Speaker 1: Episode five you're here. First off, thanks for listening. I
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Speaker 1: me do that. Okay, horology, what is it? I know
Speaker 1: you think it is or what you wish it were,
Speaker 1: but it's not the study of your mom's. Wow. I
Speaker 1: did not say that. Siri said that it's very inappropriate. Okay.
Speaker 1: Horology comes from the Greek for horra aur, meaning our
Speaker 1: or time. Now, a horologist is someone who studies the
Speaker 1: measurement or the instruments of measurement of time. But in
Speaker 1: common parlance, horology now kind of refers to mechanical timekeeping.
Speaker 1: So if you're like, is there a rift between mechanical
Speaker 1: and electronic timekeeping? Well, who, Let's just say that was
Speaker 1: some foreshadowing for you, Okay, So prepare to learn how
Speaker 1: many goddamn tiny pieces are used to make an old
Speaker 1: school mechanical watch, and how expensive watches can get, and
Speaker 1: how much coffee watchmaker's drink, and what would happen if
Speaker 1: you scared one, and the history of timekeeping. There's so
Speaker 1: much information in this you're never gonna look at your
Speaker 1: watch again quite the same. So I found this horologist
Speaker 1: by googling horologist plus Los Angeles. Just took a stab
Speaker 1: and it came across a few articles about this one
Speaker 1: dude gq LA Times, and I was shocked to see
Speaker 1: a photo of him, and he appeared to be under
Speaker 1: one hundred years old, which was odd for a horologist.
Speaker 1: He looks like a California type who has definitely served
Speaker 1: at least once, and he may have had a short ponytail. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't remember, because there was a dog in the
Speaker 1: office and I got so excited I got distracted. I
Speaker 1: can't remember anyway, horologist. I needed to know his deal,
Speaker 1: so I drove to a business park south of the
Speaker 1: airport to sit down in the break room of the
Speaker 1: Weiss Watch Company, an LA based handmade old school but
Speaker 1: also news school mechanical watch company. And I asked this
Speaker 1: nice man a million questions. Please enjoy professional horologist Cameron Weiss. Weiss?
Speaker 2: Is it Weiss?
Speaker 3: I say Weiss?
Speaker 1: Okay? Cameron has owned the Weiss watch company for four years.
Speaker 1: How did you start a watch company? I mean, because
Speaker 1: you're a young person. You're like, what like under you're
Speaker 1: in your thirties, right, twenties? Yet here's where I awkwardly
Speaker 1: try to ascertain Cameron's age, because listen, in my defense,
Speaker 1: he looks young as hell. He has that kind of
Speaker 1: southern California guy look, but he carries himself and he
Speaker 1: speaks like a tweed clad professor. It's very confusing.
Speaker 3: You're in your twenties, yeah, twenty nine.
Speaker 1: How did you start a watch company in your twenties?
Speaker 1: How did you do that?
Speaker 3: I was fortunate to find watch making pretty young.
Speaker 1: How did you get obsessed with horology and clocks? What
Speaker 1: was like the first thing? Do you remember cracking open
Speaker 1: a watch when you were like five and being like,
Speaker 1: what's happening in here?
Speaker 3: I don't know about the first thing, but pretty early
Speaker 3: on I was given a cheap, little plastic watch. I
Speaker 3: think it had alligators owned or something. But it was
Speaker 3: just it was when I was a little kid, and
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed wearing it. Something about it. It just
Speaker 3: felt nice to have it on my wrist. And that
Speaker 3: was the beginning I really needed.
Speaker 1: I needed a visual of this, and so I searched
Speaker 1: for alligators plus kids watches, and I didn't turn up anything.
Speaker 1: And then I realized, what if it was a crocodile?
Speaker 1: And then I realized what if it was a Clocko dial?
Speaker 1: And then I got bumped and overwhelmed because Clocko dial
Speaker 1: is such a good idea, I'd have to quit my
Speaker 1: whole life. I'd have to pursue that as a children's
Speaker 1: watch company. But I was relieved there's already a kid's
Speaker 1: book of that name. Someone are somebody's on it. Good job,
Speaker 1: continue with my life as planned. Anyway, From the alligator watch,
Speaker 1: Cameron became interested in stop watches.
Speaker 3: Then I found my way into a watch making school.
