Installation and Adjustment of Minute and Hour Hands
【Important】Reminders:
During installation, please avoid bending the post for second hand. Otherwise the function of the movement might be compromised.
Repeated installation of watch hands may result in loose hands. Therefore please be careful with each installation, and reduce the need for re-installation.
An extra set of hands is provided to you in case you need replacement.
2a. Installing hour and minute hand
We will install the hour and minute hands onto the dial and movement assembly.
Content:
How to pick up an hour hand
How to install a hand
Adjusting the level and direction of the hand
With different constructions of hour and minute hands, sometimes there will be a difference in height between the top of minute hand and minute hand post. As long as there is enough space for the second hand above, height difference as large as this image shows here is acceptable.
If you need to remove hands, you can refer to:
Installing Second Hand
WARNING! This part is very challenging and poses risk of irriversible damage to the movement!
Tips for second hand installation:
Viewing the second hand from a horizontal angle will make the hand installation significantly easier.
Installing Second Hand
【Important】Reminders:
The second hand post is more fragile than that of hour and minute hands. Please be very careful with installation. A bent second hand post will affect the performance of movement.
It is recommended to first use a loupe to see the smallest post clearly before attempting to install. If you were not careful with minute hand installation, the second hand post might have been bent. If so, it is impossible to install the second hand.
Second hand must remain parallel with the dial. During installation and adjustment, be mindful to keep the second hand level.
Instructional video contains detailed description. Please pay attention to its content in its entirety.
This is the most challenging part of this tutorial. We will now install the second hand onto the movement.
Content:
Learn multiple methods of installing a second hand
Identify correct and incorrect second hand installation
Second Hand Troubleshoot
Here we will cover most of the problems related to hand installation.