Watchmaking for Dummies, Chapter 2 2026

In an alternate version of Ice Age that appears on the Blu-ray edition
(Does anyone use it yet?) There is a scene where Manny meets Scrat and they talk.
gives the following dialogue:
(Manny) – Hey… And what are you, really? A squirrel?
(Scrat) – How? At this point I find it very encouraging that you ask me this question...

If you haven't gotten the hang of the conversation, it may be for one of the following reasons
(both potentially true):
a) because it doesn't have any
b) because you are a newcomer to the underworld of watchmaking and to this forum.

In case of b), we are here to help you.
And when I arrived at RE, some time ago, one of the things that surprised me the most was
It was the number of words he didn't know. To speed up the immersion of those who need it,
We are going to try to clarify some of them.

DIVER
No, it is not a clock whose alarm warns with audio from Chiquito de la Calzada.
Diver comes from the English verb to dive (to immerse, to jump into the water; and, by extension, to dive). So
that a diver watch is nothing more than an anglicism for a submersible watch,
supposedly prepared for diving. That is, with good sealing and with a
Outer bezel to measure decompression times. Many years ago, in Spanish they
called “divers”.
It is important to distinguish between diver watches and watches that look like a diver, which are not always what
same. In low ranges, both vintage and contemporary, there are countless models that
They imitate the attractive diver aesthetic but with which you better not even prepare a platter of clams at the
steam. A clue to recognizing them, while you become familiar with the concept, is that the box does not
It is made of steel or that says 5 atm on the dial or back cover. or similar.

There is also the term skin diver (that is, “submersible watch, but not much”), coined some time ago.
time but recently become fashionable. It generally refers to diving watches.
marked as submersible to a maximum of 200 meters. Although this measurement is approximate and
variable: last year Longines presented its Skin Diver, a perfect recreation of what was its
first diving watch in 1959, and is water resistant up to 300 meters.
Of course, above all, for the glory of your mother, pronounce “daiver”.

ARMIS(or its variations armyx, armi or armix)
This word is like the famous joke, I think it was Eugenio's, who said that he understood that
The French called bread pain and wine vin, but cheese, which looked so
clearly it's cheese... how can you call it fromage?
An armis is a metal bracelet for a wristwatch. And that's it. Forget your philologist hobbies
etymological, because the various theories about the birth of the word - ranging from a
origin in the military use of the first extendable metal bracelets for watches up to a
Anglicism from arm (arm) - allow us to reach a single and firm conclusion: that no one
He has no idea where it comes from.
Of course, I have allowed myself a small experiment in my non-watchmaking environment and no one,
Absolutely no one knows that word. So here, in the world of watchmaking, although
see so clearly that it is a metal bracelet, it is not; It's an armis.

ARILLÓN / DEPLOYANTE
As in all aspects of life, it seems that it always makes a little more expert to use
supposedly technical words.
A squirrel is not a squirrel overly fond of junk food.ArdillonIt is originally a French word that refers to that part of a needle-like buckle that is inserted into the holes of the strap. In a kind of horological synecdoche, it has ended up giving a name to everything, that is, to the buckle of a lifetime. Therefore, a pin buckle or a pin buckle is a classic buckle commonly seen on leather straps, in which the upper part of the buckle is anchored to the lower part by inserting an elongated rigid part into one or another hole prepared for this purpose and often
dilated by use.

¿Qué?
No, I'm talking about straps.
A deployante, on the other hand, is a deployant clasp. Like the usual bracelets
metallic (effectively: armies) but adapted to straps made of leather, fabric or non-metallic materials.
rigid. Unlike pin buckles, both parts of the strap are not separated
at any time, providing greater security to the watch when putting it on or
take it off. By the way, it is no longer an expression of French origin; is that deployant in
French means directly deployable in Spanish. But you know, we were Frenchized
a few centuries ago and something must remain with us.

The reason why for the buckles we are francophones but for the divers we are anglophones is something that
it escapes me. It's probably becauseplongée mountIt is much more complicated to pronounce than "daiver."

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