Speaker 1: So Cameron went to school. He did that for two
Speaker 1: years full time.
Speaker 3: Was able to train in Switzerland as well.
Speaker 1: WHOA I did not ask him about the landscape or chocolate,
Speaker 1: and I regret that.
Speaker 3: And eventually I was confident enough to start my own brand.
Speaker 1: How old were you when you started going to watch
Speaker 1: making school? Were you the youngest person there? Because I
Speaker 1: feel like I've met a couple horologists and they're all like,
Speaker 1: seventy Are you always the youngest when you go to meetups?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah meetups? Definitely. Yeah, in school, I wasn't the youngest.
Speaker 1: Okay, but.
Speaker 3: It's more so because the there's very few people who
Speaker 3: are actually admitted into schools.
Speaker 1: How rigorous is it is it? Do you have to
Speaker 1: have great eyesight and like not shaky hands?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that along with a couple of certain learning styles.
Speaker 3: Being able to uh focus for long period of time. Okay,
Speaker 3: maybe you sit there for eight hours working on bending
Speaker 3: one little piece of metal into a certain shape or
Speaker 3: filing something perfectly flat. Being able to focus and keep
Speaker 3: your patience is very important. So things like that, the
Speaker 3: teachers kind of weed out people who wouldn't be able
Speaker 3: to handle that.
Speaker 1: So they're like, no spas is no dicks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's a major time investment, Yeah to
Speaker 3: teach someone watchmaking. So they don't want to teach it
Speaker 3: to someone who might not actually succeed in the program.
Speaker 1: Right, They're like, go do something else. Yeah, they're like
Speaker 1: fixed pinball machines, be a bartender. I imagine it's a very
Speaker 1: quiet classroom.
Speaker 3: Also, yeah, it can be. Yeah, because if you.
Speaker 1: Go behind a horologist and you startle them while they're
Speaker 1: working on these movements, like you will get stabt.
Speaker 3: I feel like, yeah, it's not a good idea. And
Speaker 3: tweezers and screwdrivers are very sharp.
Speaker 1: Okay, so watch movements are tiny, right, But are you
Speaker 1: Are you also interested in clocks? Are you more interested
Speaker 1: in wrist watches and pocket watches and smaller items?
Speaker 3: Personally, I'm interested in anything mechanical that keeps time. Really,
Speaker 3: for the business, we only make wrist watches and I
Speaker 3: don't do any kind of clockmaking. It's a completely different
Speaker 3: craft really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, your watches are they they're all mechanical and
Speaker 1: not quartz, right or that's correct? Okay, So can you
Speaker 1: explain the difference between a mechanical watch and a quartz watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Mechanical watches are powered by springs, and they can
Speaker 3: either be wound by hand by turning the crown, or
Speaker 3: they could be wound by a weight in the back
Speaker 3: of the watch that actually moves with your with your
Speaker 3: arm movements. A quartz watch is battery powered, so you
Speaker 3: actually have a battery that is then putting energy through
Speaker 3: a quartz crystal. Okay, the crystal oscillates back and forth.
Speaker 1: And that's why it's a quartz watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about lyrics that reference watches? I
Speaker 1: didn't know that with a mechanical watch, wearing it winds
Speaker 1: it until, like I heard a jay Z lyric about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I need to give a special thank you to the
Speaker 1: website Rap Genius, which is now just called Genius. I
Speaker 1: like the better when it was Rap Genius, but this
Speaker 1: site will explain all of your I don't know what
Speaker 1: this lyric is or what it means problems, So if
Speaker 1: you remember, I'll set the scene. Twenty eleven, a jay
Speaker 1: Z Kanye West song comes out. There's a line jay
Speaker 1: Z says, fall so hard. Got a broke clock, row
Speaker 1: Lee's that don't TikTok ar to Mars. That's losing time.
Speaker 1: I'm not good at rapping.
Speaker 3: Got a roles that don't take the top all to Mars.
Speaker 1: That's not the time these rocks and so on. Genius.
