THE WATCHMAKER'S ART.

Auckland Star, 2 January 1931, Page 6

THE WATCHMAKER'S ART.

I read an. article in the "Star" taken from a Melbourne paper re lady watchmakers and would be obliged if you would permit me, a practical watchmaker of experience, to comment on some of the misleading statements made. To assert that it is possible to teach anyone "to clean" a watch in a fortnight is sheer rot. Cleaning a watch means to turn it over to the customer in perfectly good order, and men with years of experience at times spend hours putting a watch through the process. There are dozens of very line adjustments to be made, especially when the apparent wear has been taken up, which is usually.included in the cleaning, and the better the quality of the watch the more critical these adjustments are. It was further asserted that this was not a trade, but an "art." There is no more art in making a balance staff for a watch than there is in turning up an axle for a locomotive, the only difference being in size. A watch is just* a piece of mechanism like any other machine—a certain number of parts forming a whole, each part properly made and fitted performing its allotted task. Xot much art about that. I can remember women taking up this trade for years past, and particularly during the war. in the Old Country, but they never seemed to get anywhere. Most watchmakers of to-day will agree that there is no room for romance about watchmaking, for the man who lias to earn his living at it to-day finds it exceeclinglv hard and trying work with "more kick? than ha'pence." A. J. FOKSTEK.