watchmaking

i teach at Patek Philippe twice a week. if you don't know the name, fear not: it's only well-known to the rich and famous. they make watches, mostly made-to-measure. the cheapest one (ie, one of a series), is CHF15,000! but as i found out yesterday, a lot of work goes into these watches.

one of my students is the guy who shows people the parts they make. and most of them are absolutely tiny! when he first put one in my hand (with a very small pairs of pincers!), i thought i was going to lose it, drop it, you name it. TINY! i asked how much time it took to make. 8 mns, came the reply, but with no guarantee it will actually work. and the pieces were beautiful: they looked like dancers, butterflies, stars, ... and the big pieces (which used to take 4 weeks to make, now 'only' 4 days) had dozens of even tinier holes everywhere. yep, i can kind of understand why they cost so much to make!