The Role of Watchmakers in Horology
I stumbled across an article on Fratello (usually one of my fav way to kill time) about a burning question of mine: what makes a good movement? Strangely, I walked away from that essay rather... incensed and annoyed. In particular, I find the whole emphasis on the experience of the servicing watchmakers rather peculiar and contrary to logic and, frankly, morality (well, maybe not morality, but, you know, how the world is supposed to work). It really didn't help that the comment section exploded with a deep dive on Rolex movements (this part was really fun and interesting) that somehow come to the conclusion that 31xx line is superior on the account that it can be serviced by anyone while 32xx could only be serviced by Rolex (due to the mainspring being sealed). The discussion, again, is fun. The conclusion makes me want to throw shoes at the screen.
A bit of background. My day job is software engineer. In my entire career, it's been drilled into me that customers are the ones giving me the paychecks and, frankly, meaning for my job. You should see how things work in Amazon (AWS to be more precise). Every Monday, the entire company lived in fear, because that's production review day. Goodness, if your **** breaks... I mean, people try hard to be nice about it, but you can feel the hurt. And if you screw up hard enough, Andy Jassy himself would review it. Goodness you don't want that. I saw it once. He just laid into my VP in front of the entire freaking AWS business. In defense of my manager, director, and VP, the heat didn't quite burn down. But you feel the pressure. And don't ask Amazonians about the question mark emails.
In any event, the point is simple: customers give us business; we work to serve customers.
As such, I found the complain in the article about how certain movements would send their parts flying when you open it wrong to be... childish. I am sorry, I pay you to service this. If the movement is time consuming to service and you need to charge more, then yes, that movement has high cost of ownership, and that's a negative. But otherwise, seriously, it's their job to deal with that. If the convolution helps, says, the watch 1% more accurate, or extends the service period by 1 year, why not? Again, watchmakers are paid for this. They are professional. Why the special treatment?
This reminds of another factoid. Certain brands would brag that they decorate under the bridges and plates of their movements, to show that they care. And I have always found this to be, for a lack of better word, bizarre. Now, if the extra work helps with reliability, say that. If it doesn't, why do it? And I seriously mean this as a question. Why? Save your time and lower your prices. You ain't making your products better. You are effectively doodling on the money of your customers. It feels even worse when the same brands would also brag about how these operations require great skills and precision and time. Great, the brands invest great skills and effort (and charge their customers for it) to doodle. It's like BMW do an engraving inside the engine that does exactly nothing, charge you for it, and claim that's the price for their "caring." It's..... just so weird.
What do you think?
What is the relation between a watches, a watch, and the wearer/buyer? Should we treat a watchmaker as an artist (whose output is basically useless but pretty) or a professional craftsman?
Very casual (and window shopping) watch lover
Consumerism is fundamentally based on disposability. A lot of assets that surround us were once much more serviceable: TVs, home appliances, clothes, shoes, cars - they still are but EVs won't be soon, in terms of cost relevance. Servicing makes sense when you want to extend the life of your item, but if the manufacturer doesn't want that, there is hardly anything to do. Mechanical watch industry evolves towards polarization in that regard: on one hand, very exclusive watches will remain serviceable, while the rest will not. If you look at current trends, it is happening already. Seiko NH parts and movements entirely are dirt cheap, watches are too, but labor cost will remain expensive. Besides, there is a constant abondance of new watch releases. Will you really want to service your Presage with a scratched hardlex if it will stop working 7 years from now? Now you may say so, but till then it will probably look like a piece of junk and you will be already bored with it and with nobody else ever noticing it, and will get a shiny brand new limited edition.
First internalize servicing, then discourage it. Manufacturers spend a lot of money designing and manufacturing new watches. They are much happier selling them than keeping old ones working.
I am not sure if I can agree with you, despite my general support (including volunteering time to repair) of right to repair.
Look, there are 3 separate kinds of complexity:
Necessary complexity: some problems are just messy to solve.
Incidental complexity: complexity resulting from "incidents" (i.e. prioritization of other factors like time and ease of production or just plain mistakes).
(intentional) obscurity: vendors go out of their ways (i.e. spend money and resources) to obscure.
Only the 3rd kind of complexity is to be disliked. The first one is frankly unavoidable. Take grand complication. Taking that to "local watchmaker" (except the case where you happen to be neighbors to Journe or Habring or people of that caliber) is asking for troubles. The 2nd one is simple trade-off. You accept some complexity here to avoid complexity elsewhere. This doesn't necessarily degrade repairability (e.g. if parts are easier to produce, more of them can be produced and available for backup and fixup; see my points below for 150 years from now).
Just because a thing is hard to repair/service doesn't mean its original producer wanting to prevent it from being repair/service.
A discussion within that article is worthy of calling out: the silicon hairspring. Silicon is superior to steel in every imaginable way (resistant to magnetization, resistant to temp shock, resistant to physical shock, slightly self-lubricating, etc) except that it's not adjustable without special tool. Why, then, should a silicon hairspring be considered inferior to a steel hairspring? I can't speak for material engineers and so on, but if there is a technology superior to its alternative in all ways except it's harder to work with, my engineering instinct is to suck up and use it.
Furthermore, as I already pointed out, if a movement is hard to service, that's a negative. But it's not be all end all. And watchmakers should be professional. This is especially true for difficulty vs possibility. It's one thing if the movement is completely not possible to open. It's another thing for the movements to be complex so as to compensate for something else (e.g. cost or aesthetics). And I find complaining about cumbersome to service movements to be... unprofessional.
Finally, I want to remind everyone that modern watch movements ain't stuff serviceable without modern means and infra. Between specialized lubricants and specific materials for spare and so on, it takes a lot to service a modern mechanical watch.
Frankly, if you want a long term, reusable watch movements, use quartz. We probably will run out of parts for those precious mechanical movements before we run out of batteries. Failing that, donor parts are easier to find for a mass produced movements than a special design. 150 years from now, I bet good money that ETA, Miyota, and Seiko 35 lines (their 4R lines, not 6R, 6L, or 4L) are easiest to find parts and to fix.
Plates are decorated both sides to trap particles & stop them messing with the works...
Its what folks are prepared to pay for that sets the standards.
Personally I put more emphasis on movement than aesthetics.
Great discussion! I was on a live stream where Dan Spitz master watchmaker said two things. One, the Swiss groups are taking away availability of replacement parts. This is a deliberate act on their part to move repair servicing into their workshops. Second, the 'high horology' brands are making parts thinner and thinner. This is also a deliberate act to ensure that those parts will break down sooner. Again, shifting money from consumers to their pockets.
My own local watchmaker said something similar. When he works on Rolex, it feels like 'a tank'. But working on VC and Patek, he find the components are very delicate and very easy to break.
It's also interesting to see that the referenced article expresses similar sentiments regarding the robust Rolex movements.
Agreed 100% with you!!!
I've said this over and over every time there's a post on movements, and I'll stick to this argument till the cows come home:
Wow! I did not know that! Toyota do a good job on nearly everything!!!