A trip to the local watchmaker

Last year I was introduced to a local watchmaker by a fellow watch enthusiast when I was looking to get a couple of my watches serviced. Thankfully he is located about 10 mins walking from my office, so I decided to pay him a visit. I always thought I would write a post on him, but never got around to doing it, so finally here it goes...

Mr. Murali belongs to a generation of watchmakers and that is quite evident with some of the tools you can see that belonged to his father. The first time I spoke with him I knew he was very experienced and soon I was proved right. Turns out he has worked with a lot of watch companies including Omega.

The workspace itself is really tiny, somewhere around 6ft by 4ft (by my estimate) but don't let that deter you. He is experienced in servicing simple mechanical movements to minute repeaters - that's right, he even works on minute repeaters.

There is watch making stuff and spare parts everywhere! On the table, the shelves, the floor, needless to say, he makes the best possible use of the available space and it's amazing to see a mix of old and modern tools.

If you love talking about watches and different movements, you've come to the right place. On so many occasions I've dropped in to for something small, like a battery change, that would normally taken maybe 5 mins but ended up staying for 30 mins or more conversing about something interesting.

Some of his clients even sell their watches through him so it's always good to ask him. I've seen some really nice vintage and new watches for sale and it's really hard to control the temptation to buy something. Even if I don't buy, it's always fun to try them out.

busy workbench

cool vintage Seamaster

another beautiful vintage in for service - a Movado moonphase

Servicing costs are extremely reasonable, especially when compared with the authorised service centres. He also believes in using only original parts if something needs to be replaced during service. His years of working in this industry has resulted in him acquiring a lot of useful contacts who can help him procure these spare parts.

If you're looking for him, a quick google search for 'Murali Watch Centre' will give you his address and contact information.

Watch Enthusiasts of India GTG - Pune

Back again from another GTG or get-together, and this time it was in the charming city of Pune. Like the previous GTGs, this was organised by the Watch Enthusiasts of India (WEI) and the date was set for the 18th of March 2017. The watches I chose to bring along for this GTG were:

• Rolex Submariner 14060M
• IWC Portugieser Chronograph IW3714-45
• Panerai PAM005

Pune is about a 3-4 hour drive from Mumbai (sometimes more if the traffic is bad) and is connected by the lovely Mumbai-Pune Expressway which can get very scenic during the rainy season. I along with three other members, Aravind, Pattabhi and Santanu, set off at 11 AM. Here I would like to thank Aravind for driving us all in his car.

Pune, here we come

On reaching Pune we were warmly greeted by Manish and after quickly checking into our hotel, we were off for lunch. Before heading to the restaurant, we made a quick pitstop to meet and pickup Karan (founder, WEI).

Thankfully Manish had already chosen a nice place for lunch called East Street. Although the GTG was scheduled for the evening, the six of us were already talking and checking out each other's watches. After a few beers and some good food, I had to take leave and head back to my room as I had some work to do. Meanwhile the rest of the gang went to have a look at some watches.

Always great to start a GTG weekend with beer :)

Finally, it was time for the main event and once again, the very helpful members in Pune had selected a nice place called Carnival and reserved a few tables in one section of the venue that gave us some privacy. Apart from the six of us, we were joined by Nikhil, Pankaj, Reggie and Shashank. It was great to finally meet Nikhil and Pankaj in person and like I mentioned in the previous GTG post, it felt like we all already knew each other.

As with every GTG, everyone is waiting for the watches to be laid on the table and it is always amusing to see reactions from other non-WIS people around when that happens. Time for the wrist shots:

Manish's Zenith

Nik's Speedmaster's box - the biggest watch box I've seen

wish every watch came with goodies like these

Can never go wrong with a Speedy in any collection

Manish's stunning Hamilton PanEurop

Karan's titanium Tudor Pelagos - didn't want to take this off my wrist

Never seen this lovely Orient before (Manish's)

Probably my favourite Longines at the moment

All in the family - from left to right: the Black Bay, Pelagos and Submariner

Checking out the lume on the Pelagos

Some Seiko action

Some more Seiko action. Notice despite the big dial size, these Seikos seemed fine on my wrist  :)

Nik's Omega Planet Ocean

I've said it before, my fav Tissot!

And the most unique dial of the GTG award goes to this Klokers KLOK-01

And this is when my phone ran low on power, so unfortunately couldn't take a lot of pictures.

There were easily over a 100 watches, 50 of which belonged to Pattabhi alone! A few people came over to our table and asked if we were selling them and left with confused looks when we told them we are just passionate about watches and like collecting them.

After some more beers and dinner, it was time to call it a night but some of us decided to meet for brunch the next day.

At noon, I checked out from my hotel and headed to Little Italy, which as the name suggests is an Italian restaurant. It was me, Karan, Manish, Shashank and Sameer - another member from Pune who was unable to make it for the GTG the previous night. Once again, there was a good mix of watches, beer and delicious food.