Speaker 1: I found out that having a broke clock and rollies
Speaker 1: that don't TikTok means two things. Number One, you ball
Speaker 1: so hard you don't even have time to wear your watches,
Speaker 1: because automatic watches of the mechanical variety wind themselves just
Speaker 1: by wearing them. So he has so many nice watches
Speaker 1: that they don't even work because he doesn't even wear
Speaker 1: them enough. And when you have a rollie that doesn't TikTok,
Speaker 1: that's good. That means a hand sweeps and it's authentic,
Speaker 1: unlike a TikTok courts imitation rolex. So how does Cameron
Speaker 1: feel about rap lyrics? Does he love them as much
Speaker 1: as I do?
Speaker 3: I mean, I it's something that doesn't really appeal to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, moving on, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: watches being kind of not status symbols but like jewelry
Speaker 1: as well as something functional, Like which part of it
Speaker 1: appeals to you, the functionality or the style of it.
Speaker 3: I mean that brings me back to why I chose
Speaker 3: watches in the first place to be my interests kind
Speaker 3: of was you have this artwork and it's the mechanical
Speaker 3: movement which shows this whole watchmaking background behind it, all
Speaker 3: the history that goes into it, all the mechanics. It's
Speaker 3: like a work of art. Then you put it inside
Speaker 3: of the watch case, and you can actually carry that
Speaker 3: piece of art on your wrist and it functions too,
Speaker 3: So it's like a little motor that is encased on
Speaker 3: your wrist. You can bring it anywhere, not like your
Speaker 3: Mercedes or your car which you park outside and you
Speaker 3: can't bring it inside. So the wristwatch to me appeals
Speaker 3: for both those reasons, the mechanics and the art.
Speaker 1: And just for the record, I don't have a Mercedes,
Speaker 1: but if I did, I also would not bring it
Speaker 1: in the building exactly my like two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: pres is not something I can bring in. So it's
Speaker 1: the art and the functionality of how many parts are
Speaker 1: there in a wristwatch, like roughly, like can you describe
Speaker 1: how it works?
Speaker 3: Super super basic for yeah, So you have two springs.
Speaker 3: You have a main spring which is in the barrel,
Speaker 3: which is where we store the power. Okay, so instead
Speaker 3: of having having a battery, you have the main spring,
Speaker 3: and that once it's been wound either by your hand
Speaker 3: the movement of your hand or by physically turning the crown,
Speaker 3: it stores the energy and then it goes through a
Speaker 3: gear train. At the end of the gear train, there's
Speaker 3: an escapement.
Speaker 1: What's an escapement?
Speaker 3: The escapement. The easiest way to explain it is if
Speaker 3: you think about a pendulum on a clock. It swings
Speaker 3: back and forth. Well, the escapement in a watch is
Speaker 3: the same thing, except it's just been designed to fit
Speaker 3: in a watch. So it's a coiled spring.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So you have these.
Speaker 3: Two opposing springs. One stores the energy, one releases the
Speaker 3: energy in a in a certain fashion where we know
Speaker 3: exactly how slowly it releases the energy, and we harness
Speaker 3: that to actually translate it to the hands.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna explain the again really quick in non horology terms.
Speaker 1: Number One, you wind that little knob. That knob coils
Speaker 1: up a main spring that gets all tense and it
Speaker 1: wants so badly to go boing. This is the main
Speaker 1: spring and a mechanical watch, but it's in this little
Speaker 1: barrel kind of dish. It keeps it from doing that.
Speaker 1: The barrel transfers all that wound up energy to a
Speaker 1: gear train, which is just a series of wheels with
Speaker 1: little notches or cogs. It's all very steampunk. And what
Speaker 1: stops those wheels from just spinning out all that potential
Speaker 1: energy at once is a thing called an escapement, and
Speaker 1: the escapement regulates how fast the watch goes. The escape
Speaker 1: wheel has these crazy notches that look like insane saw blades,
Speaker 1: and they lock and only let it turn a little
Speaker 1: bit at a time. Now, the escape wheel turning a
Speaker 1: little bit at a time makes a weighted balance wheel
Speaker 1: swing back and forth like a pendulum that's regulated by
Speaker 1: another spring called the hair spring, and that makes the
Speaker 1: hands on the watch face tick off the moment until
Speaker 1: your death or the next time you eat a hot dog,
Speaker 1: or whatever the future holds for you. Oh. Also, together
Speaker 1: the balance wheel and the hair spring are called an
Speaker 1: harmonic oscillator. I think that's cute. Did you know that
Speaker 1: to oscillate is to swing back and forth, but to
Speaker 1: osculate is to sloppy kiss? Isn't that gross? How do
Speaker 1: you know if it's right? Like? Do you have nightmares
Speaker 1: about springs not being the right tension?
