For my final project of a wristwatch heavily inspired by Art Nouveau and clockpunk with open mechanism. I have a few specifications set (some of them are quite obvious) which are:

1. It should be a wristwatch, and not a pocket watch. (I had considered making a pocket watch too)
2. It should be a wristwatch with hour, minute, and seconds hands. (Some watches do not have all the hands)
3. It should be comfortable to wear for an extended period.
4. The final product should be aesthetically pleasing.
5. The watch mechanism should be visible from the outside with its gears and clockwork mechanism.
6. It should not have any visual signs showing errors, stray lines, or poor handiwork.
7. The raw materials, like leather, steel, gems, and any other stuff should be open to view and look pleasing.
8. Try to avoid straight lines, circles, and geometric shapes.

The top 6 aspects that would indicate that these specs are achieved would be:

1. The project should look aesthetically pleasing and visually appealing.
2. It should have long flowy lines and intricate designs.
3. The use of materials should have a variety and could be viewed directly and identifiable.
4. The project should feel durable and well-made, with high-quality materials.
5. The watch’s mechanism should be visible with all the moving gears and clockwork.
6. The project should be unique and stand out from similar projects in the market.

However, I am facing a lot of constraints with the project and I am looking to overcome them.

The constraints are:

Money – I would need to custom order almost all the parts or find rare ones that suit my vision. I would also need to buy a special watch-building toolkit as well. If parts are not found, the extra expense would be raw materials and machining a few parts. I have created a budget and the former things have already amounted to 145$, any changes in design, modifications, or if something goes wrong, would lead to additional expense.

Time – Learning how to build watches is a really time-consuming skill, and added to that, the time delay to receive ordered parts and the time to design and manufacture some special parts. The project would need good schedule management to be completed by the deadline.

Skills – I would need to learn about watch standards, what parts are compatible with what mechanisms, and watch building and assembling. This would need a huge portion of the time and effort for this project.

Supplies – Searching for the watch parts that exactly suit my vision would need a lot of time. It might also finally be unfruitful, resulting in ideation about how to create some parts and purchase its raw materials.

Ideas – I know I would not be able to find all the parts as per my vision and would need to create a few on my own from scratch. I would need to ideate the best materials, machining, and design, as well as how to fit all of this into the budget.

For now, I have already completed learning about watch standards, and am learning about watch building while side-by-side searching for parts that would fit my vision as the delivery time for them is almost a month and I need to order them as soon as possible.

PS: In my search for inspirations and watch parts, I have found a seller who sells antique restored watches and some of them suit my aesthetic vision for the project. Here is the link to the seller and the featured image is one of his restored watches.

www.wandolec.com

Featured Image: https://www.wandolec.com/eng/catalog/649