Q&A w/ a Watchmaker (How to know if my watch needs service? Is there a wrong way to handle a watch?)

Producer And just hold up the card and read it slowly.

Josh Shapiro What kind... no, I’m just kidding.

Hi, my name is Josh Shapiro. I own J.N. Shapiro Watches. I started watchmaking 15 years ago as a hobby, and I’m lucky enough today that I get to work with 22 extremely skilled individuals making beautiful watches right here in Los Angeles. I am here today to answer some of your frequently asked questions about watchmaking. There’s no such thing as a dumb question. I’m looking forward to answering them.

What kind of watch do you wear?

I don’t wear watches. No, just kidding. So, I really like vintage watches. For me personally, that’s what really introduced me to the great world of watchmaking. I love history, and I love that I can have a piece of history on my wrist. I love vintage Omega, vintage Patek. I’m wearing a vintage Hamilton. A lot of my vintage watches are family watches, and I love that they have a story to tell. It’s a really inspiring aspect of making watches, knowing that people will be wearing these for generations to come.

Occasionally, I like wearing my own watches, but usually when I’m wearing my own watches, I’m just thinking about what I need to improve about them. Of late, I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch. Maybe that’s controversial, but hey, I got to run a half marathon and it’s a great watch for that.

What are you most passionate about when it comes to watches?

So this is an easy question. It’s about making them. I really love manufacturing and making watches with my wonderful team here. And now I’m really passionate about restoring this great industry in the U.S. and really trying to grow as many watchmakers as I possibly can, and help this art in the States and in the world just keep growing and keep being a wonderful way for people to have a career.

Can you explain a watch movement so a first grader would understand it?

All right, so a watch movement is very similar to a balloon. When you blow up a balloon with air, it’s full. If you were to just let go of the opening of the balloon, all the air would shoot out. So a watch movement is very similar to that. We’re winding, winding, winding up the mainspring until it’s fully wound, and then the train wheels and escapement keep that power from blowing out all at once, just like in a balloon.

This is a 3D print of our Resurgence model. So over here we have these wheels, which are for winding the mainspring, and then the train wheels and escapement are all for controlling the power release from the mainspring. As that mainspring unwinds, it pushes the center wheel to the third wheel to the fourth wheel to the escape wheel to the pallet fork to the balance wheel. If these wheels weren’t here, the spring would just unwind immediately. And if this escapement and balance mechanism wasn’t here, if you remove that, then all these wheels would just spin and use up all the power in the mainspring almost instantly.

The rest of the movement is for controlling the time-setting aspect of the watch. The vast majority of a watch movement is for controlling that power, so the power release is coming off at a rate that keeps time. It’s really the heartbeat of the watch. It’s the engine of the watch.

How do I know if my watch needs service? If it does, what should I avoid doing?

Well, I think a lot of times people can get pretty paranoid about their watches. It’s not exactly like a doctor’s checkup. Sometimes you can extend beyond the recommended service time, and it really depends on the watch, how complex it is, and what you’re doing with it. If it’s a battery watch and it stops, it won’t be very useful for you. Take it in to get a service.

But I think mostly what we’re talking about is mechanical movements. For a vintage watch, depending on how expensive it is and what it is, if it’s 30 seconds to a minute off, that could be something concerning. If it’s a very modern watch that you just purchased, even being off 30 seconds a day could be a concern, and you should probably stop wearing it. If there’s a more complex issue, you don’t want to exacerbate it, but you do want to get it checked in, especially if it’s under warranty.

What is something most people get wrong about watches?

One of the big misconceptions about watches, especially ones we get, is about what the most difficult parts in a watch to make are. The most visible parts in a watch (the dial, the case, and the big bridges on the movement) are not the most complex, difficult parts in a watch. It’s the parts that you don’t see that are extremely complicated to make and manufacture. We’re talking about minuscule screws, balance staffs, pinions, all these tiny, tiny parts.

To get a little philosophical, the parts you don’t see are a lot like reputation versus character. Reputation is who you’re perceived to be. Character is who you are. And it’s the same with a watch. Putting a lot of effort into the parts you don’t really see, but that are extremely important for timekeeping, that’s like your character. That’s who you are. Whereas the flashy parts of a watch, that’s what everyone sees, but that’s not the essence of the watch.

