Reply To: Watch Parts

[david pierce]

Randy,
There is a misguided view perpetrated by the Swiss Watchmaking Industry that Swiss watches are made by superior craftsman wearing eyeloupes and green visor caps. I learned many years ago (1990s) at a Chicago machine tool show that this was not the case. What I saw there was a large, heavy machine with a huge coil or wire being fed into the headstock spitting out watch staffs every few seconds. The CNC technology that the machine functions on began in 1947 by the Parson’s Company. They manufactured helicopter blades for military helicopters and were looking for a way to make more accurate blades. The cordinates for the blades were generated on the office accounting machines and the cuting was guided by machinists turning the handles on manual machines. The results were better than any other method that had been tried before so at the request of the U.S. Air Force, Parson’s turned their information over to M.I.T.. It was M.I.T. that actually developed the first CNC technology. I have seen a lot of prejudice in this industry against anything that is not Swiss. This attitude spans from watches to tools to training programs. The truth is, it does not matter if a person is a Swiss trained watchmaker or a self trained watchmaker. There are only good watchmakers and bad watchmakers.
david