Speaker 3: No? No, I mean everything is. It's traditional watchmaking, so
Speaker 3: it's been tested over time. What we make today is
Speaker 3: the same thing that was made a hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Brief brief history of timekeeping devices fifteen hundred BC,
Speaker 1: sun dials thirteen hundred BC. Water clocks, so water would
Speaker 1: drip and that would fill something that would show you
Speaker 1: how much time has passed. Eight hundred candle clocks. You'd
Speaker 1: burn a candle. Depending on how tall the candle was,
Speaker 1: you knew what time it was. There were also incense
Speaker 1: clocks burns minsense. When a different smell would hit you, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, it's time for me to go to work.
Speaker 1: In fifteen hundred, spring driven clocks became a thing, and
Speaker 1: then in sixteen fifty six, thanks to Galileo, pendulum clocks
Speaker 1: were invented, and then from there the latest technology was
Speaker 1: quartz clocks and atomic clocks. And atomic clocks rely on
Speaker 1: measuring the vibrations of certain atoms as their electrons vault around,
Speaker 1: and atomic clocks are by far the most accurate. They're
Speaker 1: so accurate they won't lose a single second over the
Speaker 1: next You ready for this fifteen billion years, you and
Speaker 1: I will not be around. When do we start caring
Speaker 1: about time for reels? For reels? Well, mid eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: So many places just had local times. There's like, let's
Speaker 1: say it's two o'clock around here. It didn't really matter
Speaker 1: what was happening a few hours away. Until we started
Speaker 1: hopping on trains and then we needed you know, what
Speaker 1: time is this train going to be here? So in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty four there was a Prime Meridian conference in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. We're like, we're doing this. We're having time zones.
Speaker 1: Get your shit together, people, and so the world was
Speaker 1: divided into twenty four different time zones. Everyone had a
Speaker 1: certain time. Everyone's like, get a watch, come on, people
Speaker 1: beyond time. So clocks have been around for a while,
Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3: So we don't really have nightmares because it's nothing new.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like if you're a painter, you know,
Speaker 3: everyone's been using paints for a long time. We're not
Speaker 3: trying some new fancy paint that might disappear in a
Speaker 3: day or two. It might fade or something like that.
Speaker 3: It's all traditional watchmaking. So there's great watchmakers that I
Speaker 3: borrow all of that engineering and physics and everything that
Speaker 3: they did. I borrow that and put it into our watches.
Speaker 1: Were you good at physics and chemistry and sciences as
Speaker 1: a child or were you better at just like I'm
Speaker 1: going to take the t be apart and put it
Speaker 1: back together. Before my parents come home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have more of a mechanical mind. Hands on.
Speaker 3: If I can physically have something in front of me,
Speaker 3: take it apart.
Speaker 1: How are you with like Ikea bookshelves.
Speaker 3: I have no problem with Ikea stuff. Okay, all the
Speaker 3: stuff that goes into Ikea, the screws, the pegs, everything.
Speaker 3: They're way larger than watch parts.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, which brings me to watch parts. Roughly, how
Speaker 1: many parts are in you're wearing one of your watches,
Speaker 1: which is gorgeous, molo, how many parts are in that?
Speaker 1: Mechanically in our watch?
Speaker 3: It's about one hundred and fifty pieces.
Speaker 1: Okay, one hundred and fifty pieces, and they're all the
Speaker 1: size of what not assessme see like a I don't
Speaker 1: even like a piece of confetti? Like, how big are
Speaker 1: these parts?
Speaker 3: A lot of them are about the size of a
Speaker 3: grain of rice, Some of them are smaller, some are bigger.
Speaker 3: It depends on which component.
Speaker 1: And do you drink coffee?
Speaker 3: Yes, you do.
Speaker 1: How do you not have shaky like Captain shaky hands?
Speaker 3: Well, I find that there's a certain amount of coffee, right,
Speaker 3: and when you kind of get over that threshold, that's
Speaker 3: when you start to get shaky. Just the right amount
Speaker 3: of coffee is good, Okay, I have no problem with
Speaker 3: it keeps me awake, even if I'm sitting there at
Speaker 3: the bench quietly. But too much coffee and there's no
Speaker 3: more watchmaking, I move over and start doing emails, emails
Speaker 3: and business stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How many coffees is it? You know it's like two expressos.
