This is the Build Your Own Seiko NH36 movement kit from the team at Rotate Watches. It includes a fully-functional mechanical watch movement, and the builder learns how to assemble and disassemble it, as well as what each individual part does.
Mechanical watch movements, that is watch movements that rely on wound springs rather than batteries for their operation, almost went the way of the Dodo after the public release of electronic quartz watches in 1969.
The kit comes with the movement, as well as all the tools you need for taking it apart and putting it back together again.
Interestingly, it would be Seiko that produced the first publicly available quartz wristwatch, the Seiko Astron, on Christmas Day, 1969. Both the Swiss and Japanese watch making industries had been competing fiercely to develop the first electronic quartz timepieces – an invention that would trigger the Quartz Crisis and nearly kill the watchmaking industry once and for all.
Fortunately, mechanical wristwatches wouldn’t be killed off. In fact, in more recent years they have grown to become one of the key status symbols with their timekeeping ability very much a remote secondary concern for many owners.
The kit you see here contains everything you need to learn how to take apart and reassemble a movement, including the movement itself. It comes with a stainless steel movement holder, a screwdriver, tweezers, a magnetizer tool, finger cots, pliers, a beginner-friendly guide, and an organizing case.
Each kit ships out with the Seiko NH36 movement fully assembled and working, this is to ensure that the movement is complete with all parts accounted for. Once it arrives the new owner dives into the step-by-step disassembly process, followed by the reassembly.
A professional-grade stainless steel movement holder is included in the kit. It’s useful while building the movement, and makes a great display when you’ve finished.
The Seiko NH36 movement has 24 jewels, a 41 hour power reserve, 21,600 bph, bi-directional winding, and a day/date display. It offers an excellent introduction to watchmaking, and it teaches a great deal about how mechanical watches actually.
This kit is now bring offered for sale on Huckberry with free US shipping and free US returns, as well as a best price guarantee, with an MSRP of $140 USD. If you’d like to read more or order your own you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Huckberry
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Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
