Great article Jack. This post is a public service that should be mandatory reading for watch media and enthusiasts.
Cool that a local watchmaker here in Vancouver would spill the beans on the current state of the art for machining inner angles. I wonder if the information would be welcome at 1916 where inner angles sometimes are mentioned as evidence of hand finishing?
I think unless a company boldly declares states boldly that it's bevels are only done by hand, it's guilloche is only done by rose engine... etc. it's safe to assume nearly nothing is done by hand.
😂 that's hilarious especially when you consider that historically modern watchmaking has really been all about the industry fleeing handmade as quickly as it could.
Since there is now extensive discussion on the subject of using numerically controlled machines in the finishing of watch parts, i will first focus on the reason for these activities. The aim is to decorate various watch parts in ways that show the viewer the special nature and beauty of all possible decorations, polished bevels and top surfaces, grindings like geneve stripes or solarisations, engravings and multi-colored electroplated coatings.
These are achieved in different qualities and in different ways, and each of these processes requires the appropriate tools, machines, and skills.
In the traditional way, for example bevels are usually applied to raw parts by hand and then polished. This “technology” is promoted by many manufacturers or independent watchmakers as the ultimate in finishing, as it requires considerable skill and a great investment of time.
Nevertheless, with the right machines and the necessary knowledge, it is possible to achieve the same or even better results. In contrast to traditional manual work, this requires significantly higher investment in machines, tools and knowledge, as well as in training to operate these machines with precision down to hundredths of a millimeter.
So which way is better? That depends entirely on the eye of the viewer — usually the customer — who is willing to pay an additional charge for these extras.
However, many things remain unmentioned for various reasons, ultimately mostly out of dishonesty. The raw parts, on which the much-praised manual work is then celebrated — are these also traditionally manufactured parts, or do they also come from numerically controlled machines, later refined by hand? Do these "independents" truly master the art of watchmaking in depth, or do they have the necessary parts and developments manufactured externally? can they really execute something more then hand finishing and assembly? Do they show the steps for manufacturing the parts of their watches, how they do it themselves, or do they just sit there at the end and pose for their pictures?
You should be very sceptical. The question is not whether we only use traditional techniques to offer our customers something special — I can say for my company that we can do both, because we have executed them to the point of exhaustion. We offer most services from development and design to surface treatment and the finished product from a single source. We can do all these things because we see it as a dedication, a way of life.
Please understand that this is not about individual finishing techniques and demonizing one or the other, it is about manufacturers being honest with their customers, clearly in relation to the entire manufacturing process of the product. Like everything else in the world, the watch industry is constantly changing. New technologies are emerging, replacing old ones, yet some traditional methods remain. Are the people who value traditional values and skills also willing to ride a horse to work instead of driving a car?
Fascinating comment and one that goes right to the heart of the question. The specific question in the article was of course whether or not it's possible to produce sharp inner corners using automatic milling machines and the answer is obviously yes, but this raises, and you've raised, the much bigger question of how things are valued. (Your instagram is very interesting as well and worth a follow for anyone interested in these questions). We all decide what it is we value in watches but I think there is a lot to be said for greater transparency on the part of makers, but also a better understanding of the tools and processes which make modern watchmaking possible on the part of enthusiasts.
Thank you for your reply. I have been working consistently in the field of watchmaking and micro milling, CAD and CAM programming for almost 20 years now, so I am naturally very familiar with the subject matter. The value we place on things depends heavily on knowledge and ignorance, on the willingness to question things rather than accept them as given. When it comes to the watch business, I have seen it all, and for my part, I can say that the vast majority are simply dishonest, whether it be about their actual value creation and their own abilities, the origin of “their inhouse parts", or whatever else. That's how you end up in the AHCI with fretsaw work. Everyone should decide for themselves and do their own thing. I have worked for most of the “independent” dependents and always remained in the background. Most customers don't care anyway, and as long as that's the case, just let them pay. there are a few real diamonds in watchmaking, and they are not interested in uninformed buyers. If there is interest, and assuming a great response, I will be happy to show how interior angles are realized on a 3-axis milling machine – perhaps also to destroy a little of the romance here and there :)
If there is interest? Oh my God yes! I would absolutely love to see that! Your comments here have been fascinating, as Jack said--it's both rare and wonderful to hear from people who truly, no BS, know what they're talking about.