Speaker 3: Or like, well, no, it's more than that, maybe four espressoes.
Speaker 1: Are you serious?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: God, if I had four espressos, I'd just be like
Speaker 1: sweating and shaking. So the fact that you can even
Speaker 1: do that, that's amazing. So you had to learn that,
Speaker 1: probably by trial and error exactly where you're like, Cameron,
Speaker 1: get away from the bench.
Speaker 3: This is too much. I can't I can't watch make.
Speaker 1: That brings me to a question. Is it harder to
Speaker 1: make a ladies watch because they're tinier parts?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So do they cost more because their tinier parts?
Speaker 1: Tell me about this, tell me everything.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. They don't normally cost more.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: And there's actually a lot of vintage women's watches that
Speaker 3: were mechanical that watchmakers will not even repair today because
Speaker 3: they're so small.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're very hard to find people to work on
Speaker 3: those watches.
Speaker 1: Are a lot of watchmakers, guys, fixed horologists.
Speaker 3: In Switzerland, it's not so much male dominated.
Speaker 1: What is it about Switzerland? Why are they covering the
Speaker 1: market on watches? Why are they so good at it?
Speaker 3: They've been doing it a long time.
Speaker 1: I never knew this, but during World War Two, because
Speaker 1: Switzerland was neutral, that let their watch industry continue making
Speaker 1: consumer timekeeping things. Other nations of the world were like,
Speaker 1: if we're going to make an apparatus, it better bomb someone.
Speaker 1: The Swiss were like, just going to keep making watches.
Speaker 1: So as a result, the Swiss watch industry had a
Speaker 1: pretty good monopoly. They're like, I'm just over here making
Speaker 1: watches eating chocolate. I can't function without a wristwatch. But
Speaker 1: how do you feel about the relationship a person has
Speaker 1: to time when they're wearing a clock face as opposed
Speaker 1: to say, like a digital clock in their pocket.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a crutch. I think when people pull
Speaker 3: out their phones and they're like, you know, just sucked
Speaker 3: into their phone, checking Facebook, check an email, whereas the
Speaker 3: watch is more of like bringing you back into the
Speaker 3: real world, where there you have a mechanical item that's
Speaker 3: on your wrist that it's real pieces they move, there's
Speaker 3: a spring in there. You have to wind it every
Speaker 3: day or you have to move to keep it going right.
Speaker 3: So it's just for me. It's a little more grounded
Speaker 3: in the real world than pulling out a phone and
Speaker 3: looking at that.
Speaker 1: You know what has nothing to do with watches, but
Speaker 1: it does have something to do with watches is punctuality.
Speaker 1: I live in Los Angeles, so everyone shows up like
Speaker 1: four hours link to things, if they show up at all.
Speaker 1: Some people are punctual, some people aren't. I always run
Speaker 1: a few minutes behind to be honest. I wanted to
Speaker 1: find out why this was why essentially I'm a garbage person,
Speaker 1: so I googled it. In two thousand and one, Chef Conte,
Speaker 1: a psych professor, ran a study. He separated participants into
Speaker 1: Type A, people who are ambitious and competitive, and Type B,
Speaker 1: who are usually creative. They're explorative. Now these are also
Speaker 1: known as tight asses and societal fuck ups. Just kidding,
Speaker 1: and he asked these people to judge without clocks, how
Speaker 1: long it took for one minute to go by, and
Speaker 1: Type A people felt like a minute passed in about
Speaker 1: fifty eight seconds, so they were close. Type B participants
Speaker 1: thought a minute had passed after about seventy seven seconds,
Speaker 1: So clearly type B people are just on their own time,
Speaker 1: so give them that. But you know what, either way,
Speaker 1: everyone was wrong, everyone overestimated it. So and also what
Speaker 1: is time anyway? Time is a construct? Oh man? This
Speaker 1: is the time in the episode where I ask about
Speaker 1: it existential bullshit? Do you have any like existential crises,
Speaker 1: like working on watches about like time and yeah, like
Speaker 1: impermanence and mortality and like does watch making every factor
Speaker 1: into that psychologically for you?