Can you explain technically what it means when a watch is water-resistant?

Yeah, so we have two types of equipment for testing water resistance. One is a pressure tester, which creates pressure inside a chamber, and the other method is plunging the watch into water. The plunging is usually done when there’s no movement or dial inside the case, and you’re just testing the case. With a pressurized chamber, you’re testing with the complete movement in there as well.

One of the big leaps in watch technology was the ability to seal a watch. A big part of that is modern gasket technology, these little rubber gaskets that let watches seal between mating surfaces, like a crystal and a bezel. It’s like a Ziploc bag. If it doesn’t seal, moisture will get out and moisture will get in.

One of the biggest signs that moisture has gotten into your watch is fogginess inside the crystal. There are so many steel components inside a watch that it will start rusting, which is very, very bad for its timekeeping. So if you ever suspect, especially with vintage watches, that you’ve got moisture inside, that is an emergency. You need to take it to a watchmaker as soon as possible.

Are there essential skills that watch collectors need?

There’s one skill, and it’s very, very important: patience. If you’re burning to get the next watch, you’re never going to enjoy the watch you have currently. Collectors should be connoisseurs. They should really dig in, understand what they’re purchasing, and enjoy it and be with it. Otherwise, it’s just a dopamine-hit acquisition game, and I see a lot of people getting burnt out in the hobby from that. So patience is a big key to enjoying your watch collection: taking your time and really learning about the watch or the watch brand, whatever it is.

How careful do I need to be with the crown on my watch?

Wow, what a great question. A lot of service and repair is around the crown. The crown sticks out, and it’s easy to get caught on things. There’s no worse feeling in the world than banging your crown against the doorframe. One tip is to always be watch-conscious when you’re wearing your watch, especially of the crown. If you hit the crown, it’s going to bend or break the stem. Not a lot of fun.

The other thing is, when you’re storing your watch in your safe, you should always have the crown in. When the crown is out, it’s less water-resistant. Depending on the watch, you can completely lose all water resistance with the crown out. People put their watches in their safes with the crown out, and watch safes harbor moisture. Those two things together are a big detriment to the health of your watch.

So this is a great illustration of how a watch stem works. People don’t really realize how complicated the mechanism is that operates the stem, to set the time and wind the watch. Quite a lot of parts go into it, including some of the most complicated parts in the watch. This is a winding pinion. This is the sliding pinion. These are extremely difficult parts to manufacture, and you can see the operation of it here, which is pretty neat. You have all these springs as well, and then this continues on to set the time. So if you damage your crown, it can affect this whole assembly.

Is there a wrong way to put my watch down on the table?

Yeah, don’t slam it on the table. No, but in all seriousness, tables, whether they’re wood or steel, have a hardness level to them. Gold is very soft, so with gold watches especially, you have to be very careful. If you place it softly on a surface harder than the gold itself, it should be fine. But the second you move it, the steel is harder, and sometimes the wood too, and it’s going to scratch.

That can even happen with highly polished steel watches. When you polish a surface, all the molecules at that surface are very close together, and it’s very susceptible to little pieces of dirt or sand or anything on the table getting between that layer and your watch, and you can get scratches like that.

One important thing with bracelets: the back of the bracelet is going to scratch your case back. So when you put a watch down on its bracelet, keep the back of the bracelet and the case back separated. That’ll scratch it up. Also, when you store it, store it in a way where the bracelet isn’t rubbing against the case back.

For any watch in general, you want to place it with basically one point of contact, and do the same when you pick it up. Avoid sliding the watch on the surface. Sometimes people will very quickly grab their watch, and especially on a metal surface, that’s going to scratch it up pretty quickly. Always find something softer than the watch by a large margin to put it on.

What is the best method for traveling with a watch?

This is an open-ended question. I’d say the best method for traveling with a watch is to keep it on your wrist. I’ve heard absolute horror stories, even of people putting their watches in their carry-on above them and having them stolen. So when I’m traveling with my watches, I always keep them close to me. Preferably on my wrist, and if not, in a backpack right underneath me.