i already filmed it when i cutted IA on my CNC, i do not post on YT or FB, so i think Instagram will be the place - If I do it, I'll be stepping on a lot of people's toes, that much is certain. It's not magic, but the magic will quickly wear off, and then the business model of quite a few people will become questionable, at the very least, won't it? Perhaps you would consider following me on Instagram: dkprecisionmechanics ;)
You know, I understand the concern about losing the magic as you put it but I think that ship has sailed, to be honest. It's true that thousands of people have read this story already but it's also true that the question was in the air anyway. I haven't gotten any angry DMs from anyone yet, for whatever that's worth 😀
I'm not worried, I'm ready to light a little fire. It's the customers who lose the magic because some people in the industry cloud their vision. I'm currently considering doing a “how to machine interior angles” tutorial, so in-depth that anyone with a little skill can then replicate it. This can be the end of the little angles, but that doesn't bother me in any way. Not out of malice, but to clarify what it is. A small detail that is unjustifiably given too much attention because some people think they have to put it in the spotlight as if it is the holy grail of watchmaking.
Second that, big time. I think a lot of people would be interested; this article alone has thousands of views already, on what you might think is an obscure subject.
There’s no doubt that the most complex guilloché work being done today is by Shapiro. In a conversation with him, he confided to me that when guilloché is done well on a CNC machine, even he—who works with it every day—cannot distinguish between something made by hand and something produced by CNC. So, as I mentioned before, what truly matters in these cases is the honesty of the manufacturer: if it was made by hand, you can be sure that fact will be highlighted in their advertising. If it isn’t highlighted, be suspicious. At the end of the day, what matters to me is not whether it was handmade or not, but the honesty of the one selling it.
If Josh Shapiro can't tell, what hope is there for the rest of us 😂 . This definitely underscores the importance of transparency on the part of makers, who are unfortunately incentivized to be less than granularly specific when it comes to the details of manufacturing.
I'm more shocked that people believe this can only be done by hand. I'd imagine that bevels/chamfers have been cut by machine (mills, bridgeports, etc.) for some decades. Sure, maybe you just rough in the corners and then finishing cutting the corners by hand, but by and large I cannot see any reason why the majority of the cutting wouldn't be done by machine right after cutting out the plate.
Ultimately, it is just another program step that is added to the cnc program. Contour chamfering is used to avoid subsequent deburring (to save reworking/costs) or simply for decorative purposes. This is done on soft metals such as nickel silver, brass, bronze, or gold using diamond cutters. We produce such chamfers en masse, and depending on the customer, they are also polished by hand.
Well in fact, that's mostly what happens these days, as far as I can tell. Yes, it's true that strictly speaking you are always going to have a corner radius if you use a CNC machine with a rotating spindle and end mill, but you can get very close, and it doesn't take much to get the rest of the way.
Well done! Thanks for making the effort. For those of us in a particular corner of the horological rabbit hole, this is informative and enjoyable reading.
Probably not the endgame, but damn--watching YouTube videos of CNC machines doing their amazing thing has surely led me to appreciate their capabilities. So here's another thought experiment: if someone, in the not-too-distant future, programmed a CNC machine, and various other machines, to make and finish and assemble all the components of a time-only watch that is as finely finished as a Simplicity (and I do mean exactly as finely finished, no differences apparent even under a 20x loupe) would that watch be coveted by aficionados?
Really excellent and informative article. What I got out of it is that fetishizing a particular aspect of a watch will lead to watch brands making more of that thing as cheaply as possible, and that vintage watches continue to retain that mystical aura of "made by humans"
All these watches were made by people; only the technologies may differ. Why shouldn't watchmakers take advantage of advances in CNC technology when others are splitting atoms or flying to Mars? It doesn't take much to file and polish a bevel, but it does take a lot to calculate, design, and manufacture a watch. I wouldn't focus on a small part of the finishing process, but rather on the entire manufacturing process. And that's exactly where most of those who promote and emphasize interior angles immediately fall short.
Flashing back to a (possibly misremembered) passage from Rebecca Struthers, but I seem to recall that all this handwrought lily-gilding was, traditionally—that is, in the days of Harrison, Breguet, et al—a way of simultaneously obscuring and decoratively signing one's work in such a way as to confound would-be mechanical copycats and slapdash aesthetic counterfeits alike, with the end result kept tucked well away and out of sight from the end user in any event.
