Ellis Walentine
Watch winders are definitely not your everyday woodworking project, but your question is certainly legitimate and you deserve respectful answers.

Regarding the mechanism, we have a fellow who posts on our Turning forum who is an intrepid tinkerer, who has rigged up little servo-driven mechanisms and devices involving this kind of motion. I've sent him a note asking him to consider your question and post a response if he can. I don't know if you can get the necessary design parameters from one of the existing mechanisms on the market, for example, is there a particular rotation diameter or frequency? How much work must be done to rotate the maximum size watch load? There could be a fair amount of engineering to do.... or it could be really easy.

There has got to be a way to make these cases efficiently enough to be feasible, even if you don't go into production someday. Further, production efficiencies can render even time-consuming projects affordable.

My son in law is a watch collector and would greatly appreciate one of these cases. I didn't even know they existed. Thanks for introducing them to us.

Ellis Walentine, Host