A few things I find useful for my own minor watch repairs!

This information is not intended as a tutorial.

It is only a starting place for some tools that will make simple things like changing a crystal easier!

Visible in the photo on the left are two architects lamps. they provide good lighting and a magnifying lamp to see what the hell your doing! One of the lamps has the magnifying lens removed so I can take close up photos without distortion from the magnifying lens and get good uniform light!

Visible in the photo on the right are some basic tools you will need to do minor repairs to a watch.

there is a toothbrush and some q-tips for cleaning and removing dust. I don't advise using q-tips as they unravel easily and leave cotton fibers behind that will frustrate you to no end!

Having said that I use q-tips to clean up the dial and hands with a little rubbing alcohol prior to putting the movement and dial back into the case just to remove any oils from my skin that may have been deposited while I was working. This isn't a problem if you get a box of nitrile or latex non powdered gloves to work with.

I promise you though if you have to use q-tips you will pay for it dearly until you get used to how they grab a hold of things and leave fibers behind.

There is also a pair of Swiss Army Knife Tweezers just about the Seiko and to the right laying across an old case back that I use to hold parts while I'm working. Swiss army Tweezers are quite handy and are cheap to get at most sporting goods stores.

Also visible are Needle nose Pliers, Side cutters, a watch hand removal tool and a Jaxa type case back wrench.

In the background there are some Jewelers Screwdrivers in a stand and a Rolex style case back wrench and dies in the yellow box and behind that the blue thingy in the background is a crystal / case back press used for removing and installing crystals (the glass type not plastic) and installing troublesome snap back case backs. The three white round things in the middle of the bench are dies for the crystal press which in my case double as reasonably good movement holders in a pinch.

Most modern watches use mineral glass or sapphire glass and are tension fit with a gasket. there are some cheaper watches that are mineral glass and glued to the case but for the tension fit ones the style of press in the photo above will work fine and they cost around $20.00 US

If you are going to work with older watches many of them use plastic / acrylic crystals and they use a whole different set of tools to install and remove since you actually compress the plastic crystals down smaller than their normal diameter, seat them in the watch case, and release the compression tool to expand the crystal back to its normal size where it usually seats under a lip on the watch case or bezel. there are two different common styles of tool for plastic / acrylic crystals one style uses metal dies for different ranges of sizes the other style has a bunch of claw arms like the claw on a teddy bear vending machine to squish the crystal down. You will need both types if you do much work on plastic / acrylics.

Also scattered around my disaster area .. I mean workbench are several ball point pens that have been disassembled and a couple of the push button types too. These are great for installing hands without damaging the pinions, you still have to be very careful but I find them quite useful and cheap.

Not visible in the pictures above is a metric dial caliper for measuring case parts like the crystals bezel inserts crowns etc. You don't need a $150.00 dial caliper for this kind of measuring, were not doing precision machining so the dial caliper should be able to read to .1mm (that's tenths).

 You will get a feel for your calipers range of error so that when it says you have a 30.6mm crystal you will know its a 30.5mm for example. watch parts are for the most part not totally custom made so dimensions are usually going to fall in a common range, especially for modern watches and parts since the list of manufacturers is very small today you will quickly find that there is no such thing as a 29.3mm sapphire crystal!

here's some more photos of some of the tools I use.

Above is a hand style Crystal / Case back press

Above is a plastic / acrylic crystal inserter/ lift

Above is some metric dial calipers that will measure to .1

Above is another style of crystal / case back press