Very practically, these membranes are the absolute safest way to travel with a watch. Even these aren’t bulletproof. If the watch sits right next to the edge of the membrane and takes a hard enough hit, it can still be damaged. But these are fantastic. They also make watch rolls, some with dividers and some without. In rolls without dividers, if you put more than one watch in there, they can hit each other. So always get rolls with dividers to keep the watches safe from each other.

When traveling with multiple watches, keep them close. You never know what’s going to happen. You don’t want to be that guy. You don’t want to have that story. Be smart about how you package them, and don’t pack your watches in a rush. I’ve unfortunately heard and seen horror stories of people putting two watches together, even in a membrane, and the watches destroy each other.

What does it take to become a watchmaker?

The skills needed to become a watchmaker are kind of rare. You need tremendous patience, and you need very high hand dexterity. You also have to be exposed to it, which is a big part of the hobby growing and people getting into watchmaking. People have to get a watch, see it, get enthralled by it, and then see if they have the skill to do something with it.

I knew this was for me because I had the patience to continue with it. The frustration level was where it was supposed to be: not so frustrating that I wanted to quit, but a big challenge. Everyone messes up, and it’s the ability to persevere. Know that I can do this, I’ve just got to get there, I’ve just got to practice again and again. Getting there may take failing over and over again, but eventually I’m going to get there.

A lot of watchmakers have something in common: we all have hobbies or interests on the micro scale. So it’s part being drawn to it and part passion. I think that’s how many watchmakers, myself included, find our way to this great profession.

What is watchmaking school like?

It’s a full-time program. It’s not like a normal college program. You’re at the school 8 to 10 hours a day, really learning and working, 5 days a week. The programs are changing by the minute, but many start off with dexterity tests and filing tests to get people used to working with their hands. It starts from very basic servicing and basic understanding of the watch, and then progresses in skill.

It depends whether it’s a one- or two-year program, and whether it’s a WOSTEP program. Many programs these days teach fewer advanced watchmaking skills in order to feed the service army of watchmakers. Other programs put a lot of time and effort into actual micromechanics, which means machining and making watch parts. It used to always be a two-year program. Now it’s usually a year or a year and a half, depending on the school, and a full two-year program is more rare.

If someone is interested in the profession, what should they do first?

So, that’s a great question. If someone’s interested in becoming a watchmaker, one of the first things I recommend is a program like the TimeZone program, where you can buy a kit with the tools that come with it, really get your hands dirty, take apart a watch movement, and learn if it’s for you and if you like it.

Another great way to get an introduction is to look up when an HSNY traveling class or an AWCI class is coming near you, or if you can make it out to one. Those programs are really great because you have live watchmakers there who can help you take apart and put back together a watch. You can ask as many questions as you like, and someone can look over your shoulder and let you know if you’re doing things correctly.

To actually learn watchmaking, there’s no substitute for just doing it. You can watch all the explanations, and there are great websites that show every aspect of how a watch works. But nothing beats actually getting inside a watch movement, taking it apart, and struggling to put it back together.

When I first got into it, I was really in love with skeletonization. So right away I bought my first watch movements, and with very little skill, knowledge, or equipment, I tried to skeletonize and open up these watches as much as possible. I destroyed a lot of watches in the process, but I learned a lot, and I learned that I loved it. That was really the jumping-off point for me.

How long does it take to make a watch?

Wow, what a loaded question. The answer is, it depends. For our Resurgences, it takes about 400 hours to make a complete Resurgence, which is a lot of time. That’s combined manpower. George Daniels, when he would sit down to make one pocket watch, would make one watch in a year, about 5,000 hours. The reason for that was he was doing everything with manual machinery and hand methods. Making one watch at a time that way is extremely labor-intensive.

Even for us at 400 hours, it takes a lot of hand time and a lot of automated machinery to make it that quickly, and that’s still a long time. If you think about the cost of many mechanical watches out there, they’ve gotten that time down to a few hours or less to make a complete mechanical watch. It all depends on how much hand time goes into the watch and how much complexity there is in it. We put a lot of time and effort into our guilloché and finishes, and there are a lot of parts that are very important for us to still make by hand. All these things add to the beauty and appreciation of the watch, and also to its time and cost.

