Watchmakers make and repair watches, traditionally building them by fabricating individual parts. Today, they mainly repair watches, including digital ones, but some still make watches as a hobby or for niche markets. Watchmakers often undergo years of training to learn how to design, build, and repair watches.
A watchmaker typically works to manufacture and repair watches and similar types of watches. Although watches have been built and repaired by professional watchmakers in the past, with changes in modern watch construction and watch technology, watchmakers generally also repair and build watches. In the past, watchmakers used to build watches by fabricating the individual watch parts and fitting them together properly to produce the final product. Today, however, a watchmaker typically works more on repairing watches than on making new watches. Some watchmakers still continue to make watches as a personal hobby or for sale to a niche market of watch enthusiasts.
As the name might initially suggest, one of the main duties of a watchmaker has traditionally been the design and actual construction of watches. This involved not only watch assembly, which is a craft in itself, but also the proper design and fabrication of the watch’s internal mechanisms and case. Making a clock is a precise and delicate operation, especially analogue clocks which work through small mechanisms that must fit properly together and work together to move the clock’s hands at perfect intervals. Watchmakers often undergo years of training at a school that focuses on horological studies to learn how to design, build and repair watches.
A watchmaker also usually repairs watches that are damaged or have stopped working. This has increasingly become the main duty of most watchmakers, as watches are generally manufactured through machine building and are often digital rather than analogue. Watch repair can be as simple as replacing a battery or involve more complex work such as changing hands or other internal parts, and can involve making new parts to repair the watch. A watchmaker can still manufacture and build watch parts, especially if he or she has undergone extensive training to become a watchmaker.
Due to advances in technology, a modern watchmaker can also work with computer components to create digital watches with mechanisms as complex as the watches of yesteryear. These types of watches usually work using microcomputers and digital displays, rather than small gears and interconnected hands that move in precise rotations. A watchmaker who makes digital watches would likely have training in computers and electronics rather than horology and practical watch design mechanisms. Some watchmakers may continue to work with analogue technology, however, to create watches for those who want a more classic design.
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