I got a vintage machinist chest for my birthday a couple of months ago. i’ve spent time the past couple of months cleaning it up, refinishing, and replacing all the felt. and the next to last thing to do was create a nice set of oak dividers to hold the watch pillows in the top portion of the chest. (the last thing is to reinstall the hinge and the mirror, that’s for later tonight).
set the dividers up on boxes.py, made a couple of cardboard versions to test size and fit for the box and the pillows. used 4mm white oak. tried to match the stain as best i could, but no matter how much red and yellow die powder i added to my stain, i just couldn’t get it as close as i wanted, but most of it you won’t see because of the sides of the box and the pillows, so i’ll live with it. took a rubber contoured sanding group to round the top edges of the tray, then stained and finished with feed’n’wax. et voila.
they are. i have a couple and my wife has one (a vintage birth year seiko).
i think most people don’t know that seiko probably has the broadest range of watch prices out there. from inexpensive $50 quartz watches to grand seikos for $5-10k.
you’re braver than me. i’ve taken the back off a watch before, but i wouldn’t even begin to mess with the movement. i just shell out the $$ for someone else to service.
A titanium Seiko that my wife gave me years ago was my gateway drug into watches. I always thought watches were too heavy until that super light Seiko. I don’t have anything expensive but I have Seiko and Citizen watches with a few others sprinkled in. Currently my favorite daily watch is my only Tissot.
thanks. and, well, other than my wedding band, my watches are my only jewelry, so maybe that’s not too inaccurate. and all those movements have tiny jewels in them (little tiny rubies, altho probably mostly synthetic).
Beautifully done! I think I have the same machinist chest, passed down from my grandfather. I don’t think you get that exact colour except with age, but you came darn close! Beautifully done.
Are there fasteners or are the cross pieces half cut so they slot into each other? I’m presuming the latter, but that doesn’t work for the end pieces…
they’re cut in half slots so they match up and slide together. a basic tray box from boxes.py. the two end pieces i made manually, added the fingers to the long pieces and the slots in the ends.