I think watch collectors should be very aware of buying watches where the time and effort that goes into them matches the price as closely as possible. One way to know what a watch brand is really doing: they’re going to brag about what they do in-house. They’re going to brag about their hand-finishing methods and how much effort they put in. So if a brand never talks about a certain aspect of their watch, you can assume they’re probably outsourcing it. It’s not something they’ve put a lot of time into.

What is the first thing you have to do when assembling a watch?

This is another question I can get a little philosophical with. The first thing you want to do when getting ready to assemble a watch is plan properly. You need the right tools for the job. For watchmakers, that often means the right type of tweezers and screwdrivers that are actually prepped for the movement you’re working on.

Here we have a typical set of Bergeon screwdrivers, which range in size from extremely small to fairly large blades. The blades can be polished on an India stone like this. The idea is that not all screw slots in all movements are standard sizes. To prevent slippage, and to really be successful assembling or disassembling a movement, you want the correct tools so you can sharpen your blades to fit those slots perfectly.

One of the easiest mistakes when you’re new to watchmaking is using the wrong screwdriver for a slot. You’ll slip and scratch up the movement, which feels awful, looks awful, and could easily have been prevented by choosing the right screwdriver and prepping it for the job.

Another first step is having a great diagram for that particular movement, so you know how it comes together and comes apart before you ever go into the watch itself. From there, it really depends on the movement. Is it automatic? Is it manual? Does it have a calendar? All those things are movement-dependent.

What’s the hardest part about building a watch?

A very open-ended question. This could be, what’s the literal hardest part of putting together a movement? Or, what’s the hardest part of building a watch at a company that makes watch movements? So I’ll answer both.

For a mechanical movement, there are a few challenging aspects. One is making sure all the pivots come through the jewels. For a lot of beginners, it’s a very challenging part. We have these functional jewels in a watch that all have holes in them, and if you’ve ever looked through a loupe, you can see tiny, hair-sized pivots coming through those jewels. For beginners, aligning those pivots within the jewels can be very, very challenging.

What’s the hardest part of building a watch at a company like this, where we’re trying to build everything under one roof? I think it’s troubleshooting. Engineering in general is all about problem solving. In watchmaking, our problems are tiny, and one of the most difficult things is the scale we work at: diagnosing problems and even being able to find them. Sometimes something goes wrong, and because of the scale it’s very difficult to know what it is. So the hardest thing is finding, diagnosing, and fixing these microscopic problems that are happening all the time.

What do you think modern watch brands are doing wrong?

This is where I can say not-nice things about other watch brands. No, I’m just kidding. There’s always a point in a company, and it’s especially common in the watch business, where a company originally makes watches because they’re beautiful, or because they want to share a complication, all these different reasons. And at some point it switches, and the company is making watches in order to earn money.

Here at my company, it’s very important to us that we use money in order to make beautiful watches, and that we make beautiful watches in order to try to restore an industry. Our “why” for this business is very front and center. I think a lot of watch brands could take a step back, rediscover their why, and move away from watchmaking by committee and watchmaking by investment, toward watchmaking for art and inspiration instead of a bottom line.

As a business owner, I understand that’s extremely difficult to do. But for the collector, it’s night and day. Everyone can tell when a company has switched to “we’re making this product to hit a bottom line” versus “we’re making this product because we love it and want to share it with you.”

What do you think modern watch brands are doing right?

And this is the positive side of the last one. If you’re reading or watching this, congratulations! You’re living in a time with so many different watches out there. There’s a watch that fits every personality, every activity, and every budget: artistic, colorful, plastic, rare metals, different sports, purpose-built. It’s an amazing time to be a watch collector. That’s one of the best parts of learning about watches right now: there’s so much out there.

Thank you so much for your questions. If you have more, feel free to leave them in the comments, and hopefully I’ll be back another time to answer more.

This transcript was generated using AI and may contain errors. For the definitive version, please refer to the original video.