I did however quite like the idea of having a watch again.
On a trip to Japan, I purchased a nice mid-range JDM automatic Seiko, which I now have to say is just about my favourite bit of personal tech. It's beautifully built to such incredibly tight tolerances, looks great, and the underlying mechanism is just awesome (as shown by the OP). It's not that accurate (gains about 40s a day), but I can live with it.
I do wonder how much the smart watch (r)evolution has actually lifted the entire market, and given other people like me a reason to revisit some of the more traditional but still highly functional watch tech.
Now, though, I want something like Chronos (https://wearchronos.com/) for my mechanical watches, though a bit smaller... on something thicker, the Chronos makes the entire thing basically as thick as a Panerai and completely unwearable with long sleeves.
I think tinkering with small parts like this could be a fun and relaxing/focusing hobby but I'm not sure where to start and don't want to invest much up front in actuals tools and watches.
Just trying to find the physical "codecademy" equivalent to get some initial excitement going and learn if it's something I want to pursue further
Using modern measurement tools, you can machine to pretty tight tolerances, even if your lathe/mill is extremely worn.
