ausimax
Timekeeper
Kogan, Qld, Australia
Posts: 937
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Post by ausimax on Aug 20, 2016 17:42:31 GMT -8
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Adrian-VTA
Global Moderator
Adelaide, South Australia
Posts: 5,327
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Post by Adrian-VTA on Aug 20, 2016 18:50:46 GMT -8
This is somewhat misleading.
It's not so much that the trade is dying, it's that the PEOPLE are dying. The old watchmakers that did or didn't train and have been doing the job since the 50's are a dying breed.
In addition to that, the TAFE course in NSW is widely panned by people that have done it and they don't recommend it. I know several guys that did it and told me not to waste my time. In any case, they are winding down the course there and it will be discontinued in a few years from what I hear.
What is growing, is a bunch of people like myself, Spencer, Duncan, and some of the other guys that are taking on this work with a 21st century perspective.
As much as it would seem parts for these watches are rare, they just aren't. You can buy a bag full of 61 and 63 movements from Ramon for the price of a beer (a price of a beer in AU anyway) and you're going to get some crap, but also a few good bits in there.
So the days of a traditional watchmaker fettling a balance staff for a SEIKO 61/63 with a total value of a $100 and the repair price being 300+, not making the repair financial to continue, are gone.
What's replaced it is smart guys using existing resources to do this work at low cost. It's actually a new golden era of the mechanical watch. They are now seen as a luxury item rather than a utility tool, and this changes everything.
That said, with that change comes a loss of skills. Some of the finer arts like micro machining and making esoteric components are dying. But by the same hand, the ease of making this stuff has increased dramatically. You can now buy a lathe with electronic feedback for peanuts, where they used to be in the domain only of very high end manufacturing. A digital lathe is so easy to use I could teach someone with little skill to use it in a day or so and produce some good work.
The watchmakers I speak to, and one of them has done a survey across the country, generally tell me 50% are looking forward to a bright, but different future, 50% are saying the whole thing is going down the gurgler.
My take is that what is going down the gurgler is classical watchmaking done entirely with hand tools which had not changed largely since the 1800's. What's on the rise is combining new technology with vintage mechanical tech to make new, innovative toolchains and to keep these things running indefinitely. We are talking CAD/CAM, rapid prototyping and low run manufacturing here.
So that's my take. No doom and gloom. Just a different future to what the traditionalists expected. At the end of the day, anything that doesn't evolve deserves to die.
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