pablin.me

Watch repair, on iPhone and iPad

Open it.
Mend it. Hear it run.

You inherit the shut watch shop of Tomás Arroyo in Quito's old town, and with it eighteen repairs nobody came back for — and, new in 1.1, the bottom drawer he kept locked. Each one is a real mechanism, simulated part by part, and each one has an owner still waiting on the other end of a telephone number.

iPhone & iPad iOS 17 US$4.99 once, no ads
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An English pair-case watch with its outer case open: the inner case's back with the hole the key goes through, and the two watch papers read out below
THE KEY — NEW IN 1.1
A chronograph movement half apart on the bench, its bridges lifted and lying in the numbered compartments of the parts tray below
THE BENCH
The workshop shelf full: eighteen stands on five planks, pocket and wrist watches running on brass stands, letters where a watch went home
THE SHELF — EVERY WATCH ON IT STILL RUNNING
A pilot's flyback chronograph on the bench, dial side up: a black dial, small seconds at nine and a thirty-minute counter at three
FLYBACK — NEW IN 1.1
The timegrapher's paper trace: two lines of dots climbing across the paper, one for the ticks and one for the tocks, with the rate, amplitude and beat error read out below
THE TIMEGRAPHER
18
Watches nobody came back for
8
Real calibers
28
Real faults, each by its symptom

New in 1.1 · The bottom drawer

Before the crown, there was a key and a chain

The drawer Tomás kept locked holds the watches he took in before he had the tools or the nerve. The oldest are English: wound with a key through a hole in the case, their spring pulling a chain no thicker than a hair onto a cone.

A mainspring pulls hard when it is full and weakly when it is nearly spent. The fusee's cone answers it: fully wound, the chain pulls at the narrow top; run down, at the wide foot. Strong pull on a short reach, weak pull on a long one — the same turn on the train from the first hour to the last. In the game you can see it on the timegrapher: the fusee's swing holds level while a going barrel's falls away.

BARREL FUSEE FULLY WOUND RUN DOWN STRONG PULL SHORT WEAK PULL LONG REACH
Pull × reach is the same at every turn of the chain.

Six envelopes, new in 1.1

From the drawer he kept locked

The bottom drawer goes back before the crown and before the lever, then forward again to a watch you have already mended.

No. 0412 · English fusee

The Key

A silver pair case from Clerkenwell, 1868. The key turns and turns and nothing winds. The watch paper inside answers who M. and J. were.

No. 0587 · English fusee

Watch Paper

A bell-ringer's watch with four repairers' watch papers in its case. One of them closed a worn hole with a punch. Read them before you blame anyone.

No. 0903 · Swiss cylinder

Nine Ligne

A schoolteacher's pendant watch with no pallet fork: the escape wheel pushes the balance's hollow staff itself, two sounds to a tick. Chipped, it stops dead.

No. 3120 · Flyback chronograph

Flyback

A bush pilot's, timing one leg of a supply run after another. Press reset while it runs and it should fly back and go on. It goes to zero and dies.

No. 3309 · Railroad, up and down

Up and Down

The engine driver's, from the Conductor's line, with the wind left shown on its dial. The little hand says it is wound. It isn't.

No. 4471 · Again

It Stopped Again

The 3:52 comes back, knocked off a desk. Nothing you did has failed. Inside the case, under the old repair marks, the newest one is yours.

Watch Paper's outer case open, and the four watch papers between the cases read out: four repairers, 1874 to 1951
FOUR WATCH PAPERS
A railroad pocket watch dial with every minute numbered and a small arc at twelve marked DOWN to UP, its hand at UP
UP AND DOWN
The 3:52's movement open on the bench again, the note reading that under the old repair marks the newest is yours
THE NEWEST MARK IS YOURS

Nothing is faked

Every part is where a watchmaker would find it

The movements are not pictures of movements. Each caliber is laid out from its own tooth counts and pitch circles, and everything you can do to it follows from that geometry.

I

The train decides the beat

Barrel to centre to third to fourth to escape, each pair meshing at the sum of its pitch radii. Count the escape wheel's teeth, multiply by its turns an hour, double it for the two beats a tooth: that is where 18,000 an hour comes from, and the tick you hear is that number.

