to wit - a flaw not visible at 30cm (about a foot away) with the naked eye, is OK for a new watch. Apparently a Swiss watchmaking standard.

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/hodinkee-radio-bonus-episode-philippe-dufour

its discussed at 9:50

Thoughts?

 

Sort of depressing and reminds me of how my sister in law cooks; "It's good enough. Nobody will care."

If the marketing guys say "make it less expensive," and the watchmaking staff doesn't care, what do you have left?

thanks for posting,

- bob

 

I’d be really curious what brands this applies to. I’m guessing Rolex is one as you can’t tell the rehaut is misaligned from 30cm away and I’ve seen a lot of misaligned rehauts.

 

Ohh that’s tuff...

 

So I guess they think people wear watches on their 30cm long arms now?

In seriousness probably it's because I guess it has to do with how a viewer looks at the wearer from a distance and judges the wearer's appearance but....that kind of standard is just...it defies explanation because I don't know why they would think of in terms of not the wearer.

 

I just used a ruler (about 1 foot) and it looks like that's about "wrist length" i.e. how far the watch would be if you look at it for the time. So it looks like the expectation nowadays is that you shouldn't expect a new watch to look perfect any closer than that. There goes all the threads from people that their new watch has flaws under an extreme macro shot.

 

A surprising rule-of-thumb for that world of accuracy and precision

 

Most of them. Certainly mid-tier watch brands like Rolex, Omega, etc. use these sorts of standards.

I can give you some additional details for Omega specifically, as outlined in Work Instruction 14. The distance is 30 cm, with the naked eye, and the lighting requirements are quite specific in that the lamp used must have a brightness of 2000 to 2500 LUX and a colour temperature of 5500 KELVIN.

But this only tells half the story really. It's what's allowed to be there under these inspection conditions that's as important, if not more so.

But again this is why these criteria are merely a starting point for me, and many other watchmakers I know...just like the timing tolerances are, the date change tolerances are. etc. These criteria are exceeded by good watchmakers every day...

Cheers, Al

 

Well, what is the other half of the story?

 

I already told you. Each specific attribute of a watch has criteria of what is and what isn't acceptable when viewed at the 30 cm distance under the specific lighting they call for.

 

Obviously pre-Instagram era work instructions as nowadays macro shots show every piece of dust on a dial

 

If Instagram came out in May of 2018 you are right...the last update to this criteria was made in April of this year...

 

I know I have been told that I look much better to others from at least a foot away. That’s why I’m not on instagram.

 

I am sure Omega can improve the criteria. It would simply require raising the prices to cover the additional costs.

 

Hmm interesting, I wonder how did they come up with this standards. I mean, it probably has to make economical sense? Saving good amount of labour, resulting in not too many returned pieces?

 

Well that's amazing... I wouldn't spend Euro 7000.00 on a watch with flaws visible

 

Well that's just it. Just what is "visible"? Standards have to be set of course. It is completely unreasonable to expect perfection at infinite magnification. Someone has to draw a line somewhere of what's "reasonable" and "unreasonable". In this case, the line was drawn at "wrist length" - 30cm or about a foot away from your face, in daylight (approx 5500k), and 2000-2500 lux (is this equivalent to lumens?) per @Archer

I think what can be inferred here is that the vast majority of people do not look at their watches through a loupe or magnifying lens. Or if they do, they do not find it unreasonable to see imperfections in their watches when seen under magnification.

 

I wonder where grand seiko fits into this. Anecdotally the snowflakes I've seen have really impressive finishing even under a loupe.

 

1 Lux = 1 lumen per square metre.

This is why you often see the advice on watch forums to never look at the watches you own with a loupe. What has been seen cannot be unseen...

 

Expecting perfection at this level is not realistic.