● The Workshop Behind the Work
Horolume — Kuala Lumpur's Watchmaking Workshop
Fifteen years at the Jalan Ampang bench. Movement service, case restoration, and archive-grade overhaul for mechanical timepieces that matter to their owners.
Our Story
Horolume opened in 2009 when its founder, Nazri Iskandar, returned from three years of training in Geneva and found that Kuala Lumpur had no dedicated watchmaking workshop he could refer customers to — only authorised service centres with fixed procedures and jewellers who sent watches overseas. He set up a bench in Wisma Cendera with a timegrapher, a small ultrasonic bath, and a set of movement holders he had made himself.
The early years were slow and deliberate. Word travelled between collectors in Bangsar and Damansara, then further as the internet made it easier to find a specific kind of workshop. Horolume did not advertise; the first clients came because they had nowhere else to take a 1960s automatic that needed proper lubrication and a crystal, not a brand service stamp.
Today the team numbers four — a principal watchmaker, two assistants who handle case and bracelet work, and an intake coordinator. The same Jalan Ampang bench. The same approach to documenting every piece before a tool touches it.
What Horolume does is not complicated to describe: we take mechanical watches apart, clean and lubricate them properly, set the rate as closely as the calibre allows, and put them together again. Case and bracelet work restores the surface geometry without erasing what the watch has been through. Complicated movements — chronographs, calendar work, repeaters — are given to a single watchmaker who stays with the piece to completion.
The written condition register exists because we think the owner of a watch should know exactly what was done to it. It is also a discipline — agreeing on scope before picking up a screwdriver avoids disagreements later.
Clients range from daily-wear owners who notice the watch has slowed down, to collectors managing portfolios of vintage pieces, to families bringing in inherited watches they want to understand before deciding what to do with. We try to give each case the same attention.
The Bench Team
The people at the workshop. Each piece that comes through intake is known by name at the bench.
Nazri Iskandar
Principal Watchmaker
Trained in Geneva, returned to Kuala Lumpur in 2009 to open Horolume. Handles all complicated calibres and leads intake assessments.
Lim Kai Shen
Case & Bracelet Specialist
Sixteen years in precision metalwork before joining Horolume. Responsible for case and bracelet refinishing and all crystal replacement work.
Siti Aisyah
Intake Coordinator
Manages intake documentation, client communication, and the condition register process. The first contact for every piece that enters the workshop.
Workshop Standards
The practices we apply to every piece, regardless of value or scope.
Written Condition Register
Signed before any work begins. Lists what was found, what the agreed scope covers, and what falls outside it.
Timegrapher Verification
Rate and amplitude measured at intake and again at completion. Both printouts accompany the piece when it is returned.
Named Lubricants Record
Each service record identifies the lubricant used at every friction point — brand, grade, and application location.
Pressure Verification
Cases are pressure-tested to original rating after gasket replacement. Results are logged and shared with the owner.
Photographic Archive
Restoration and archive-grade overhaul jobs are photographed at each stage. The owner receives a full set of images.
Workmanship Period
Movement service includes twelve months of workmanship coverage on labour. Issues traceable to bench work return for assessment without charge.
What Guides the Work
Horolume exists because mechanical watches need specific care that general jewellery counters and brand service centres rarely provide in the same way. A movements specialist works differently from an authorised repairer: there is no single correct procedure imposed from outside, which means the scope is agreed with the owner first and carried out to the standard the calibre requires.
Kuala Lumpur's collector community spans a wide range of interests — English lever movements from the 1950s, Japanese automatic calibres from the 1970s, Swiss complications from across the decades. Each type has its own lubrication schedule, its own tolerances, its own expected amplitude on a timegrapher. Getting these right is a matter of knowing the calibres well enough to recognise when something is as it should be and when it is not.
Case refinishing is a separate craft. The objective is not to make a watch look new — that destroys the character of anything with age — but to return it to an earlier version of itself, with the sharp lines and correct surface contrasts that the original design specified. Owners who want to keep a worn look have that option noted on the condition register before anything begins.
The archive-grade overhaul programme grew from enquiries about complicated pieces where no single service centre would take responsibility for the full movement. Horolume takes those on one at a time, with the owner receiving fortnightly updates and the ability to recall the piece if the direction changes.
Bring Your Watch to the Bench
The intake process is straightforward. Describe the piece and what you are noticing — the rest follows from there.
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