We're expanding the lineup.

Three new movements join the parts library — and the change isn't aesthetic, it's structural. The demand we've heard since opening has been louder than expected in two specific directions: smaller, dressier watches that fit smaller wrists, and chronographs. We're listening.

What's new

From this week, three additional calibres sit on the bench alongside our existing five Seiko NH-series automatics:

• Seiko VJ24 — quartz, three-hand, the smallest movement in our library. For genuinely small cases (32–36mm), women's-proportioned builds, and vintage dress reproductions.
• Seiko VK63 — mecha-quartz chronograph. Battery-powered timekeeping with mechanical chronograph pushers. The movement that powers most affordable microbrand chronos.
• Miyota 8285 — Citizen's Japanese automatic. The non-Seiko alternative — slightly slimmer dimensions, finer rotor finish, different parts ecosystem.

All three sit in our Foundation tier — same $595 price as every other movement in the library. We don't believe in charging more for smaller or more delicate watches, and we'll explain why below.

The demand we heard

Six months into running classes, two patterns kept appearing in DMs, booking inquiries, and conversations at the bench.

The first was women asking whether we could build them a watch that actually fit their wrist. The Seiko NH-series is a 40mm-and-up movement family by case sizing — the cases designed for NH35-class movements rarely go below 38mm, and even those proportions sit visibly large on smaller wrists. The modding world has historically built almost exclusively for men's-sized watches. Our parts library inherited that bias from the supply chain it draws from.

The Seiko VJ24 is our answer. It's a quartz three-hand calibre — battery-powered, accurate, in some ways less of a watchmaking ritual than an automatic — but it's significantly smaller (Ø21mm × 3.45mm). With it we can offer cases as small as 32mm, properly proportioned dial diameters, and bracelets sized for a smaller wrist. The watches you build at the bench can now actually fit you, regardless of which body the wrist belongs to.

The honest trade-off: the VJ24 is harder to assemble. The hands are noticeably smaller than the NH-series, the pinions are finer, and the tolerance for misalignment is much tighter. We'll talk you through it carefully — but you should know going in that this is the build where patience matters most.

The chronograph hype

The second pattern was chronographs. We didn't expect this one, but it makes sense in retrospect.

The watch world's interest in chronographs has surged in the last few years for reasons everyone in the hobby community will recognise. The MoonSwatch — Swatch's $390 bioceramic Omega Speedmaster homage — opened the floodgates in 2022, putting a chronograph aesthetic in front of millions of new collectors. Then in 2023, the AP × Swatch Bioceramic Royal Oak (a real Audemars Piguet collaboration with Swatch) became one of the most coveted releases of the decade — selling out within hours and reselling at multiples.

What followed was a wave of new collectors who arrived at the watch world via these accessible chronograph crossovers and then started asking — quite reasonably — where they could build something in the same spirit. The MoonSwatch and the AP × Swatch were both quartz-driven chronographs. The aesthetic they popularised — three-sub-dial chronograph dials, bioceramic case textures, racing-style pushers — was suddenly accessible without spending $40,000.

The Seiko VK63 is the movement that powers most of the affordable microbrand chronographs riding that wave. It's a "mecha-quartz" — the timekeeping is battery-driven quartz, but the chronograph mechanism itself is mechanical, which means the pushers click with that satisfying snap you'd expect from a Swiss chrono. The chrono sweep hand jumps back to twelve cleanly when reset. It feels like a proper chronograph for a fraction of the cost.

Adding the VK63 means a student walking into the bench now can build a Speedmaster homage, a Daytona-style racing chrono, a vintage Heuer reissue, or anything in the AP × Swatch design language — all in an afternoon, at the same $595 we charge for every other build.

"The community asked for chronographs and smaller watches. We listened. The lineup goes from five movements to eight."

Miyota 8285 — variety for its own sake

The third addition isn't market-driven the way the other two are. It's about variety.

Until now, every mechanical movement in our library has been Seiko. The Miyota 8285 is the major Japanese alternative — made by Citizen's Miyota division, in volume, for decades. It powers a large share of the world's mid-tier microbrand watches. Tighter tolerances than the NH-series. Slightly slimmer case proportions. A more refined finish on the visible rotor.

Why add it? Because giving the student a real choice between two Japanese movement families makes the conversation at the bench more interesting. The NH-series is what most modders build with first; the Miyota 8285 is what some of them migrate to when they want something subtly different. We'd rather you have both options in front of you.

Why none of these change the price

This is the deliberate part. Every movement in our library — from the NH35 to the VJ24 to the VK63 chronograph — costs the same to build: $595 in the Foundation tier.

We could have priced the chronograph higher (the VK63 is a more complex movement with more parts) or the VJ24 lower (it's smaller, simpler, fewer components). We chose not to. The reason traces back to who we are: we're Australia's first female-led watch assembly school, and the watches women typically build use smaller, more delicate movements like the VJ24 — which take more time and care, not less. Charging more for those movements would have meant women paying more for the same craft on a per-watch basis. We refuse to build that into the pricing.

So the rule is simple. Every build is $595 at Foundation tier, regardless of movement. The Premium tier ($795) exists for one reason only: builds using our exclusive Modding-Bench-designed cases, manufactured in small runs, available nowhere else. You pay extra only for what is genuinely more expensive to produce — never for which movement you've chosen.

What this changes about what you can build

Eight movements means meaningfully more watches are possible. The new categories specifically:

• Sub-36mm dress watches — VJ24 in a smaller case, proportioned for genuinely small wrists.
• Speedmaster-style chronographs — VK63 with classic three-sub-dial layout and tachymeter bezel.
• Racing chronographs — VK63 in vintage motorsport dial styles.
• Bioceramic-inspired builds — VK63 in cases that lean into the MoonSwatch / AP × Swatch design language.
• Subtly different automatics — Miyota 8285 in slightly slimmer dimensions than the NH series.
• Vintage dress reproductions — VJ24 in pre-1960s case styles where modern NH movements wouldn't fit.

If you've previously booked a class and didn't see a movement that matched the watch in your head, this might be the moment to come back. The library is now substantially wider.

The full guide

We've written a complete walkthrough of every movement in the library — what each one is, who it's for, and how to pick between them — in Every movement at the bench. If you're deciding what to build, that's the article to start with.

What's next

We'll keep listening. The pattern this expansion follows is simple: if there's a clear, repeated demand from the community for a category of watch we can't currently build, we add the calibre that lets us build it. Three new movements in our first six months feels like the right pace. Don't expect the library to stop growing.

If there's a specific watch you've always wanted to build and we don't yet have the calibre for it, let us know via DM on Instagram or email. We won't add every movement asked about — but we listen to every request.