It all seems even more superfluous now than it was then, but I suppose that it pays the bills... or at least justifies their continued inflation, and all the expensive marketing ink spilled in their explication and defense.
consumers stay uninformed because the informed don’t want to point fingers at members of their own social-circle. and this problem is getting worse with time. ten years ago, it was only the “holy trinity” who were cutting corners. now we have a whole roster of “independents” who are clumsily dressing up machined calibers sourced from mediocre suppliers, calling it hand-made and charging twice as much as even patek would. and the experts, who have now matured to throwing the occasional jab at patek, are cheering on these charlatans!
and so the integrated-bracelet bubble has given way to the independent bubble. only this one is even more susceptible to hype and market manipulation.
This is classic Jack--fascinating, informative, and thought provoking. One such thought it provoked in me comes at the issue from a slightly different perspective. I'm no doubt oversimplifying, but in essence the topic here is the relative acceptability, in fine mechanical watchmaking, of things finished by hand versus things finished by machines--thus, if a sharp internal angle CAN be made just as well by a machine as by a person, does that in some fashion devalue the internal angle as a sign of the highest-quality finishing? Or is a magnificently sharp internal angle a thing to be admired regardless of its maker's humanity, or lack thereof?
My "slightly different perspective," though, is this: what about the other direction? What about the use of mechanical watch parts that absolutely cannot be made by humans with hand tools? This is not about using CNC machines to do, faster and more efficiently, what humans can do; that, as far as I can tell, is largely accepted these days even at the highest levels. No, this is about things a human simply cannot do. What about, in other words, things like silicon hairsprings or escapements? Here's a thought experiment: if Philippe Dufour had used silicon hairsprings and escapements in his Simplicity, or if Roger Smith did so in his most recent Number 6 watch, would that make us think less of their watches? Would the presence of a silicon hairspring "negate" a perfectly hand-finished sharp internal angle? Or, to take it a step further, should silicon parts be considered verboten at the highest levels of mechanical haute horology, because they completely eliminate the human touch in the making of some parts of the watch? (Just asking; I don't have an opinion here but I do think it's an interesting issue.)
I think it's a very interesting issue and I think the question really cuts to the heart of the experience of mechanical horology. I was one of the folks who deplored the move to silicon balance springs at Patek but the truth is, making a Nivarox balance spring is not exactly something that a watchmaker can do at the bench with hand tools either. This is part of the reason that I thought the Naissance d'une Montre 3 was so interesting – I always wanted someone to make a watch with a hand-made Guillaume balance and hand made blued carbon steel balance spring but every time I have brought the subject up over the years, to various folks in the industry, they have always said that it would be prohibitively expensive, and here we are 😂
In my head (FWIW) the difference between a Nivarox balance spring and a silicon spring is that I can still imagine a watchmaker getting a spool of Nivarox wire of the right dimensions (i.e. cross-section) and fashioning a balance spring out of it in the workshop. Impractical, yes, absolutely. But still seemingly possible, at least theoretically. But give the poor guy a wafer of silicon and tell him to make a balance spring (or anything else usable in a watch) out of it? Not a chance, not even in theory.
“When a watch brand or independent manufacturer does handcrafted work, they will show you that too.”
That's why, when you visit the Lange & Söhne factory, there's always a big fuss about the engraving department. It's impressive how the big watch companies are increasingly breaking down and automating their processes, employing hordes of semi-skilled workers instead of watchmakers, and still managing to pull the wool over their customers' eyes.
That basically sums it up for me ... I mean if I were a brand making and finishing watches largely by hand, boy oh boy I'd make sure everyone knew. And in fact that's exactly what brands and watchmakers who are doing things largely by hand, actually do. And don't get me started on "begs the question" 😂
Well done piece! I spoke to specialists in grand maisons ans working for grand maisons and they also told me that inner angles are no problem to CNC (with effort as you put it). I would only trust clear claims like „guilloche main“. But most of watch media also stated falsely that Rolex 1908 guilloche were by hand - because they are not familiar with the techniques anymore. Thank you for educating.
