Some assembly required
Panerai’s watch-making class takes a closer look at how timepieces tick
THERE’S appreciation for watches, and there’s appreciation for horology — the latter dives deeper into geekery. For “students” at the recent edition of The Panerai Watchmaking Class (the first held in the Philippines), it’s likely the predilection leans toward horology. Because if such is not the case, then how do you explain one’s choice to spend the better part of three hours hunched over a desk, peering into the archaic parts of an object whose function is readily and more accurately served by a smartphone?
Though Panerai’s watchmaking class was but a brief introduction into a highly specialized field, it shows what gifts are needed if one were to indulge in such pursuit; the dexterity of a neurosurgeon, the exactness of a math professor, and the patience of God. Plus, there’s this thorny bit of having to master microengineering to deal with. Because of these lofty requirements, Panerai opted to limit the lessons to the simplest steps of dismantling, then reassembling, a watch’s caliber (also called a movement; basically it’s the machine of a mechanical wristwatch). The Italian- Swiss brand offered up its P. 9000 self-winding caliber as a mule for the 40 people who took part ( grouped into batches of eight to make sure personalized supervision was available for each) in the classes. The P.9000 is one of Panerai’s workhorse movements, spinning the hands of several of its entry-level models, as well as serving as the base for others that feature complications like a GMT and a chronograph. It’s a caliber known to be sturdy, and is quite huge, too, filling up quite well the massive cases for which Panerai has been known since the early 1900s. Sitting on a worktable, stripped off a watch case and latched atop a holder, it looks even bigger.
The screws that help hold the P.9000 together are anything but. In the first step of disassembly, one has to unscrew three of them by using a specific tool. It’s a task that, in theory, is mindlessly easy, with the preceding instructional and presentation done by Panerai general manager for Southeast Asia Alban Fauchille (along with a master watch-maker from Panerai who is not allowed to have his name published) bolstering this impression. In practice, however, it turned out that simply lining up the tip of the tool with the slot of the screws’ heads was already a frustrating exercise in near-futility — the job requires a most delicate touch and a sharp eye, even when using a loupe. Now this, remember, was the first step.
What these screws release is the caliber’s rotor, or oscillating weight, the part that spins when the watch’s wearer moves his or her arms about, in the process winding the caliber’s mainspring. When the screws and the rotor are pulled off — gingerly, using special tweezers which one holds through dainty, condom- like finger cots — the P.9000’s Magic Click winding mechanism is exposed. Removing this part again requires taking out screws that may be bigger this time around, but only in a sense that a proton is bigger than an electron.
Taking out the balance assembly — essentially the beating heart of a watch — was the next step. While this involved nothing more complex than unscrewing it off its spot, after first disconnecting it so it no longer spins, effectively “killing” the caliber, putting the balance assembly back in place was vastly more complicated. It has to be slotted into a hole by wiggling it a bit so in can hook with the pallet fork, connecting it back to the rest of the caliber’s moving parts. The slightest miscue here can damage the mainspring, a part no thicker than a strand of human hair. Get the process right and the balance wheel of the assembly spins once more; the act seems like breathing life back into one’s creation.
Even for seasoned craftsmen the task was evidently difficult, as Panerai’s master watch-maker took a bit of time helping students put the balance assembly back in its place. Emerson Yao, chief horologist at Lucerne Luxe, which handles the Panerai brand in the Philippines, and who dabbles in movement work himself, admitted he also needed some assistance in doing this step.
From that point on, it was a matter of dealing with all those microscopic screws and snapping the winding mechanism and rotor back into their proper places.
Now while there’s immense satisfaction to be had in successfully putting the sundry pieces together, it was also a little disappointing to realize that the layers of exquisite, finely finished parts — some polished, others brushed — were being covered up. Within a P.9000, or any other fine caliber, there exists a miniature city, built by artisans, that’s populated by levers, gears, springs, and screws, all of which allow a mechanical watch to tick in a way no smartphone can ever manage.
A watch-making class teaches one this.