An additional interest of mine is the fascinating world of horology. There is something to be said for the intricacies of a mechanical or automatic (self winding with the motion of the wrist) watch. There is a certain satisfaction from the act of winding and setting a mechanical watch – and maybe some parallels between the joy of a human powered bicycle to an wound timepiece – and never having to rely on batteries or electricity to run them.

Perhaps similar to my being a small (but enthusiastic) part of a renaissance in eschewing the world of machine built wheels in favor of hand-built wheels, I have been exploring the world of watchmaking and modifications.

Much like the wheels I build aim to serve a niche not widely available in the market, the world of watch modification and watch building looks to do something similar.

A watch modder may change out some part of the watch – a bezel, a dial, the hands, the crystal or even the movement itself to make subtle or drastic changes to their existing watch. A modder can also create highly customized products entirely from scratch that are entirely unlike anything commercially available, or work to make something blending aspects of commercially available products, but at a much more affordable price point.

A build from the ground up is largely and most often centered around using venerable, budget friendly Seiko NH3x series automatic movements – the NH35 with date, NH36 with day and date, or the NH38 with neither day nor date. However there those who do builds using the moderately more expensive ETA family of movements (or their clones).

Most options for ground up builds would tend to fall into one of two general categories: diver style or sports watch builds (often based around a Seiko SKX or similar), or more svelte, dressier builds.

Parts for building a complete watch could range from under $150 to considerably more depending on specific preferences and choices.

I can assist in consultation and sourcing of parts for a build, as well as perform the final assembly of the parts.

Do you want a wrist watch that matches your custom frame or wheels? I want to see if I can help make that a reality.