Thank you for reading! It was an eye opener to research and write. The psychology of watch enthusiats's views on CNC machining is interesting; I think a lot of folks look at them as tools for simulating hand craftsmanship ... but of course, without CNC and other computer controlled machine tools, modern watchmaking wouldn't exist at all.
Fair point. I think the problem is that many brands are guilty of evoking hand made tales instead of showing what’s done in a good way with machines and what‘s made by hand and for what reason.
As a GS fanboy I appreciate watch finishing, but I’ve never seen higher end Swiss and German examples. What I have seen is what CNC machines can do. I’ve worked with in the medical devices industry where we use CNCs to make tooling used in manufacturing stents with tolerances much stricter than those used in watches (their customers are medical regulators who are more demanding than watch buyers). A well honed 5-axis CNC will make pretty much anything you can program. I’m not surprised if they can fool the most discerning consumer.
Yeah, after spending several days looking into what exactly is possible with CNC machines it seems sort of incredible that any of us would believe that you can't machine something close to a sharp internal corner. As one of the sources quoted in the story says, theoretically you are always going to have a radius even if it's a minute one ... but you can get awfully close.
latest with a 5 axis, you can achieve "no radii", even with a 3 axis, clever construction and tooling setup its possible - just the way to get there is more complex. and: if you combine wire edm / laser cutting / CNC its easy when you know how.
Great article Jack. This post is a public service that should be mandatory reading for watch media and enthusiasts.
Cool that a local watchmaker here in Vancouver would spill the beans on the current state of the art for machining inner angles. I wonder if the information would be welcome at 1916 where inner angles sometimes are mentioned as evidence of hand finishing?
I think unless a company boldly declares states boldly that it's bevels are only done by hand, it's guilloche is only done by rose engine... etc. it's safe to assume nearly nothing is done by hand.
To quote Jeremy Clarkson on handmade cars “You know it’s handmade when the doors fall off “
😂 that's hilarious especially when you consider that historically modern watchmaking has really been all about the industry fleeing handmade as quickly as it could.
On a more serious note the beauty of hand made articles of any kind is that they are imperfect and no two are the same.
In the world of stamp collecting the imperfect were the most valuable.
I heard that stamp collecting is no more.
They have had their Kodak moment.
I wonder if the younger generation (I’m 80)will carry on our hobby?
Handcrafted or CNC?
Since there is now extensive discussion on the subject of using numerically controlled machines in the finishing of watch parts, i will first focus on the reason for these activities. The aim is to decorate various watch parts in ways that show the viewer the special nature and beauty of all possible decorations, polished bevels and top surfaces, grindings like geneve stripes or solarisations, engravings and multi-colored electroplated coatings.
These are achieved in different qualities and in different ways, and each of these processes requires the appropriate tools, machines, and skills.
In the traditional way, for example bevels are usually applied to raw parts by hand and then polished. This “technology” is promoted by many manufacturers or independent watchmakers as the ultimate in finishing, as it requires considerable skill and a great investment of time.
Nevertheless, with the right machines and the necessary knowledge, it is possible to achieve the same or even better results. In contrast to traditional manual work, this requires significantly higher investment in machines, tools and knowledge, as well as in training to operate these machines with precision down to hundredths of a millimeter.
So which way is better? That depends entirely on the eye of the viewer — usually the customer — who is willing to pay an additional charge for these extras.
However, many things remain unmentioned for various reasons, ultimately mostly out of dishonesty. The raw parts, on which the much-praised manual work is then celebrated — are these also traditionally manufactured parts, or do they also come from numerically controlled machines, later refined by hand? Do these "independents" truly master the art of watchmaking in depth, or do they have the necessary parts and developments manufactured externally? can they really execute something more then hand finishing and assembly? Do they show the steps for manufacturing the parts of their watches, how they do it themselves, or do they just sit there at the end and pose for their pictures?
You should be very sceptical. The question is not whether we only use traditional techniques to offer our customers something special — I can say for my company that we can do both, because we have executed them to the point of exhaustion. We offer most services from development and design to surface treatment and the finished product from a single source. We can do all these things because we see it as a dedication, a way of life.
Please understand that this is not about individual finishing techniques and demonizing one or the other, it is about manufacturers being honest with their customers, clearly in relation to the entire manufacturing process of the product. Like everything else in the world, the watch industry is constantly changing. New technologies are emerging, replacing old ones, yet some traditional methods remain. Are the people who value traditional values and skills also willing to ride a horse to work instead of driving a car?
