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Builds, teardowns and the slow business of learning how a movement actually works. Filmed up close. The mistakes stay in.
The build board
One finished, more on the way. Concepts stay on the board until the parts arrive and they make it onto the bench.
Sunburst orange dial signed अRka, faceted applied indices, a numbered minute track and date at six, in a bead‑blasted case on a textured orange strap.
Wave-textured dial, the balance on show at nine, a 24-hour sub-dial.
The finished build, imagined on the explorer's desk it was designed for.
Not a render
An NH‑series automatic, halfway through a teardown. The decorated rotor, the bridges, train wheels, hands and screws each have their own compartment in the tray; the movement waits in its holder with the stem still in.
That is what the channel is about. Every part gets taken out, named, and put back — and by the end you know what it does and why it's there.
Horology, in small pieces
From your first mod to a grand complication, it's the same five systems in a row. Learn these and every teardown starts to make sense.
A coiled spring in the barrel. The crown, or the rotor, winds it; everything else runs on it slowly letting go.
Centre, third, fourth and escape wheels step the energy down. The fourth usually turns once a minute — so the seconds hand sits on it.
Escape wheel and pallet fork release the train one tooth at a time and nudge the balance each time. That release is the tick.
Wheel and hairspring swing at a fixed rate; each swing lets the escapement advance once. Regulating a watch means adjusting this.
Cannon pinion, minute wheel and hour wheel gear the minute hand down to the hour hand at 12 : 1.
Vibrations per hour — how often the balance swings. The seconds hand moves once per swing, so you can see the beat rate. Watch the dial and switch between them.
Follow along
Full builds on YouTube. Bench shots, wrist shots and sixty‑second fixes on Instagram and TikTok.
अर्क · arka · Sanskrit
Arka is Sanskrit for the sun — for most of history, the only clock anyone owned. In the old word‑numerals, where numbers were written as things, the sun also stands for twelve: one Āditya for each month.
Twelve is where every dial begins, which is why the wordmark sits at twelve on the dial above. The अ standing in for the A lets the name read in both scripts at once.