How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

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Tanukjaju
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How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by Tanukjaju »

I have a couple off the top of my head.... specifically things learnt from working on movements....

1). My old mountain bike is pretty much a Franken, with parts replaced as they wore out over the years. Some parts are well over 20 years old, others like inner tubes probably 2-5 years old. My latest challenge was the rear shifter that stopped working. I was considering buying something off eBay (this is a vintage 7 speed cassette)... when it occurred to me I should probably take a stab at figuring out why it wasn’t working. I took apart the shifter housing and immediately noticed that the oil was gummed up like an old watch movement. Hmmmm. I did a partial disassembly and cleaned the parts with WD40 and did light dabs of bicycle chain oil where I guessed it needed it. I’m glad I took a stab at fixing it.... saved me $50-$100.

2). A few years back, I was in a team building exercise that involved assembling prosthetic arms. Our small group of 4 (others had 5-6) broke up into:
A). Instruction reader
B). Parts person
C). Assembler (me)
D). QC guy (to make sure the team wasn’t doing anything wrong).

IIRC, we were given something like 30 minutes to assemble it with a half way break at 15 minutes for teams to discuss with other teams problems encountered during assembly. Our team ended up finishing the arm in 10 minutes and helping others after the 15 minute mark. We later found out that over the 100+ teams that had gone before us, nobody had done it before the half way mark. I guess the hours of cursing at aligning pivots into jewels and having setting springs go flying across the room did help with the assembly process.

Please share yours.... I’m sure there are mental aspects of the hobby that have made a difference too.
:shifty:

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Mellons
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by Mellons »

Patience and planning.

Watch building is a great training for planning, sometimes long periods in advance. It has definitely helped me in building design.
"Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black."

http://www.homage-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=27
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leeyewfei
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by leeyewfei »

mellons wrote: September 8th, 2019, 3:39 pm Patience and planning.

Watch building is a great training for planning, sometimes long periods in advance. It has definitely helped me in building design.
Patience and planning is indeed a great lesson from this hobby.

The other is to not fix something if it is not broken. :lol:

Another thing I've learnt is I can't be good at everything, sometimes you have to let others do a better job.
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Mellons
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by Mellons »

leeyewfei wrote: September 8th, 2019, 9:36 pm The other is to not fix something if it is not broken. :lol:

Another thing I've learnt is I can't be good at everything, sometimes you have to let others do a better job.
+1
"Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black."

http://www.homage-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=27
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Emilio
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by Emilio »

Mainly patience [emoji854]
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jrlmsla
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by jrlmsla »

Mine is mainly emotional.

I have talked a little in the past about an accident I had that tore the front of my eyeball off taking my lense with it. As a dentist this ended my career. I knew it and had great disability insurance so financially everything was ok but there was still the loss of ability that was hard to swallow.
One day while recovering from a surgery I decided to work on a movement. And habitually put my loupe in my right eye and went to look at the movement. My right eye being the one that was damaged.
I could see clearly through the loupe at the movement and didn’t even think about it until I took it off and tried to pick something up and realized that everything was blurry through that eye.
Looking through a loupe is the only time that I can see relatively clearly with that eye and it is an emotional boost to know that I’m not completely broken.
If that makes sense. Sorry for the sob sob story.
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by TimemiT »

That's a fantastic story of perseverance! Society does not realize how much pressure medical professional place on themselves, addictions, alcoholism, psychological issues ... add to that a physical disability. I have a plastic surgeon friend that fell while holding a bottle of orange juice at the market, and sliced across the inside of his dominant hand ... lost all feeling in his finger tips. He had to leave surgery, but he founded a company that deals with specialized blood testing. There is always another path that appears, another door that opens ...
jrlmsla wrote: September 10th, 2019, 11:39 am Mine is mainly emotional.

I have talked a little in the past about an accident I had that tore the front of my eyeball off taking my lense with it. As a dentist this ended my career. I knew it and had great disability insurance so financially everything was ok but there was still the loss of ability that was hard to swallow.
One day while recovering from a surgery I decided to work on a movement. And habitually put my loupe in my right eye and went to look at the movement. My right eye being the one that was damaged.
I could see clearly through the loupe at the movement and didn’t even think about it until I took it off and tried to pick something up and realized that everything was blurry through that eye.
Looking through a loupe is the only time that I can see relatively clearly with that eye and it is an emotional boost to know that I’m not completely broken.
If that makes sense. Sorry for the sob sob story.
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Mellons
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by Mellons »

TimemiT wrote: September 10th, 2019, 12:25 pm That's a fantastic story of perseverance! Society does not realize how much pressure medical professional place on themselves, addictions, alcoholism, psychological issues ... add to that a physical disability. I have a plastic surgeon friend that fell while holding a bottle of orange juice at the market, and sliced across the inside of his dominant hand ... lost all feeling in his finger tips. He had to leave surgery, but he founded a company that deals with specialized blood testing. There is always another path that appears, another door that opens ...
jrlmsla wrote: September 10th, 2019, 11:39 am Mine is mainly emotional.

I have talked a little in the past about an accident I had that tore the front of my eyeball off taking my lense with it. As a dentist this ended my career. I knew it and had great disability insurance so financially everything was ok but there was still the loss of ability that was hard to swallow.
One day while recovering from a surgery I decided to work on a movement. And habitually put my loupe in my right eye and went to look at the movement. My right eye being the one that was damaged.
I could see clearly through the loupe at the movement and didn’t even think about it until I took it off and tried to pick something up and realized that everything was blurry through that eye.
Looking through a loupe is the only time that I can see relatively clearly with that eye and it is an emotional boost to know that I’m not completely broken.
If that makes sense. Sorry for the sob sob story.
[mention]jrlmsla[/mention] thus is an amazing story- in one way you have been gifted with a watchmakers eye... loose one skill, gain another
"Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black."

http://www.homage-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=27
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by jrlmsla »

I am a religious guy and I see it as what I would call a tender mercy.
Just at the moment i was feeling at my lowest I was shown that I wasn’t alone and that everything was and would be ok.
If God cares enough about me to help me continue a little hobby like watches (I’ll call it hobby in this context instead of straight on addiction!) then I could suck it up and get to work at having a great rest of my life!

Only difference is instead of practicing dentistry I teach, and I once had a private office that I had watch parts and leather strap material spread out everywhere now my desk is covered with the stuff and students and fellow professors look at me funny when they come in my office.
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Re: How this hobby has helped with other aspects in life

Post by Emilio »

jrlmsla wrote:I am a religious guy and I see it as what I would call a tender mercy.
Just at the moment i was feeling at my lowest I was shown that I wasn’t alone and that everything was and would be ok.
If God cares enough about me to help me continue a little hobby like watches (I’ll call it hobby in this context instead of straight on addiction!) then I could suck it up and get to work at having a great rest of my life!

Only difference is instead of practicing dentistry I teach, and I once had a private office that I had watch parts and leather strap material spread out everywhere now my desk is covered with the stuff and students and fellow professors look at me funny when they come in my office.
Thanks for sharing your story
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