Make an accurate retro digital watch!

A while ago CASIO started to produce one of their early digital watches. I bought one of them and like it very much. My 3 year old daughter as well... To make her happy I decided to embroider a replica of the watch.

After a discussion with a friend we came to the conclusion that an embroidered fixed-time-watch will be more accurate than the real watch. The real watch never shows the exactly correct time - it normally shows a time close to the real time. The embroidered version on the other hand show the exactly correct time one a day. Exactly 13:42 every day it is synchronized with a atom watch without even have to use a radio signal.

Since this watch turned out so well (and is so accurate) I wanted to share it with you!

The bad thing about this instructable is that you will need a rather rare tool - a embroidery sewing machine. Maybe your school or grandma have one?

Step 1 Fabric and thread

I took two pieces of gray linen fabric and a stabilizer (a thin stable material used with embroidery sewing machines). I made a "hamburger" with the stabilizer in stead of meat and linen in stead of bread. How large piece of fabric you need depends on the embroider machine.

The threads you use should be special machine embroidery threads, typically made out of rayon. Sulky and Robison Anton are two common brands. You will need the following colors:

- Black
- White
- Dark gray
- Blue

I didn't have the exact colours at home when I made it so I used a gold/brown in stead of the dark gray and a yellow in stead of the blue thread. Use the thread you like (and perhaps already have).

Comments

[=SMART=]

That looks really good !

[Decepticon]

Nice instructable but i think the title is just a little misleading. I opened it thinking it was a real watch (it might be just me). I would maybe put "Retro Digital Watch Embroidered Replica".

[tobias.tanke]

I agree with you that its a bit misleading but I think that is a part of the fun with this "project" - to treat it as a "real" watch. I had it a party last night and tried to convince people that it is a very good and accurate watch - without big success though, people are so traditional. They only refer to the standard deviation - I think that is to have low ambitions - to have a watch that at least sometimes show exactly the correct time is much more impressive that having a watch that most of time show something close to the exact time.

[cheating-master]

me too. :)

[mspark400]

nice, if you embroider a time in a 12 hour format you will have a watch that is right twice a day! Thats double the efficiency!! Nice ible cheers, mspark400

[Chicken2209]

very cool looking I couldnt do something like this

[perlpower]

I'm planning on modifying a digital watch to display NOW on the screen, then it is always 100% accurate

[Phil B]

Clever. I am sure a 3-year old would delight in this.