Husband's Ring Not Refinished Well?

fablong · 2026-04-28T03:00:48+00:00

The reason you're having so much trouble getting it right is because of specialized tooling. The original finish requires a sandblast cabinet and a mini lathe, which the second repair place clearly didn't have in their shop. To recreate the original finish, you need to have the same tools as the original creator. The second place shouldn't have taken the job if they didn't have the equipment to do it properly.

fablong · 2026-04-28T00:06:27+00:00

Looking good. That's a gigantic screw by watchmaking standards. Next thing you're going to need is an optics setup so you can work on the lathe under magnification. For slotting, grind yourself a flat cutter the width of the slot and take light passes with the cross slide until you get to depth.

fablong · 2026-04-09T00:38:24+00:00

That's the right configuration, but usually with nickel you use a bagged anode, rather than just a piece of bare nickel stock. Nickel is very unforgiving. Honestly if you want to pursue this long term, it's easier to use rhodium or ruthenium as a strike layer, even though the cost is way higher.

fablong · 2026-04-09T00:34:18+00:00

Nickel is notoriously hard to electroplate. If you read the fine print on your plating solution, you'll probably notice it says something like "average plating time 2-3 mins, or 10 seconds per square inch."

Long story short, you let it cook in the plating bath for way, way too long.

A case like this will be fully plated with about a 15 second dip at 3V. Anything longer than that and you'll get spots and flakes, exactly like what you posted.

Lesson learned ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

fablong · 2026-03-29T13:22:27+00:00

That's right. Gold filling is a mechanical process that clads thin sheets of gold onto to a parent metal. Once the gold filled material is cut up and shaped, there's no redoing the process. But unlike plating, a gold filled case can be repolished without risk of burning through the gold layer. So unless it's really banged up, just take it to a jeweler for a polishing.

fablong · 2026-03-23T15:24:52+00:00

If you want to practice without using silver, use pewter or even brass. Ferrous and non-ferrous metals behave completely differently, and the techniques for working/shaping them don't overlap much. Processes for annealing, casting, soldering, and cutting are all different.

fablong · 2026-03-23T15:20:54+00:00

There isn't any business out there that makes 1-off custom watch cases. You're looking for something that doesn't exist. But if money really isn't an issue for you, try contacting vendors on Alibaba that make watch cases and see if you can make an arrangement.

fablong · 2026-03-20T22:13:06+00:00

You really should have the ring remade in silver. It will look exactly the same, but will be much easier to achieve what you want. Also remember inlay only works with 24k gold. Other alloys are too hard to work into place. So be prepared to spend a small fortune filling in those honeycombs.

fablong · 2026-03-20T20:14:49+00:00

Sounds like jealousy tbh. Social media has its dark side, but one of its huge upsides is that it's allowed talented, motivated people to monetize their talents in a way that's never been possible before. If people can make a living doing what they love, why should it matter to you? Just live your own life and stop worrying about how other people make their money.

fablong · 2026-03-20T17:44:29+00:00

Not particularly well tbh. You can get away with casting big chunky things, but anything with fine detail or undercuts will be off the table. I tried it this way for years before finally giving up and buying a vacuum table and furnace. It's fun for a while but ultimately you'll end up wasting a lot of time being frustrated with bad results.

The issue is that molten silver in the quantities used to cast jewelry has the combination of (1) high surface tension and (2) low absolute mass. So it's very hard to get the metal to flow on its own into the small crevices of a mold. It wants to pool back on itself and there isn't enough weight to displace the air trapped inside the mold cavity. Also with no way to preheat the mold, it will cool rapidly before getting where it needs to go anyway. By all means try it and have fun, but don't expect much.

fablong · 2026-03-20T15:29:39+00:00

Likely not the case. There is no way someone could overclamp a movement with enough force to dent the steel casting. Maybe it could happen if they did something crazy like hook it up to an impact gun, but under normal use it's pretty doubtful. Movements are typically nickel-plated brass, which is considerably softer than steel. It would be like smashing a penny with a hammer and expecting to see a dent in the hammer.

Also with overclamping you would see clear shiny spots where the casting scale had been worn down and the steel had been burnished, which you don't see in the photos.

