cases?

Check out the site here.
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A really beautiful custom strap job by Greg at PMWF. Very cool.

The leather looks like it was from an old bomber jacket. It is incredibly soft. For each piece I used one long piece and folded it over and glued it together. That way the bottom side of the strap is the same as the top side. I’m interested to see how well it holds up as it is only cemented and not stitched. So far so good. My wife definitely thinks I am crazy now.

Check out the thread here.