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Hello all, my name is Kyle. I've been repairing and restoring American pocket watches for about 10 years. It's more of a hobby (my wife would say obsession lol) but I thoroughly enjoy it, most of the time lol. The history and ingenuity of the old companies fascinates me, as does the tooling created to produce such fine, precise machines. Right now I've migrated towards one brand, Illinois, as it's allowed me to reduce my parts inventory, plus in my opinion they were some of the most visually appealing movements produced in that era. My family is originally from Illinois so there's that too. Yes I know Elgin and Rockford were also Illinois companies, but just not my cup of tea. Anyway, glad to be here and I look forward to interacting with other addicts like me :)

Posted
43 minutes ago, khunter said:

Hello all, my name is Kyle. I've been repairing and restoring American pocket watches for about 10 years. It's more of a hobby (my wife would say obsession lol) but I thoroughly enjoy it, most of the time lol. The history and ingenuity of the old companies fascinates me, as does the tooling created to produce such fine, precise machines. Right now I've migrated towards one brand, Illinois, as it's allowed me to reduce my parts inventory, plus in my opinion they were some of the most visually appealing movements produced in that era. My family is originally from Illinois so there's that too. Yes I know Elgin and Rockford were also Illinois companies, but just not my cup of tea. Anyway, glad to be here and I look forward to interacting with other addicts like me :)

A view of my bench (made it myself :) )

2018-01-24 09.36.51.jpg

Posted
On 1/25/2018 at 8:33 AM, dadistic said:

Welcome, and very nice bench!

BTW, are you happy with the AmScope Microscope?

Cheers!

I'm very happy with it, I just wish I could figure out a way to mount another over my lathe! I use it mainly for inspection, the focus is at its limit with a movement in a holder, but 45x mag (max) is plenty to do the work I do, usually I stick to 10x/30x.

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