Thanks for your insightful comments here.
Fascinating comment and one that goes right to the heart of the question. The specific question in the article was of course whether or not it's possible to produce sharp inner corners using automatic milling machines and the answer is obviously yes, but this raises, and you've raised, the much bigger question of how things are valued. (Your instagram is very interesting as well and worth a follow for anyone interested in these questions). We all decide what it is we value in watches but I think there is a lot to be said for greater transparency on the part of makers, but also a better understanding of the tools and processes which make modern watchmaking possible on the part of enthusiasts.
Thank you for your reply. I have been working consistently in the field of watchmaking and micro milling, CAD and CAM programming for almost 20 years now, so I am naturally very familiar with the subject matter. The value we place on things depends heavily on knowledge and ignorance, on the willingness to question things rather than accept them as given. When it comes to the watch business, I have seen it all, and for my part, I can say that the vast majority are simply dishonest, whether it be about their actual value creation and their own abilities, the origin of “their inhouse parts", or whatever else. That's how you end up in the AHCI with fretsaw work. Everyone should decide for themselves and do their own thing. I have worked for most of the “independent” dependents and always remained in the background. Most customers don't care anyway, and as long as that's the case, just let them pay. there are a few real diamonds in watchmaking, and they are not interested in uninformed buyers. If there is interest, and assuming a great response, I will be happy to show how interior angles are realized on a 3-axis milling machine – perhaps also to destroy a little of the romance here and there :)
If there is interest? Oh my God yes! I would absolutely love to see that! Your comments here have been fascinating, as Jack said--it's both rare and wonderful to hear from people who truly, no BS, know what they're talking about.
i already filmed it when i cutted IA on my CNC, i do not post on YT or FB, so i think Instagram will be the place - If I do it, I'll be stepping on a lot of people's toes, that much is certain. It's not magic, but the magic will quickly wear off, and then the business model of quite a few people will become questionable, at the very least, won't it? Perhaps you would consider following me on Instagram: dkprecisionmechanics ;)
You know, I understand the concern about losing the magic as you put it but I think that ship has sailed, to be honest. It's true that thousands of people have read this story already but it's also true that the question was in the air anyway. I haven't gotten any angry DMs from anyone yet, for whatever that's worth 😀
I'm not worried, I'm ready to light a little fire. It's the customers who lose the magic because some people in the industry cloud their vision. I'm currently considering doing a “how to machine interior angles” tutorial, so in-depth that anyone with a little skill can then replicate it. This can be the end of the little angles, but that doesn't bother me in any way. Not out of malice, but to clarify what it is. A small detail that is unjustifiably given too much attention because some people think they have to put it in the spotlight as if it is the holy grail of watchmaking.
Second that, big time. I think a lot of people would be interested; this article alone has thousands of views already, on what you might think is an obscure subject.
There’s no doubt that the most complex guilloché work being done today is by Shapiro. In a conversation with him, he confided to me that when guilloché is done well on a CNC machine, even he—who works with it every day—cannot distinguish between something made by hand and something produced by CNC. So, as I mentioned before, what truly matters in these cases is the honesty of the manufacturer: if it was made by hand, you can be sure that fact will be highlighted in their advertising. If it isn’t highlighted, be suspicious. At the end of the day, what matters to me is not whether it was handmade or not, but the honesty of the one selling it.
If Josh Shapiro can't tell, what hope is there for the rest of us 😂 . This definitely underscores the importance of transparency on the part of makers, who are unfortunately incentivized to be less than granularly specific when it comes to the details of manufacturing.
I'm more shocked that people believe this can only be done by hand. I'd imagine that bevels/chamfers have been cut by machine (mills, bridgeports, etc.) for some decades. Sure, maybe you just rough in the corners and then finishing cutting the corners by hand, but by and large I cannot see any reason why the majority of the cutting wouldn't be done by machine right after cutting out the plate.
Ultimately, it is just another program step that is added to the cnc program. Contour chamfering is used to avoid subsequent deburring (to save reworking/costs) or simply for decorative purposes. This is done on soft metals such as nickel silver, brass, bronze, or gold using diamond cutters. We produce such chamfers en masse, and depending on the customer, they are also polished by hand.
