You’ve seen the videos. A pair of brass tweezers, a tiny screwdriver, and a macro lens that makes a watch movement look like a sprawling city of gold and steel. It looks therapeutic. It looks easy. It looks like something you can do on a Sunday afternoon with a cheap kit from Amazon. But here is the thing: most people who try to watch step by step disassembly for the first time end up with a "bag of parts" and a ruined balance staff.
Horology is brutally honest. If you don't respect the physics of a mainspring, it will remind you of its existence by exploding across the room.
The Tools Nobody Tells You Are Actually Bad
When you search for how to work on a watch step by step, you’re usually bombarded with links to those 20-piece "professional" repair kits that cost thirty bucks. Honestly? Throw half of that stuff away. The screwdrivers in those kits are made of soft butter-metal. They will slip. When they slip, they will gouge your bridges or, worse, skip right into the hairspring. If you're serious about this, you need a Bergeon 30081 set or at least some decent Esslinger clones. Your tweezers matter more than your ego. Most beginners grab parts with too much pressure, and—ping—that tiny click spring is now in another dimension behind your radiator. Professionals call this "the launch." It's not a matter of if, but when.
You need a clean space. Not "I wiped my desk" clean. I mean "surgery room" clean. A single eyelash in a jewel hole is basically a log in a gear train.
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The Anatomy of a Watch Step By Step Teardown
Before you even touch a screw, you have to let the power out. This is the step everyone misses because they’re excited to see the gears. If you remove the pallet fork while the mainspring is wound, the gear train will spin at a thousand miles an hour. It’ll strip the teeth off the wheels. You have to hold the click back and slowly let the crown unwind between your fingers. Feel that tension? That’s potential energy waiting to ruin your day.
Once the power is dead, the process usually starts with the balance cock. This is the heart of the watch. It’s held by one screw. You lift it, and the balance wheel swings freely. This is the most stressful five seconds of the entire process. If you catch the hairspring on a protrusion, it’s over. You can’t just "bend it back" to factory specs without years of training under someone like Nicholas Hacko or at a school like WOSTEP.
Why You Should Start with a Seagull ST36
Don't practice on your grandfather’s Omega. Please.
If you want to learn watch step by step mechanics, buy a Seagull ST36. It’s a clone of the Unitas 6497. It’s huge. The parts are chunky. It’s meant for pocket watches, which makes it the perfect "training wheels" movement. You can actually see the escapement working without a 10x loupe. When you mess up—and you will—a replacement movement is cheap enough that you won't cry yourself to sleep.
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The Gear Train Logic
As you go deeper, you’ll encounter the train of wheels. It’s a simple multiplier. The barrel (where the spring lives) turns slowly with massive torque. The center wheel, third wheel, and fourth wheel translate that power into speed. Finally, the escape wheel "kicks" the pallet fork. It’s a mechanical dance.
When taking these out, layout is everything. Don't just pile them up. Use a partitioned tray. High-end watchmakers use a systematic "map" on their bench. You should too.
The Cleaning Myth
You’ll see people on YouTube dropping movements into ultrasonic cleaners with dish soap. Don't do that. Water is the enemy. Even a microscopic amount of moisture trapped under a bridge will cause rust within 48 hours. Professional cleaning involves specific solutions like L&R Extra Fine and a rinse in high-grade petroleum spirits. If you're doing this at home without a $3,000 Elma machine, you’re likely using pegwood and pith wood to manually clean the pivots. It's tedious. It's slow. It's the only way to ensure the old, gummy Moebius oil is actually gone.
Lubrication: Less Is Infinitely More
If you can see the oil, you’ve used too much.
This is the hardest part of the watch step by step reassembly. A tiny drop of Moebius 9010 on the escape wheel teeth—applied with a needle-thin oiler—is all it takes. If you flood the jewel, capillary action will pull the oil away from the pivot. The watch will run for a week and then seize up because the friction points are dry, while the rest of the movement is an oily mess. It's counterintuitive. You’re not greasing a car axle; you’re managing surface tension.
Dealing With the "Ghost" Problems
Sometimes you put it all back together, and the balance just... wobbles. It doesn't "breathe." This is where hobbyists hit a wall. It could be a bent pivot. It could be "endshake" issues where a bridge is screwed down too tight. It could be magnetism. In the 2020s, our lives are full of magnets—iPad covers, speakers, even some kitchen appliances. A magnetized hairspring will stick to itself, making the watch run 20 minutes fast an hour. A $10 blue degausser is a mandatory tool. You push the button, pull the watch away slowly, and the invisible handcuffs come off the movement.
The Real Cost of Doing It Yourself
Let’s talk money. To do a watch step by step service properly, you’re looking at:
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- Decent Screwdrivers: $80
- Tweezers (Anti-mag): $40
- Rodico (that green tacky stuff): $10
- Moebius 9010 and D5 Oils: $60 (for tiny vials!)
- Movement holder and Loupe: $30
- A "Sacrificial" Movement: $50
You're $270 deep before you’ve even fixed a single thing. This is why local watchmakers charge $300-$600 for a service. You aren't paying for the oil; you’re paying for the ten years they spent learning how not to break that $100 balance staff.
Common Mistakes to Avoid Right Now
- Touching plates with bare fingers. The oils on your skin are acidic. Give it six months, and your fingerprints will be etched permanently into the brass in the form of green corrosion. Use finger cots.
- Over-tightening screws. These are tiny. If you "gorilla" a screw, the head will snap off. Extracting a broken screw shank from a mainplate is a nightmare involving alum baths and prayer.
- Ignoring the Dial Side. Everyone loves the gears, but the motion works under the dial (the parts that let you set the time) are fiddly. There’s a thing called a "yoke spring." It is specifically designed by the universe to fly into your carpet and never be found again.
The Finished Product
When it works? Man, there is no feeling like it. You give the crown a couple of turns, and the balance wheel starts its rhythmic oscillation. It’s alive. You’ve taken a pile of static metal and turned it into a time-keeping engine.
Next Steps for Your First Project
- Order a Seagull ST36 movement instead of trying to fix a broken vintage "deal" from eBay for your first go.
- Invest in a 4x and 10x loupe. You cannot fix what you cannot see, and your naked eye is lying to you about how clean those parts are.
- Photograph every single stage. Before you remove a screw, take a high-res photo. You think you’ll remember where that specific bridge goes. You won't.
- Read "The Theory of Horology." It’s a dry textbook, but it explains the why behind the how. Knowing why a Swiss Lever Escapement is shaped the way it is will help you understand why your watch isn't ticking.
- Practice "pegwood sharpening." Use a razor to shave a piece of pegwood to a needle point. This is your primary cleaning tool for jewel holes. If the tip isn't perfect, the jewel won't be either.