> Don't be afraid to make decisions for yourself. Wear the watch you want to wear. If it doesn't exists, don't panic. Thanks to the wonders of our connected world, you can find people that will help you!
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.
No need to pay someone, you can make one. What do you need? A secondhand manual pantograph mill someone is getting rid of for a few hundred dollars and a little jewellers lathe?
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.
You're right if you're aiming to make a 16th century pocket watch. Anything approaching a modern wristwatch calibre is much more time and money intensive.
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
A good starting point is to try to build a pin-pallet escapement design, like Timex used in the 60s and 70s. This is largely doable at home with a 3D printer and basic tools, e.g.: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/the-watch-project.htm... Getting to modern accuracy is hard though.
They're not that expensive (in the world of luxury watches, anyway), and they are really cool, but the mere thought of paying thousands of dollars for a fragile thing that I wear on my wrist that I will probably bang against a door handle or something within a week is making me sweat.
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.
"Luxury" primarily means conspicuous consumption. You don't pay $20k because the watch is worth $20k - you pay $20k because being able to show other elite socialites that you paid $20k is worth $20k. Needless to say, the watchmakers make out like bandits.
I think it's "you pay 20k because you don't care how much you pay as long you get a good product, unless the cost is at least in hundred thousands." Elite showing off behaviour seems to be either about cool unusual things that others "couldnt do" or elite women dominating poor women.
A mechanical watch with its springs and gears may be more repairable than a digital watch with a circuit board, but I wouldn't consider the former to be "easily" repairable. Mechanical watch repair requires a lot of specialized tools and skills that a normal person, even one who is wealthy, is not going to have.
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.
Materials used in more luxury watches tend to be more fragile than something you might use in a cheaper watch. ie a gold case is going to be more susceptible to scratches than a steel case, etc.
The gold used in luxury watches is usually a lower-gold alloy than jewelry, 14 or 18 carat (example [1]) and thus have a hardness of anywhere from 85-165, or up to 230 if annealed [2], which is comparable, or harder than common stainless steels at 140-180[3].
What's wrong with scratches? Even gold watches are not using soft gold... they are very durable. Stainless steel watches are pretty much bombproof. Also everything is typically replaceable/repairable (e.g. surface can be polished). After a service, it comes back looking like new.
I just don't want to baby it. My uncle has a Rolex, he wears it only on special occasions and sends it in for service every few years. Which is fine, he loves his watch, it's a point of pride for him to treat it with care, but that's not what I want from a watch. That's all. No disrespect to expensive watches, it's just not for me :-)
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.
I'd say that's how you're supposed to wear a watch, even a luxury watch. Babying it defeats the point completely. I wear my Rolex or Omega every day :). Scratches add character and history! I'll be giving my watches to my kids when I die, scratches and all.
Agreed entirely. My grandfather’s 5513 desk diver was passed down to me. It had scuffs and scratches and the lume had long since stopped glowing and turned to a mustard color.
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.
It doesn't devalue much at all. In fact most Rolex bought 20 years ago are now worth 200-300% their purchase price, scratches and all. After a service, they look practically new as almost everything can be replaced/brought back to like-new quality (and gets replaced in a service).
This isn't like your expensive Apple item that becomes disposable/worthless after 4 years :).
FWIW, I’ve worn my O&J every day for seven years, banged it against all sorts of things, and never had any issue (and mine is 42mm and silver, so both less durable than OP’s titanium and much larger and more likely to get banged on stuff). It’s really not a big concern.
Well, you have a mortgage, meaning you at one point had waaay more disposable income than even more luxurious variant of those discussed would cost.
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 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. 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.
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.
Thanks Zokier for your comments, original author here:
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.
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!
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?
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.