Well in fact, that's mostly what happens these days, as far as I can tell. Yes, it's true that strictly speaking you are always going to have a corner radius if you use a CNC machine with a rotating spindle and end mill, but you can get very close, and it doesn't take much to get the rest of the way.
Well done! Thanks for making the effort. For those of us in a particular corner of the horological rabbit hole, this is informative and enjoyable reading.
My pleasure. I wonder sometimes if appreciating computer guided machine tools is the real endgame in watch connoisseurship 😀
Probably not the endgame, but damn--watching YouTube videos of CNC machines doing their amazing thing has surely led me to appreciate their capabilities. So here's another thought experiment: if someone, in the not-too-distant future, programmed a CNC machine, and various other machines, to make and finish and assemble all the components of a time-only watch that is as finely finished as a Simplicity (and I do mean exactly as finely finished, no differences apparent even under a 20x loupe) would that watch be coveted by aficionados?
God, I hope not 😁
Anything done by hand could be done by the Mecademic MC500. And that includes the final polishing with wooden sticks.
Really excellent and informative article. What I got out of it is that fetishizing a particular aspect of a watch will lead to watch brands making more of that thing as cheaply as possible, and that vintage watches continue to retain that mystical aura of "made by humans"
All these watches were made by people; only the technologies may differ. Why shouldn't watchmakers take advantage of advances in CNC technology when others are splitting atoms or flying to Mars? It doesn't take much to file and polish a bevel, but it does take a lot to calculate, design, and manufacture a watch. I wouldn't focus on a small part of the finishing process, but rather on the entire manufacturing process. And that's exactly where most of those who promote and emphasize interior angles immediately fall short.
Oh a hundred per cent. It is hard to avoid feeling that there is a race to the bottom there and in the end, nobody wins not even the brands.
The emperor has no hand finishing
Flashing back to a (possibly misremembered) passage from Rebecca Struthers, but I seem to recall that all this handwrought lily-gilding was, traditionally—that is, in the days of Harrison, Breguet, et al—a way of simultaneously obscuring and decoratively signing one's work in such a way as to confound would-be mechanical copycats and slapdash aesthetic counterfeits alike, with the end result kept tucked well away and out of sight from the end user in any event.
It all seems even more superfluous now than it was then, but I suppose that it pays the bills... or at least justifies their continued inflation, and all the expensive marketing ink spilled in their explication and defense.
consumers stay uninformed because the informed don’t want to point fingers at members of their own social-circle. and this problem is getting worse with time. ten years ago, it was only the “holy trinity” who were cutting corners. now we have a whole roster of “independents” who are clumsily dressing up machined calibers sourced from mediocre suppliers, calling it hand-made and charging twice as much as even patek would. and the experts, who have now matured to throwing the occasional jab at patek, are cheering on these charlatans!
and so the integrated-bracelet bubble has given way to the independent bubble. only this one is even more susceptible to hype and market manipulation.
When you've got collectors the occasional bubble seems inevitable. Awful lot of hand-wringing going on in the fine arts auction market these days.
when the bubble bursts, hopefully there will be some neck wringing too 🙂
This is classic Jack--fascinating, informative, and thought provoking. One such thought it provoked in me comes at the issue from a slightly different perspective. I'm no doubt oversimplifying, but in essence the topic here is the relative acceptability, in fine mechanical watchmaking, of things finished by hand versus things finished by machines--thus, if a sharp internal angle CAN be made just as well by a machine as by a person, does that in some fashion devalue the internal angle as a sign of the highest-quality finishing? Or is a magnificently sharp internal angle a thing to be admired regardless of its maker's humanity, or lack thereof?
My "slightly different perspective," though, is this: what about the other direction? What about the use of mechanical watch parts that absolutely cannot be made by humans with hand tools? This is not about using CNC machines to do, faster and more efficiently, what humans can do; that, as far as I can tell, is largely accepted these days even at the highest levels. No, this is about things a human simply cannot do. What about, in other words, things like silicon hairsprings or escapements? Here's a thought experiment: if Philippe Dufour had used silicon hairsprings and escapements in his Simplicity, or if Roger Smith did so in his most recent Number 6 watch, would that make us think less of their watches? Would the presence of a silicon hairspring "negate" a perfectly hand-finished sharp internal angle? Or, to take it a step further, should silicon parts be considered verboten at the highest levels of mechanical haute horology, because they completely eliminate the human touch in the making of some parts of the watch? (Just asking; I don't have an opinion here but I do think it's an interesting issue.)
