My younger brother came home from a summer job last year
with a wood watch. We all thought it was pretty darn cool. When I saw "we
all" I mean the boys in the family, although I'm sure the girls thought it
was cool too. My Dad is a darn good wood worker and has some pretty cool
machines in the garage, so everyone in our family is relatively familiar with
what goes into making things out of wood. Whether its carving things from
whistles to figurines or just whipping out a few wood picture frames, we're all
pretty comfortable with things like that. So someone in the family making a wood watch shouldn't really come as a
surprise to anybody, what did come as a surprise to me was the cost of the
professionally made wood watch.
There are 2 major companies that produce wood watches (in reality
there are a lot more) and those 2 are WeWood and Mica. My brother had a WeWood
produced watch. Like I said, I thought a wood watch was a pretty cool idea.
When I looked them up online however the price for one of those was not so
cool. You couldn't get one for under a hundred dollars.
Granted they used some high quality wood, they had a lot of
different options, they came with a couple replaceable links and a warranty,
but shelling out over a hundred bones for a watch piece attached with 50 odd
small pieces of wood and some minuscule metal parts was not my idea of a
bargain. I'm sure that WeWood and Mica make some serious bank on their wood
watch business. And to prove it I decided I would make my own wood watch.
Having never done it before I decided to go with quick prototype to prove the
concept.
The first one I made ,although it may not look it, was a
success. It's role was to prove that with the tools I had I could make the
wrist band part of the watch, since that seemed like it was going to be the
hardest part.
I actually cut the pieces by hand, and by hand I mean with a
saw. I drilled the holes and put a paper clip in, bent the end and clipped the
other side and bent that side down too. It was a little time consuming but
definitely not as much as the other ones. This was my attempt at the clasp mechanism.
It fits together by threading a paper clip through the watch face and out the
other side. It's not easy, by yourself, to put it on but since my main
motivation was to make a wood wristband I didn't really care. I would improve
upon that in the next model.
Which lead to Alpha v. 2.0. Basically the same as the first
but with some noticeable improvements. I tried to make the band pieces uniform
and spent some time sanding them and putting them in an aesthetic order, lining
them up by grain direction.
It didn't turn out
perfect though, I spaced the links too far away from each other which gave it a
look I didn't like. I improved upon that in the next version. I decided I could
live with the paperclips since I couldn't think of any other material we had
lying around that would do the job. I improved the clasp, which made it a lot
easier to put on. I intended to put a watch face in this version but after
seeing the way the band looked I decided it wasn't worth it. Even though it
didn't turn out perfect I definitely enjoy putting together an idea you have in
your mind and trying to translate that into real life. This version made some
serious improvements and brought the concept a lot closer to reality which gave
me hope that I could not only make a wooden wristband with a watch implant but
that it could even look cool.
With some new ideas I actually spent money on Alpha v. 2.1.
I improved the overall look and spaced the links as close as I could, which I
still think looks pretty legit! I intended for this design to be the clincher,
the finisher, the final version. But like the last one it ended up having its
own set of problems and prompting me to get back to the drawing table to
improve it if I wanted to ever wear one of these in public.
I had a fun time
figuring out the right drill bit and nail size. The trick was to make it a snug
fit in the outer edges of the band so that it would not allow the band to fall
apart but not tight enough to bust the fragile pieces of Pine wood. The inside
middle pieces just have a slightly larger drill bit size to allow rotation. I cut
out each piece and then rounded them by sanding so that they would rotate while
still being so closely packed. After hammering in the nails I used a grinder to
grind off the extra nail sticking out of the band. It looked pretty knarly with
the nails ungrinded, looked like a weapon with all the spikes sticking out of
the band. I also counter sunk 2 magnets into the middle of the band so that the
band automatically claps together and keeps itself on your wrist. The watch is
just a watch from Walmart I clipped the band off and countersunk into the face.
The downfalls to this design; I cracked the glass face while
it was still in production. I finished the watch like that anyways but felt
like an idiot for being careless. The magnets is a good idea but just 2 wasn't
strong enough so I added more in the next version. I also began to see a
problem with the band. It rotated perfectly but it is super rigid. In the
picture you can see my fears realized. I broke one of the links. It was easy
enough to glue back together but the problem is its inability to absorb any
sort of impact. The wood is not strong enough in that form especially with a
relatively large hole in it. Wood is never a good material if there is any
torque or impact involved.
With some more good ideas I felt like I was getting close to
a final design. I followed with another design, Alpha v 3.0. I felt confident enough to use
some quality wood, the brown is Rose wood and the lighter colored is still Pine.
I spaced the links a bit farther in an attempt to allow more room for the links
to flex and absorb more impact. I added 2 more magnets to strengthen the clasp
and I used an old watch I had instead of buying a new one. I also added 2 coats
of sealant to make the links more durable.
What I'm really proud
of in this design is that I didn't just counter sink the watch into the wood
face. I took apart the watch and put in only the parts I needed. Which it turns
out is not very much at all. Its just a little bit of mechanical parts and a
battery about the size of a nickel. I used the metal back part of the actual
watch and hammered it onto the back of the wood face. There is actually a glass
covering I spaced just above the watch hands by bending a paper clip into a
circle. The paper clip sits between the glass and the wood that the hands spin
around. Making the thin wood circle was a tricky one, it had to been thin
enough to allow the hands to still connect to the gears below and be a perfect
enough circle to not look ghetto. A couple tries and some raw fingers later I
got it.
The downfalls of this design was that the band was just
still to rigid to be viable and I was just not feeling the magnets anymore. The
good part was that the magnets could unclasp if it got caught on something
instead of breaking the links but that's just embarrassing if your watch falls
off when it gets caught. I wanted my watch to be a little more tough than that.
I'm still way proud of this design though, this is as close to a wood watch as
you can get. One thing I wanted to change in the next design though was the
face, this one is kind of plain. I spent more time on the way the band looked
that the face was more of an afterthought.
Last but not least Alpha v. 4.0. This is the last one I have
made but not the last I will ever make. It's just the most current version.
It's durable with the stretchy string and 4 coats of sealant. (Many thanks to
Greg for coming up with the idea for stretching string to weave the links
together!) I went a little overboard with the face. The thing is huge. I went
from plain looking faces to in your faces watch design. I have to admit I
wanted to create a little bit of an eyesore when I made this watch. I wanted
you to see it and have to say something about it, or at least think to yourself
"Wow! That is a unique watch!" I've only worn it a few times and I
have to say it is a great conversation starter. A wood calculator watch is kind
of a self conflicting piece of work.
Since it's an Alpha
version that means it's not a finished product. If it was then I have to admit
it would be a little bit of a bummer because I enjoy designing and making them
so much. Downfalls to this design is that it's a little bit of a hassle to put
on. You just slide it over your hand but it takes a few seconds to get it
completely on. Plus the watch face is a little over the top. Granted I designed
it in my head to be that way but I want to make another one that is more classy
than shouting for attention. This one is cool though, it's a legitimate wood
watch. It accomplishes what I set out to do. It's durable enough to wear
around, it was over 10 times cheaper than a WeWood or Mica watch, and it brings
me some satisfaction to accomplish that.
If I wanted I could make more and try and sell them. I don't
have the time to even try right now though, and I wouldn't want selling them to
take the fun out of it for me. Plus you
can buy cheaper wood watches from shady online retailers and I don't really
want to compete with them. If you read the whole post I'm impressed, and you
learned about one of my hobbies. If you have any suggestions for improvements (for a watch, not my blog) let me know. If you want to compliment me then you can do that too, I love
compliments.
