WOW! Making a Watch by Hand

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Talk about patience and skill with tools.
http://web.ticino.com/dcorson/watch/index.html

[danny_galaga]

watchmaking is a beautiful, nearly lost art    a friend of mine once borrowed a book from uni written by a watchmaker. he explains every single phase. and it really is by hand. holes are drilled by hand, gears are cut by hand. none of that fancy CAD design or CNC! incredible. ive forgotten exactly how many hours it takes for each but it was something like 5-10 THOUSAND hours  . and each watch sold for maybe 20000 pounds!

[Vigo]

Yep, when walmart sells dirt cheap watch  for a couple dollars that tells time accuratly enough, most people don't see the reason for a quality hand crafted watch. Definitly a lost art.

[shmokes]

I thought this thread was going to be about World of Warcraft.

[Stingray]

When I was a kid my dad used to rent a building to a guy who ran a watch shop. I remember being completely facinated by the blistering array of fiddly little parts and tools in that shop. Sadly the old man who used to run it has passed away, along with it seems his craft. I'm pretty sure that was the last specialty watch repair shop I've ever seen.

-S

[NightGod]

There's a nice watch repair shop in the Diamond Market in downtown Chicago. Owned by a couple of brothers it looks like-they'll work on anything from Rolex to Timex and do awesome work for short money. If you ever need anything done, I can't recommend them enough-I've made trips down there specifically to see them for stuff. Unfortunately, I can't think of their names, I just know how to get to their shop.