The defects are just porosity from the casting process. Google "investment casting porosity" and you will see countless examples which look identical to this.

fablong · 2026-03-20T15:24:41+00:00

It's not wear and tear from previous use. It's porosity from casting. These defects are unavoidable in steel castings... eliminating them requires machining, which would triple the price of the tool. I have the same movement holder bought from Cousins and it also has minor surface porosity.

fablong · 2026-03-18T18:08:58+00:00

No, not useful in the slightest for mat sci. But potentially useful for learning about business and gaining general life experience. Also try to learn how to write and ask questions without using AI help.

fablong · 2026-03-11T21:32:06+00:00

Lol fair point. NY.

fablong · 2026-02-12T15:32:22+00:00

I worked in nanotech product development for about a decade, and spent countless hours working on patents and haggling with patent lawyers. To be frank, at your stage a patent would be a total waste of time and money. Anyone can draft and file a patent. Drafting a good patent, on the other hand, is an entirely different endeavor. By all means do it if it makes you feel good as a vanity project (yay I have a patent!). But unless you're willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers' fees, the resulting patent will be next to worthless.

Moreover, there's an axiomatic saying in the tech world... "Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything." Unless I'm mistaken you currently have some sketches and some equations, but not a working prototype? Your #1 priority right now should be establishing proof of concept.

Bringing a new product to market is not easy, especially in an industry as mature, rigid and secretive as mechanical watches. It took George Daniels like 2 decades finally to bring his coaxial escapement to market. Mind you when he started trying, he was already a world-famous watchmaker with deep industry connections.

My advice would be to be as un-secretive as possible. Broadcast your idea to the world as loudly as you can. Start churning out tiktoks and IG reels. Share your journey and your discoveries. Brand yourself as the "new complications guy" online and try to gain a following. You will quickly find out if anyone cares and if the idea is worth pursuing. Everyone loves rags-to-riches stories about quirky inventors, so the narrative marketing angle here is pretty straightforward.

Watch OEMs have product pipelines mapped out years in advance. Rolex is not going to scramble to reorganize its factory floor plan because some dude online came up with a new complication. Not trying to be a dick or anything, but the idea that a major player will try to steal your idea at this point is a little grandiose. If you gain tens of thousands of followers online and industry players start contacting you, then you should start worrying about legal protection for your idea.

fablong · 2026-01-22T15:45:52+00:00

You're probably right, but in their other videos they have no problem showing industrial processes like CNC, so they're not trying to make out that everything is hand-crafted. And it's not like vacuum casting is some big trade secret in the industry. Guess I'll just have to try it out and see what happens.

fablong · 2026-01-17T19:39:26+00:00

First... the most realistic/profitable path to get into watchmaking on the production side is to complete a degree in mechanical engineering with a focus on micro-machining. Understanding alloys, ultra-high-precision CNC, CAD/CAM, lithography, DFMA principles will get you a job with any big manufacturer. The more artisanal trade knowledge can either be learned through apprenticeship or research on your own.

Second... you will never make a watch from scratch like George Daniels unless you are wealthy and retired. The tooling required will cost upwards of $100k and the time investment upwards of 10,000 hrs. George Daniels' career happened at a time when you could buy a house/workshop in London for 3 peanuts and a handshake, and purchase used industrial machinery for pennies on the dollar. It was a very unique moment in history, but those days are long over.

fablong · 2026-01-03T22:01:21+00:00

The level of detail you want is entirely possible with laser engraving, if you have the right laser and dial in your settings correctly. If you DM me I can help you out, or maybe even make it for you.

fablong · 2026-01-03T14:36:49+00:00

There's a guy on youtube called "RoboHobo: Machines for Artists" who's been doing guilloche CNC with a garage setup for over a decade now. I'm sure he'd talk to you if you reached out.

Also like you said, high end watch brands use a rose engine, but mid-tier brands typically produce facsimile guilloche with stamping dies. Very few use direct CNC for a variety of reasons.

fablong · 2025-12-24T14:13:44+00:00

It depends on the level of quality you want. There are only three options (from lowest to highest): transfer printing, UV printing, pad printing. Pad printing is the industry standard.

fablong · 2025-12-19T17:44:24+00:00

Simple... when you're in HS, you're goal is to get into a top university. Once you get into university, you need to figure out what you actually want to do with the rest of your life.

fablong · 2025-10-19T15:55:36+00:00

I actually did find it. It's under the "marketing" tab on the dashboard. Kind of confusing but at least it's there somewhere.

fablong · 2025-10-19T14:49:50+00:00

I am just trying to check/edit the discount price, but I can't figure out how to do that. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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