II

Parts cover each other by their real shapes

Nothing comes off in a scripted order. A part lifts when its own footprint and height leave it clear, so the balance comes off before the pallet cock and the ratchet before the barrel bridge — and when a part will not move, the game tells you which piece is holding it.

III

The fault is found by its symptom

A broken mainspring lets the crown turn and turn with nothing catching. A rusted click spring lets it spin back. A loose cannon pinion leaves the hands standing while the train runs. Old oil at the balance stops the watch face down and not face up.

IV

Oil goes on before the part that covers it

Each jewel takes the oil it takes — thin for the fast pivots, heavy for the slow ones, pallet stone oil on the exit stone, grease on the keyless works — and a drop you forget is a drop you will be taking a bridge off to reach.

V

The timegrapher is the escapement

Every dot on the trace is a beat the simulation actually made. A slope is a rate, a gap between the lines is a beat error, and a watch out of beat limps audibly before you ever put it on the machine.

VI

The shelf keeps running

A finished watch goes on its stand and keeps its own time from its own mainspring, running down after about a day and a half as it would. Pick one up, wind it, set it, open its back and look at the movement you rebuilt.

Eight calibers, eighteen watches

Each built to a real design

Not eight skins on one movement. A pin-lever has no jewels and no centre wheel because that is what makes it cheap, and a full plate hides its train under one plate because that is what makes it a full plate.

A Swiss lever pocket movement

Fifteen jewels, small seconds at six, 1920s. Also in a hunter case with its train turned a quarter round, and at chronometer grade with a Breguet overcoil and a swan-neck regulator.

An American railroad full plate

Twenty-one jewels, lever-set so a knocked crown cannot move the hands, its nickel plates damaskeened, the balance above the plate where you can watch it. New in 1.1, at twenty-three jewels with an up-and-down indicator.

A Roskopf pin-lever

No jewels at all, pins in the pallets instead of stones, and no centre wheel: the barrel is at the centre and drives the motion works off its own rim. Costs more to fix than to buy. Do it anyway.

A small wrist caliber

The 1940s workhorse, and with it a Soviet copy of the same design and a nurse's fob watch with indirect centre seconds, a pulsometer scale and its dial printed upside down.

A hi-beat automatic

36,000 an hour, a rotor on reversing wheels, day and date in English and Spanish, hacking seconds. Also as a 150-metre diver with a screw-down crown and a rotating bezel.

A column-wheel chronograph

Seven columns turning a step at every push, a coupling clutch swinging into mesh, a brake, and a hammer that drops on two heart cams to fly the hands back to zero. New in 1.1, as a flyback.

An English fusee New

A full plate of the 1860s, gilt, seven jewels, 14,400 an hour. No crown and no keyless works: a key winds it through the case and sets the hands on a square through the dial, and a chain and fusee keep its swing level.

A Swiss cylinder New

Nine lignes, ten jewels, 1908. The escapement the lever replaced: wedge-headed teeth on stalks push a half-cut steel tube that is the balance staff, and rest against it between pushes, so it swings short and lives on its oil.

The first drawer

Somebody left each of these

Every envelope carries what the owner said and what Tomás wrote about it, in his hand. What is really wrong is not always what he wrote.

No. 4471 — The 3:52

Her grandfather's. It stopped the night he died, at 3:52. The crown turns and turns; nothing catches. She asks that you not move the hands.

No. 3308 — The Conductor

A railroad watch off the Quito–Guayaquil line. Gains minutes an hour. Kept on top of the radio, for the football.

No. T.A. — Tomás's Watch

His own apprenticeship watch, Neuchâtel 1961, left in pieces in a tray. The staff is gone. For whoever finishes this.

One purchase, and nothing to collect

Everything is in it: iPhone and iPad, all eighteen watches, every free update. No advertising, no in-app purchases, no accounts, no analytics, and no networking code in the app at all. Your shelf follows you between your own devices through iCloud, which is yours and not ours.

Read the full Privacy Policy

Tick Again

Eighteen watches, eight calibers, two drawers. US$4.99 once — every watch, every update, nothing else to buy.

Download Tick Again on the App Store iPhone & iPad · iOS 17

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Escapement

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iPhone & iPad · iOS 17 · Free on the App Store