I think it's a very interesting issue and I think the question really cuts to the heart of the experience of mechanical horology. I was one of the folks who deplored the move to silicon balance springs at Patek but the truth is, making a Nivarox balance spring is not exactly something that a watchmaker can do at the bench with hand tools either. This is part of the reason that I thought the Naissance d'une Montre 3 was so interesting – I always wanted someone to make a watch with a hand-made Guillaume balance and hand made blued carbon steel balance spring but every time I have brought the subject up over the years, to various folks in the industry, they have always said that it would be prohibitively expensive, and here we are 😂
In my head (FWIW) the difference between a Nivarox balance spring and a silicon spring is that I can still imagine a watchmaker getting a spool of Nivarox wire of the right dimensions (i.e. cross-section) and fashioning a balance spring out of it in the workshop. Impractical, yes, absolutely. But still seemingly possible, at least theoretically. But give the poor guy a wafer of silicon and tell him to make a balance spring (or anything else usable in a watch) out of it? Not a chance, not even in theory.
Rip: That is indeed, an interesting issue... you might enjoy this old post: https://www.screwdowncrown.com/p/sdc-weekly-90 as well as another 2016 post on Hodinkee by Jack, which I linked to within that one... https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/a-question-to-our-readers-does-silicon-equal-soulless-in-watchmaking
Vell, for someone who isn’t a machinist, it’ll do. 😂
This pretty much sums up where I end up with this no matter which brand is saying it:
“if a watch brand or independent is doing hand finishing, they’re going to show you”
The status quo: “Show us, or it’s defo machine made”
Somehow this feels like it begs the question… I know how much you love that phrase.
“When a watch brand or independent manufacturer does handcrafted work, they will show you that too.”
That's why, when you visit the Lange & Söhne factory, there's always a big fuss about the engraving department. It's impressive how the big watch companies are increasingly breaking down and automating their processes, employing hordes of semi-skilled workers instead of watchmakers, and still managing to pull the wool over their customers' eyes.
That basically sums it up for me ... I mean if I were a brand making and finishing watches largely by hand, boy oh boy I'd make sure everyone knew. And in fact that's exactly what brands and watchmakers who are doing things largely by hand, actually do. And don't get me started on "begs the question" 😂
Well done piece! I spoke to specialists in grand maisons ans working for grand maisons and they also told me that inner angles are no problem to CNC (with effort as you put it). I would only trust clear claims like „guilloche main“. But most of watch media also stated falsely that Rolex 1908 guilloche were by hand - because they are not familiar with the techniques anymore. Thank you for educating.
Thank you for reading! It was an eye opener to research and write. The psychology of watch enthusiats's views on CNC machining is interesting; I think a lot of folks look at them as tools for simulating hand craftsmanship ... but of course, without CNC and other computer controlled machine tools, modern watchmaking wouldn't exist at all.
Fair point. I think the problem is that many brands are guilty of evoking hand made tales instead of showing what’s done in a good way with machines and what‘s made by hand and for what reason.
"The presence of a sharp internal angle is supposed to be a definite sign of hand-finishing. But it is?"
I think you probably meant that question to be, "But is it?"
sure do and thanks! Fixed.
As a GS fanboy I appreciate watch finishing, but I’ve never seen higher end Swiss and German examples. What I have seen is what CNC machines can do. I’ve worked with in the medical devices industry where we use CNCs to make tooling used in manufacturing stents with tolerances much stricter than those used in watches (their customers are medical regulators who are more demanding than watch buyers). A well honed 5-axis CNC will make pretty much anything you can program. I’m not surprised if they can fool the most discerning consumer.
Yeah, after spending several days looking into what exactly is possible with CNC machines it seems sort of incredible that any of us would believe that you can't machine something close to a sharp internal corner. As one of the sources quoted in the story says, theoretically you are always going to have a radius even if it's a minute one ... but you can get awfully close.
latest with a 5 axis, you can achieve "no radii", even with a 3 axis, clever construction and tooling setup its possible - just the way to get there is more complex. and: if you combine wire edm / laser cutting / CNC its easy when you know how.