
A Russian Gains Prominence Among Fine Watchmakers - admp
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/fashion/21iht-acaw-chaykin21.html?ref=fashion
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Steko
Another unlikely watchmaker, Dan Spitz from Anthrax:

[http://www.hodinkee.com/interview-meet-dan-spitz-anthrax-
gui...](http://www.hodinkee.com/interview-meet-dan-spitz-anthrax-guitarist-
turned-master-watchmaker)

edit: lol

~~~
alanctgardner2
He seems exceptionally talented at damn near everything. It's too bad he never
got the urge to do comp sci, or we'd have a proof for P=NP by now.

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aleyan
I wonder what direction watch making will take in the future.

As small scale manufacturing is being transformed by 3D printing in general,
could there be analogous impact in watch making from cheaper automated
precision milling machines?

Imagine an amateur downloading some vanilla clock movement CAD designs;
personalizing them to an extend he feels comfortable; and have the parts
printed/milled/laser cut offsite for traditional assembly at home. Without
being knowledgeable in watchmaking, this sounds like a fraction of the effort
that is presently required to make a custom watch.

~~~
cschmidt
You should check out UTS watches. The German guy who started it had a business
selling high end CNC machines. I guess he wanted to make something with them.
So he cuts the cases for these watches on his machines. He puts a nice
mechanical ETA movement in them. I have one of the 1000M watches, and it is a
thing of beauty. There is a guy in America who takes care of sales, and the
guy who makes them in Munich. Kind of a watch geek thing, but they make a nice
business out of it.

<http://www.utswatches.com/>

~~~
sk5t
Nice-looking watches, but I was very surprised to see prices over US$5,000
from a maker with no cachet and fairly standard design / no special
complications.

~~~
cschmidt
It is all personal taste I guess. Mine was about half that price for the
1000M. Their value is in the beautiful cases and bracelets, all CNC cut from a
hunk of stainless steel. They are among the most waterproof watches on the
market. I'll never actually dive 1000 meters, so I realize that is like people
who never drive their SUV on a dirt road.

I prefer my watches to be kind of minimalist, so I like the design. It has no
cachet in that no one has heard of UTS, and nobody comments on it. But it
makes me happy to have a unique thing of beauty, so that works for me. I view
it as much more special than a fairly common watch like the Omega Speedmaster,
say.

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bhauer
The Levitas watch referred to on the second page: [http://watchpaper.ru/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/Konstantin-C...](http://watchpaper.ru/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/Konstantin-Chaykin-2011.jpg)

Impressive. And not because of the crapton of diamonds.

~~~
fduran
See also [http://www.konstantin-
chaykin.com/chaykin/collections/watche...](http://www.konstantin-
chaykin.com/chaykin/collections/watches/levitas#watchGallery)

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gamegoblin
I have such great admiration for these sorts of hackers. I really do love
advanced clockwork (the Dr. Who episode with the clockwork ship crew that goes
back to capture Madame de Pompadour comes to mind). Clockwork is, to me, the
essence of hardware.

As an aside, it would be extremely cool if someone (maybe I would try my hand
at it in the future) could create a sort of Hardware Description Language for
clockwork, the same way we have VHDL and Verilog for circuits.

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cdjk
For those interested in watches, the book "Watchmaking" by George Daniels is
an interesting read. It's very technical, but covers in great detail all the
steps necessary to make a watch, including some complications.

~~~
andrewgleave
I built a simple site for George in 2008. Nice guy, died last year. I took a
video of his co-axial escapement model a couple of years ago:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMWpT-MniFo>

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delinka
If this is one of those "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" industries,
I'll just buy a Casio. Why can't we get prices on these damn watch websites?
I'm willing to spend money on a watch, but I'm not willing to wade through a
phone call (or worse, give you my contact information and await your
callback...)

~~~
oijaf888
Since they are all hand made I assume its more like wanting to buy some custom
art, you don't just go on ebay and pick the first thing you see, you talk with
the artist about what you desire in it. Based on that I bet the price changes.
If you want a platinum face to your watch I'm sure he can accommodate.

~~~
delinka
They may be handmade, but the sites display predesigned models. Even if
they're handmade to order (i.e. they don't keep inventory), I expect to get
the watch shown. Is it too much to ask for even a range? Is that a $500 watch?
$10,000? Should I only consider buying one after I've paid cash for a
Lamborghini?

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fduran
Another self-taught watchmaker with some beautiful pieces
<http://www.pita.es/jsp/thewatches.jsp>

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Ras_
I was rather surprised to read* that neighbor Finland is actually responsible
for the largest community of foreign watchmakers working in Swiss industry. 30
overall; names like Kari Voutilainen and Stepan Sarpaneva.

[*] [http://www.worldtempus.com/fr/actualites/a-la-
une/detail/art...](http://www.worldtempus.com/fr/actualites/a-la-
une/detail/article/1245757216-metiers-la-finland-connection/)

Here's a great background piece on School of Watchmaking, est. 1944 near
Helsinki: <http://www.tp178.com/wsw/ahci/fin_wmschool/article_01.htm>

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Semaphor
> While most of the Western world divides the day into two halves — a.m. and
> p.m.

I'm not sure if that's only a German thing but I think it's that way in most
of Europe.

~~~
Aloisius
_“Typical ways to describe time in Russian include phrases such as ‘I woke up
at 7 in the morning’ or ‘I will stop by at 2 in the afternoon’ or ‘Someone was
making a lot of noise at 11 at night,”’ Mr. Chaykin said._

All of these I use myself (in California). Are there languages/cultures where
this isn't the case? In addition, I'll add "6 in the evening" (early night)
and "woke up at dawn" (early morning).

If thinking of the day in more than 2 parts epitomizes being Russian, then
most of my fellow Californians (and likely my fellow Americans), are going to
be very confused.

~~~
yco
The difference is that in Russian the division into 4 parts is more formal. In
the same sense as in English the 24 hours are divided into am / pm, in Russian
it's divided to morning/afternoon/evening/night. The formal name for 2 a.m. in
English is "2 in the morning". But you just can't say "2 in the morning" in
Russian - this wouldn't make any sense. You can only say "2 in the night".

~~~
pavel_lishin
Hm, off the tip of my tongue I'd say "два утра", but I haven't spoken Russian
full time in over a decade now :/

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ImprovedSilence
Just this past year I started to get an interest in watches. These watches of
his look fantastic, I love the independent watch styles.

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kqr2
Professor Gerald Sussman of MIT put together this great video on an electrical
engineer's view of a mechanical watch:

[http://video.mit.edu/watch/an-electrical-engineering-view-
of...](http://video.mit.edu/watch/an-electrical-engineering-view-of-a-
mechanical-watch-9035/)

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xorgar831
Patek Philippe, makes some extraordinary time pieces and has a museum:
<http://www.patekmuseum.com/> Edit: Also, <http://www.patek.com/>

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martinced
I bought a very nice mechanical watch today (in-house movement, 3
complications, pink gold).

There was something immensely good about buying a pure mechanical device in
this crazy 0's and 1's world. Even if it was build thanks to amazing
technologies, including computers and advanced software, the end product is
still 100% mechanical.

And this timeless masterpiece should still be working perfectly long after all
the electronic junk I'm using today shall be forgotten ; )