The PAM 005 on my handmade strap :)

Loved this vintage Seiko chronograph (Karan's)

Couldn't get over how stunning the dial looked on this Seiko (Sameer's)

A group shot of my collection at the GTG

After brunch, we bid farewell to each other and Manish and Shashank very generously offered to drive me to the bus station (Aravind had to leave early in the morning, so I decided to take a bus back to Mumbai). At this point I would normally say that I had a great GTG, the best so far and end this post, but little did I know there was more to come.

Onboard the bus, there was an elderly gentleman sitting next to me and I noticed a Baume & Mercier auto chronograph on his wrist. I didn't say anything at first because I wasn't sure of he was a watch enthusiast or not, but soon we got talking and he told me that he used to work for the German car brand BMW and just retired a few months ago. He also told me that he had noticed the watch I had on my wrist (Panerai 005) and as you've probably guessed by know, was indeed a watch enthusiast. He told me about his collection, which included brands like Rolex, Omega, Longines, Cartier, Chopard and even Vacheron Constantin and Patek Phillipe! The whole journey we spoke at length about cars and watches and before I knew it, I was back in Mumbai and at my stop. While departing we both shook hands and hope to meet again sometime in the future.

So yes, now I can say it, it was a fantastic GTG and wonderful weekend. A big thank you to Manish and all the Pune members for making this happen and planning the best GTG experience I've had.

To read about the previous GTGs, click on the links below:

Delhi
Mumbai

Watch Enthusiasts of India GTG - Mumbai

A watch GTG is always great - like minded people meet up and talk about stuff that most people normally react to as "why do you need more than one watch?" Oh and there was booze and good food, so that's as good an excuse to attend.

Some of you may have read my earlier post on an earlier GTG for us watch enthusiasts in India, if not, you can check it out here.

This time we are in Mumbai, the financial capital of India and also the city I reside in :)

December is a great time to visit Mumbai as the weather tends to get pretty pleasant (at least when compared to the summers here).The date was 17th December, and after a lot of searching around we managed to find a restaurant that was willing to give us a private dining area big enough for 15-20 people. We were 15 of us in total, so this worked out great. While most of the WISes that attended this event were from Mumbai, we did have a few who could join us from other cities as well.

The official time for the GTG was set at 7pm, but that didn't stop some of us from starting quite a bit early. A few of the attendees planned a tour of different watch shops and ADs all over the city. I unfortunately had a few chores to take care of, so I couldn't join them.

At around 5:30pm I met up with a fellow watch enthusiast from Delhi for a couple of beers. He was wearing a very cool Speedy that I had seen pics of earlier and couldn't wait to try on.

The traffic in this city can get quite bad, especially on a Saturday evening, so we called for a cab and headed to the venue. Coincidently, we all reached at the same time which meant no waiting around, the GTG was ON!

Before I start, a quick disclaimer: there wasn't too much light in the private dining room at the venue. We asked the manager if he could arrange for some more lights but were told that there was another event happening and they were using up all the spotlights . So the pics aren't the best, but thankfully this time I had a better phone camera.

One by one the watch boxes were set on the table and soon we had more watches in the room than comments on a Rolex vs Omega thread (it's funny if you are on a watch forum)!

We had, Seiko, Rolex, Omega, Grand Seiko, Universal Geneve, IWC, Panerai, Longines, Breitling, Tag Heuer, Orient, H2O, Laco, HMT, Casio, many more interesting brands....oh and an Apple Watch.

OK, enough talk, time for some pics...

A pleasant surprise, a fellow WUS member put his gorgeous vintage Longines on a strap made by me.

It looked great! Yay!

moving on..

This G-Shock was my fav watch from the GTG:

Someone brought along a small UV light and we all went crazy trying to charge the lume on our watches. And because of the dim light, the lume really showed.

As you can probably tell, I did not get the time to try on all the watches :(

Some of the guys brought along some stuff to giveaway (SWAG time), these included watch straps, books and even some awesome personalised mugs (courtesy Reggie - WUS member RejiTJoseph).

Seriously, so awesome!

A big thanks to Karan and Abhishek (WUS members phoenix844884 and Sunn27 respectively) for taking the initiative to make this GTG happen. We all had a fantastic time! Until next time, this is Crazyfingers signing out.

Some straps I made and a trip to Hong Kong

My strap making journey continues and I have since my last post, worked on a few more :

I soon realised that I was out of leather and needed to up my game, basically needed to get some better quality tools. Thankfully I had a work trip to Hong Kong and there are quite a few nice leather craft shops I could find there. Here are the tools I picked up:

I also picked up some more leather, a couple of straps for the PAM and a buckle. Bio too picked up leather nato for his Omega and a strap changing tool (since the regular one doesn't work on the Seamaster).  We also came across a LOT of watch stores for new and pre-owned watches. HK seriously is an amazing place for watch lovers.

Nato wrist shot

Wrists hot from the hotel

Nato love for the Omega and Panerai

straps

more straps!

 

some watch browsing

never seen so many PAMs together

Here are two more straps I made after I came back. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out :)