Good advice for people that have money to commission custom pieces from lauded swiss companies.
Meanwhile I'm wearing the watch I got for "free" (ended up still costing for maint/repairs), and trying to get my mortage paid.
And of course a book on watchmaking.
We've been making watches for about half a millennium now, and if a craftsman in the 1500s could do it, surely a curious man with semi-modern secondhand tools from the 70s can too.
I'm going to do exactly this eventually and it's going to "cost" me maybe as much as a flagship phone all up, time and effort not included.
The majority of the cost will be time and effort. I think George Daniels estimates it to be 3000 hours for a skilled amateur to make the tourbillion pocket watch described in his book. This number will be decreased if you forego the tourbillion. But even so, other equipment costs: jewelling press, staking set, poising tools, depthing tool, all kinds of abrasives, oils and greases. The largest tool cost will be lathe attachments like collets, cross slide, milling attachment, wheel and pinion cutters. You may be able to cut wheels and pinions on the pantograph but probably not to the precision needed for a wristwatch, maybe for a large pocket watch or clock. Maybe you could put the lathe on the milling table to index the stock and use the mill to cut?
That's not counting all the theory needed to design and build a movement from scratch.
My advice would be to steal the going train, escapement and balance from an existing movement and fabricate the remaining parts
The alternative option is to order some parts from AliExpress and make your own custom watch. Elliot Coll has some videos on how to do that on YT.
It’s funny how the word “luxury” and “expensive” means different things for different people.
If you hire a repair shop to do it, expect your luxury watch to also cost luxury repair prices. The price has nowhere to go but up as I doubt there are a lot of people lining up for watchmaker's school.
When I got a passed-down luxury watch repaired at an authorized repair center, it costs more than the purchase price of all my other watches combined.
[1]:https://www.rolex.com/watches/new-watches/sky-dweller [2]:https://24carat.co.uk/frame.php?url=hardnessofgoldalloys.htm... [3]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_hardness_test
I want a watch that I can wear everywhere and anytime, bump against walls and stuff, and if it breaks, I don't feel bad.
And while I never planned to have any of that changed because I thought it added to the cool factor, the appraisal guaranteed that decision. I was recommended a local watchmaker who could service the movement only and ensure the seals were all intact. Or I could send it back to Rolex for servicing where they’d polish the case, relume the numbers, and swap the acrylic dome for sapphire - and by doing so chop ~50% off the value of the watch.
It turns out collectors love patinas and scratches and for a 60 year old watch to look its age.
This isn't like your expensive Apple item that becomes disposable/worthless after 4 years :).
Some folks put money into ferraris or porsches and then race them, or watch them appreciate (if smart & lucky). Or boats. Some folks spend money otherwise. Half of this forum spent similar amount on just non-mandatory technical gadgets in past few years.
This watch making is actually an investment that can bring nice returns in the future, barring damage/theft/loss happens. Also an interesting skill learned, plus skill explained to others. I can't do anything but appreciate such folks.
The guy is happy about his watch and goes into great detail explaining how it works and how it's made and why.
Why comment in such a negative way? I can't afford a 20k watch either, but so what? Why such jealousy?
You have contributed nothing, yet made the internet ever so slightly worse.
It doesn't help that the whole post is titled "Designing my own watch" while the actual design work was seemingly mostly done by ochs; mixing up doing something and commissioning something done is another of those things that has echoes of ages past, and not in a good way.
For the authors defence I do say that 5 years ago was slightly different time and back then these sort of things could pass more easily.
The post for most parts was neat, not disagreeing there. But wrapping it up as some sort of empowering life lesson feels so utterly out of touch that I felt like reminding that it is huge privilege to be able to do this sort of thing.
Never was it my intention to provide one with "overarching life lessons". Your reaction points out that I still have a lot to learn in refining the tone of my English use. As non-native English language user, I use my blog to "hone my skills". You helped me learn, for which I am grateful.
For what it is worth, I use the knowledge and expertise that enable my "privileges" in my work as volunteer. You can find some posts on this here: https://willem.com/blog/2016-11-21_being-a-volunteer-in-amst... TLDR: I am very grateful.
Someone not wearing custom luxury watch is most likely not due being afraid to make decisions for themselves. Attributing the ability to do this sort of thing to "connected world" and "people willing to help" is just distasteful to me.
I do not entirely follow your reasoning here as I never have intended to "judge" or "rank" other people's choices and decisions. The post (on _my_ blog) is about _my_ watch, not much more than that.
It doesn't help that the whole post is titled "Designing my own watch" while the actual design work was seemingly mostly done by ochs; mixing up doing something and commissioning something done is another of those things that has echoes of ages past, and not in a good way.
Naturally I agree with you that a large part of the mechanical design is done by ochs und junior; however I do think that if you take the concept a little broader it might make a little more sense: given all the options out there, I set out to have a watch created that would fit my specific wishes. When I look at the result, I very deliberately know why I made certain choices in style, size, colour, material, function, capability and weight. In that sense I did take part in the design process.
For the authors defence I do say that 5 years ago was slightly different time and back then these sort of things could pass more easily.
Thank you sincerely, reactions like those of yourself enable me to learn. That is very much one of the reasons why I like the blog. Have a nice day!
This doesn't work. Use the vote button.
It's just interesting to me that lower in the thread with less votes there are actually insightful comments that have real content and the most upvoted comment is the one that says "this sucks because I can't afford it".
This seems to me to be an issue in a number of other places as well - the website previously known as twitter is probably a good example where someone posts something and a lot of the replies are just random hate and nitpicking about a single, irrelevant word in the comment.
I guess I just don't get why people bother to do that. And it is kind of interesting to think about - is there some way to encourage more thoughtful responses?