Horological Meandering

MTF
[PuristS]
13383

• Show profile
• Show other posts

Sarpaneva – the Man – Update v2

Some PuristS asked more questions since a recent Inteview with Stepan Sarpaneva  click here

Stepan answered the follow-up questions below.

Regards,

MTF

PPro: Can you expand on the statement "I still use many techniques I learned from that (old masters) period, since I don’t have very many machines in my workshop."?
SS: I had a lot of training at the Parmigiani restoration atelier, so working with hand tools was really a kind of standard for me. At the moment, the company is small as well as the production numbers, so there is neither money nor need for mass production methods. There is no spark erosion machine here, no mechanical anglage, not even a Dremel tool like Lange and Söhne use for finishing.

If I need a few small pieces, I can cut them out by hand right here, and either I or the two watchmakers in my team can hand finish them. The hands and dial of every watch are also all hand finished in every detail – strangely enough there is no machine that can even deal with that, because it is too unusual in shape and form for the standard finishing machines. Also we have old fashioned lathes here for hand turning – not computer controlled stuff.  For now that’s fine. Perhaps in a couple of years, we will have to progress a bit with machining. Nonetheless, I want to try to keep the handwork, the attention to detail by the watchmaker, as high as possible, and make that better each year as we gain more and more experience. 

PPro: You mentioned making watches for fun for friends in 1999 – Any pictures?
SS: One fun piece I made for myself and I still wear sometimes, is a watch I named Time Tramp and it was made from a part of my first Harley (Pan-shovel 1962). The movement, by the way, is a Piaget 9P which has memories from the first watch company where I worked. By chance, it has a kind of 70’s look, with that typical Finnish simplicity in it. But I made it without any pretentions.

PPro: Any pictures of your bikes?
SS: About the bikes, well it is a funny story. I was always working on bikes, and one of them was my favorite: a Harley Shovelhead 1976 FX that I completely rebuilt into a Custom. In the end it was worth a lot of money – you keep adding details: carburetors, hubs, chromed parts, specials brakes, whatever – and everything you do is expensive, so when you’re finished, it adds up to a small fortune. In the end I had to make a choice, and ended up selling it to fund the start of my small company in Helsinki. So, actually my company owes its beginnings to my passion for motorcycles.

This picture is of a bike that I am now just starting to renovate. It will take a lot of time, but I enjoy the extremes of work between small watches and big bikes like this. “At the moment I also have a 1970 original Vespa Primavera 125, in very used shape, and a 1986 Moto Guzzi 650 Lario "Cafe Racer" that I fully restored myself.

Here’s picture of the Guzzi: