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Making Time With the Watchmakers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the temple-fugate-would-be-proud dept.

PreacherTom writes "In the age of watches that have more computational power than Apollo 11's computer, one would think that the watchmaker has gone the way of the cobbler, the blacksmith and the Dodo. Quite the contrary. With the rise in interest for mechanical watches (especially luxury models), Rolex has sponsored a new school to train horologists in the arcane art. From the article: 'We were facing a situation today where we needed to foster a new generation of watchmakers,' says Charles Berthiaume, the senior vice-president for technical operations at Rolex and the Technicum's president 'Thirty to 40 years ago, there was a watchmaker at every jewelry store. That's not the case today,' he notes. Included are some remarkable examples of their training, dedication, and intricate patience as they take technology in an entirely different direction."

2 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Re:PreacherTom is an Astroturfer by chucken · · Score: 5, Interesting

    With the large amounts of slashdot readers prepared to do moderation and meta-moderation etc., could some shill-detection scanning of submitted articles be in order? (I'm thinking by hand, rather than automated). It's usually not hard to spot affiliate IDs in the hyperlinks, for example.

  2. When I was a kid in the early 60's by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    there was a watch repair booth at the grocery store and an old man (as I remember him) sat there all day with his loupe repairing watches. My mom would drop me at his booth and I would just stand there, fascinated.
    I thought that was so freaking cool, to work on such tiny things like watches.
    I had a Mickey Mouse watch that broke and I got to watch him repair it.

    I was inspired by him (and other repairmen) to take stuff apart and see "what makes it tick"..
    Another thing that was common when I was a kid, there were handymen repair shops where you took just about anything that was broken and the nice man would fix it. Toasters, vacuum cleaners, TV's, radios, whatever.

    That's what I wanted to do when I grew up, be a handyman, to just fix broken stuff.
    Now I'm older, have arthritis in my hands, my eyes aren't so good anymore, there's just no way I could do this sort of work anymore. That sucks because that's what I love to do more than anything, fix things, work on stuff..

    My favorite TV show is "How it's Made"