Horological Meandering

Could be watchmakers who have been working for the brand, could be other indies producing their onw watches, or just skilled repair workshops. Any conscientious and meticulous watchmaker is capable of assembling and reassembling without scratching/damaging. 

Regarding spare parts, even the indies have, sometimes, to make new parts. They don't always have the luxury to produce much more than needed, and store. Otten, parts are improved after some iterations so spare parts would become useless. So, you always produce more but this may very well become a nightmare to manage after a while. So pretty much anything can be done, but the cost may become an issue. Sometimes you need to make the tools, sometimes, you need to spend time reverse engineering the parts, testing... 

Having the original specifications may really help reducing the costs. Could be interesting that, AHCI for instance, creates and maintain a technical database wit all the members creations. This could really reassure the potential buyers knowing that among those people, there would always be one to maintain their watch. Some watchmaker that would easily get the informations to ease the maintenance process. This is something that some members are trying to push but you can imagine how difficult it is. I still believe this would be a good idea ans a strong encouraging message toward collectors.

More than mechanical parts, the real issue would probably be on the dial side, with hands... These parts are difficult to make exactly the same. Especially if they have been outsourced with artisans that have disappear with their knowledge, little twists that made their productions so special. 

  login to reply