Design and make your own watch

Intro

I'm starting to put this page together as I increasingly realize how hard it is to find suppliers for amateur and small-volume watch designers, tinkerers and those considering making their own watch. For now, mostly a collection of links.

Semi-custom watches

If you just want to have a watch made from a menu of choices, there are a few places to accommodate:

• Dwatch has a very good rep, though the case is larger and heavier than I like.
• 121 Time is reputed to be quite good.

One-stop-shops

These will work with you to do the entire thing. Design, sourcing, movements, etc. The most expensive option, of course.

Switzerland & Germany

• 121 Time does private label
• Palladium AG Mid-to-high-end Swiss, I have some of their watches and rate them quite high. On my short list if I were to start a watch company.
• Cattin and Cie used to make Christopher Ward (including my Malvern) and are a great place to start. The early CW series were (and are) superb values, implying that Cattin is reasonably priced for good work.
• As of 2011 or so, Christopher Ward is now using Synergies Horologeres, as made the superb Christopher Ward C11 Automatic. A step up in quality.
• Ickler does OEM as well
• Via Horozima, Swiss Blanchefontaine looks interesting. MOQ 300, not bad.

Hong Kong and China

• Fullswing makes Helson and Armida - very very good stuff, and well priced. See Helson Blackbeard and its review.
• Giovino (The folks behind [Praesto])
• MPI Limited Great website, looks very promising as a partner company.
• Million Smart Enterprises (See the CWIW entry)

Unknowns and read-abouts

• Via this thread, I found RafflesTime who has all sorts of parts - dials, movements, bracelets, spacers, etc, etc. Pages and pages of stuff.
• Helenarou has kits, movements, complete Rolex homages and offers to do custom work.
• Furitime seems to do OEM/ODM, can't tell.
• Golay-Spierer make luxury bespoke watches. See also this.
• NAWCC list of custom makers
• Cattin
• http://www.horologydesign.com/

Designers

• Russ Schwenkler (Praesto)
• Brian Green (Prometheus Ocean Diver)

Casemakers

Casemaking is often quite difficult. Machine tooling and line production setup both cost big bucks, so if you're starting out expect to have to choose a case from a catalog or spend a heckuva lot of time getting one made to order.

• Longio (Also does complete watches)
• Fullswing (These two are from TLex)
• Leco Makes cases for a brand I know. Good stuff.
• ochs and junior uses
  • Peter Cantieni for cases and other precision-machined parts, see this page for details.
  • Cornu-Cie for pin buckles, more here.
• Fricker (Discussion about same here)
• SUG Good reputation as well.
• Ickler Excellent reputation
• http://www.helenarou.com/ seems to carry cases and homage parts
• http://www.sk-watchparts.com/
• http://myworld.ebay.com/erkahund&ssPageName=STRK:MEFSX:SELLERID

Everything else/outsourcing

• Founder's Workbench (via RWW) has free legal documents and lots of tutorials on hiring, regulations, IP law and other issues a founder must deal with.
• http://www.freelancer.com/ Logo, perhaps, backroom?
• http://www.shopify.com/ Killer solution for e-commerce web site.
• Using google adwords to start a business
• Ermano does assembly (see this post.)

Modification / customization companies

For if you want modifications to a watch you already have, one-off. New hands, lume, bezel, Cerakote, etc.

• http://www.dotwatchworks.com/
• http://internationalwatchworks.com/
• http://www.10watches.com/
• Motor City Watch Works (with review of same).

Hands

• Estima

Dials & redials

• Posei is a Hong Kong dialmaker.
• Belaire Watch Company, 800-223-1654, recommended on Horology Matters mailing list for redial work.
• Kirk Rich Dial, recommended in this thread (redials)
• Stern Creations
• Cadran'or, website uncertain. This and Stern Creations are found via this EurporaStar article on dialmaking and this post.
• Jurgen's Germany looks quite promising for redials.

Lume

There are two choices here, tritium tubes or Superluminova. Tritium is expensive and a major hassle, as a warning, so you almost certainly want superluminova.

• RC Tritec sells lume, binder, does prototypes and is a good place to start. They also do tritium.
• LumTec is awesome; they sell premixed lume via eBay.
• For tritium tubes and watch subcontracting, try Bonding Ltd in Hong Kong. They rock.

Movements

• ETA - increasingly difficult to buy
• Soprod A-10 is an excellent choice - they actually sell in small volumes and will customize.
• Concepto (via PW) is a new company with 70 variations of the ETA 7750. Looks very promising.
• Seagull
• Miyota
• Sellita (ETA clones)
• Seiko
• Time Module HK, not sure if only Seiko movements or their own as well.

Materials suppliers

(Many of these links are cribbed from Montres) Parts, movements, tools, gaskets, etc, etc.

• Cousins (UK)
• Ernst Westphal (Hamburg, DE)
• Ferreel & CO (CA)
• Jules Borel (MO) (I've bought from him several times)
• Otto Frei (CA) (Ditto)
• Lancaster Horlogical (PA)
• Livesay's (FL)
• Esslinger
• Cas-Ker
• Dashto

NAWCC also has a huge list of suppliers

Design Software

(Image credit: RGM via Alibre)

• TellWATCH appears to be the gold standard. Their sample videos are very impressive - 3D plus dynamic simulations, vis of strain, etc. Cost unknown, Windows-only, French-language.
• Alibre is what RGM uses, high praise:
• Google SketchUp seems to work as well:
  
  (Image credit: Nick Slater)
  Check out the thread for more pictures.
• BobCAD-CAM is also mentioned.
• Discussion thread
• Amabilis

Crystals

• From 5/2010 Watch Journal, R.Montavon is one of the high-end Swiss sapphire makers.
• According to this WatchTime article, Swiss company Stettler Sapphire AG produces the best dive watch crystals, for brands like IWC, Breitling and Panerai.
• GS Supplies makes custom crystals, in sapphire, mineral and acrylic.

Anti-reflective coatings

• Econorm is probably the best out there.
• 2geeks will do single crystals for 50 Euros if you want to add AR to an existing watch.

Bracelets

• Matthey Time makes bracelets for Bathys.

Presentation cases & shipping boxes

• natpak Found via Twitter, natpak looks decent for boxes and presentation material.
• Luxury-pak For European market
• Chippenhook does watch and jewelry packaging - looks good also.
• MB Tech Designs is also recommended

HKTDC

For less-expensive watchmakers-to-be, the one conference to hit is HKTDC, every September in Hong Kong. Umpteen zillion square meters of exhibitors for parts, components, movements, complete watches, ODM/OEM, you name it and more. It took me 4 days just to /see/ all the booths!

HKDTC also has a good online directory for online shopping and previewing.

Commentary

The HourTime podcast has a good episode with Jeff Kuo of Xetum watches, where he discusses design, sourcing and more. He's a little vague on specific companies, but overall an excellent tutorial and well worth a listen.