Horological Meandering

ei8htohms
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I think you pretty well covered it (but I'm gonna go on and on regardless...)

Hi All,

Functional finishing is of course the most important aspect for, er, functionality. I'd say most movements above "standard grade" have pretty reliable and consistent functional finishing, with a very few brands (Patek) going to additional lengths to polishing the teeth of gears in the power train and that sort of thing. Does it genuinely provide a mechanical advantage that makes it worth the loss of consistency it introduces into the manufacturing process? I sure don't know, and given what I know of most brand's ability or willingness to study such things in depth, I rather doubt that they know with much certainty either. I imagine they do it as a nod to tradition and a demonstration of craft more than for any tangible improvement in performance.

The thing is, these are anachronistic devices and everyone knows it. The market pressure to make your watches last an additional fraction of a year on average before their first service is minimal, with a lot more evidence for the practicality of short term increases in sales through clever marketing. There are some companies that are quite serious about reliability and performance and these are generally the companies that take stock of the big picture and the long term reputation of the brand. But their R&D budgets are of course limited to some extent and how aggressively they approach the tribology of contrasting metal on metal friction with different surface finishes and whatnot is limited as well.

Historically, a very finely (decoratively) finished movement was a signal to the watchmaker: "This is a serious piece of horology, don't f*#& it up." The functional bits were exquisitely functionally and decoratively finished as were the bridges and screw heads, etc. and the fine level of finishing made it abundantly clear when someone that had no business being in that movement had mucked about for some reason or another. Marred screw slots and scratched bridges are painful to look at when it's clear that those components used to be works of art.

Since the near ubiquitous adoption of display backs AND the general lowered expectations for performance ("It's a mechanical watch! +10 seconds a day is just fine!"), one must view decorative finishing with some suspicion. There has been a significant amount of it in the past 15 or 20 years that is quite cynical in fact even if one can understand it from a less than completely impassioned CEO perspective. If it's gonna cost you two or three times as much money to produce a movement that is finely finished (and the actual difference in cost could be considerably more profound than that), sooner or later some folks will start thinking about which steps can be left off with the least negative impact on the customer perception of the finishing. It's not long before people are applying crude striping and anglage with CNC machines and putting something like blue paint on the heads of nickel plated screws.

My opinion is that the true loss of performance for these cynically produced pieces lies in the extent to which the cost-cutting mindset trickles down the entire production line, right down to the fellow (or lass) who should be removing the burrs from a bridge that he (or she) can see has been tarted up in the most superficial way. How much personal integrity and commitment to craft does it take for that person to say, "The folks making the decisions obviously don't give a s*&%, but I'm going do the best job I can and remove that pesky burr even though my supervisor is gonna gripe at me about my production numbers at the end of the month once again"? It's tiresome to feel like you're fighting against the very principles of your organization and it comes out in the quality of the work produced.

It becomes a bit philosophical at some point of course: If I can get the same (or better) visual appearance of a part with greater consistency at a lower cost by doing it with a machine OR I can continue to employ someone to do it by hand because that is the traditional way, which would I choose? And if I go the "by hand" route, can I upgrade the hand tools from pegwood sticks to impregnated polishing shafts on rotary tools, or is that cheating? Where is the line and who decides what is or is not the "right" way to do it?

In short, yes, functional finishing is important. Material choice is important. Design is important (both for sheer mechanical performance AND for serviceability if you want the watches to continue to perform well after a service or two). Process control is important. Refinement of all of the above through intelligent data collection and appropriate feedback is important. Integrity throughout all of the above is important. Is decorative finishing important? You decide.

_john

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