Tools and parts

An introductory kit that provides the basics, hand pushers, cushion, rodico, and an air blower.

Expensive, and the one place I would not economise. Badly ground blades slip out of movement screws and mark the plate.

Steel for general work. Keep a cheap brass pair alongside them for anything near a dial, since brass gives before the dial does.

Needed the moment you have to trim a stem to length. Anything that reads to a hundredth of a millimetre is accurate enough for watch work.

Thin enough to get under an SKX bezel without marking the case. Worth having two so you can work round the case in stages.

For screw-down casebacks. The adjustable ones slip if you underdo the tension, so clamp the case properly in a holder first.

Holds the watch steady and keeps the crystal off the bench. Replace it once it picks up grit.

Grips a screw-down caseback without touching it with metal. Slower than a wrench and it will not mark the case.

Lifts all three hands square. Put a dial protector under it every single time, no exceptions.

Thin plastic discs that sit over the dial while you pull hands. Cheap, and they save dials.

For snipping unused dial feet flush. Ordinary wire cutters leave a stub that holds the dial off the movement plate.

Grips the NH series movements without putting pressure on the rotor. Plastic holders flex and let the movement twist.

Lifts dust, fingerprints and stray lume off dials and crystals. One block lasts a very long time.

Use this before canned air, which can spit propellant onto a dial.

A smear on every gasket you refit. It helps the seal seat evenly and stops the rubber drying out.

Powder-free is the part that matters. Powdered gloves leave a residue that shows up under a domed crystal.

A drop on the stem thread stops the crown unscrewing itself off the stem.

Often used for camera lenses, two different tips for cleaning smudges and removing dust.

Usually sold with the crystal, caseback, crown and stem already fitted. Check it is cut for the NH movement family before ordering.

The NH35 with the date work left out, and an open balance on show through the caseback. The one to buy if your dial has no date window.

Sold as a stack of three. Confirm the hole sizes match your movement family rather than the watch model.

Measure the dial against the movement, not the case. Most are sold with several sets of feet so one dial fits a range of movements.

Buy a mixed pack. The bars supplied with a bracelet are often a fraction too long for the case you are fitting them to.

The standard F-91W in blue resin. Module 593 and the LCD are the same as every other F-91W, so any backing or strap mod that works on a black one works on this.

Sold in sheets and cut to size. This is what a negative-display conversion uses: the polariser is swapped through ninety degrees so the ground reads dark and the segments read light.

What the custom backing is printed on. Glossy stock keeps the colours dense behind the LCD, and photo paper is stiff enough to stay flat when the module goes back together.

Goes over the printed backing. It catches the light at an angle and is what makes the print read like a holo card rather than a photograph.