Speaker 3: The only time I ever think about anything like that
Speaker 3: is when I service watches, like watches that come back
Speaker 3: in they have moving parts, so they only cleaning and oiling,
Speaker 3: just like a car engine m hm. But realizing that
Speaker 3: at some point somebody is going to have this watch
Speaker 3: and I'll be long gone, but it'll need somebody to
Speaker 3: work on it, service it, or somebody will pull it
Speaker 3: out of a lock box in one hundred years and
Speaker 3: be like, wow, what's the story with this watch? But
Speaker 3: that's the only time I really think about not being around,
Speaker 3: and you know, these things lasting for so long.
Speaker 1: Mm hm. When True Detective came out, did you get
Speaker 1: a lot of times of flat circle questions from your friends,
Speaker 1: Were you like, okay.
Speaker 3: Guys, I did not?
Speaker 1: Okay? Do you ever think a lot about the time
Speaker 1: space continuum and like whether or not time is a
Speaker 1: fourth dimension? No?
Speaker 3: Not really like no, yeah.
Speaker 1: Just I had to check. I think all I've done
Speaker 1: is just revealed that I have an anxiety disorder about
Speaker 1: more challenging. Yeah, okay, here's the part where camera almost
Speaker 1: makes me start crying.
Speaker 3: The previous generations actually were able to maintain mechanical watchmaking
Speaker 3: and kind of promote the art form behind it rather
Speaker 3: than just focusing on well it keeps time right, Because
Speaker 3: if you just focus on the time aspect, a quarts
Speaker 3: watch is far superior. It keeps better time, and it
Speaker 3: costs a lot less money. But a mechanical watch would
Speaker 3: be like the actual painting, whereas the court's watch would
Speaker 3: be the post to print.
Speaker 1: Got it?
Speaker 3: So the poster print is going to be very accurate,
Speaker 3: colors won't fade, It'll be really nice and perfect, just
Speaker 3: like the last one. But the actual painting on canvas,
Speaker 3: that one is going to be unique. It's a real
Speaker 3: work of art. The artists may have had a slightly
Speaker 3: different brushstroke or so that one has more of an
Speaker 3: artistic appeal, almost like each one is unique.
Speaker 1: Right, this is making me want to cry. That's like
Speaker 1: such a wonderful way of putting it. Like that makes
Speaker 1: every mechanical watch seems so much more emotional.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: When you consider that there's like a person behind it
Speaker 1: working on this, who's gone through all this schooling, squinting,
Speaker 1: like looking at these tiny cogs. Yeah, that's pretty nuts.
Speaker 1: How do you even deal with those tiny tools?
Speaker 3: It's a lot of repetition and training, learning to look
Speaker 3: at things in a certain way. Being able to see
Speaker 3: perfection is really important, and when you go to school
Speaker 3: you actually spend about the first six months just learning
Speaker 3: how to see if your work is perfect or not.
Speaker 3: And by perfect I mean like down to twenty times magnification,
Speaker 3: So learning to see any imperfection and then actually act
Speaker 3: on correcting it is a big part of learning how
Speaker 3: to work with everything, even just making sure your tools
Speaker 3: are perfect. That's the base for good watchmaking, is.
Speaker 1: That part of your personality. Are you a perfectionist? Is
Speaker 1: your house like immaculate? Are your tax returns sparkling?
Speaker 3: It does kind of be becom ingrained in everything you do. However,
Speaker 3: I do also enjoy working on cars, and the reason
Speaker 3: I like that is because if something doesn't fit, you
Speaker 3: can bang it with the hammer. If something's not exactly perfect,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter so much. So it's there's other parts
Speaker 3: of my life where I kind of relax a little
Speaker 3: bit and don't focus so much on the tiny little
Speaker 3: details that I focus on with watches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure cars just seem like these big, crazy
Speaker 1: like working on a dinosaur, like a like doing surgery
Speaker 1: on a huge animal. You know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's got to be so different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all the parts are greasy and dirty, and
Speaker 3: watchmaking is much cleaner.
Speaker 1: When you decided to form your own company, wiss like,
Speaker 1: what what did you want to do differently?
Speaker 3: Well? I truly believe that mechanical watches are very important
Speaker 3: because we don't need clocks or watches. We have that everywhere.
Speaker 3: The time telling part is not my main interest. The
Speaker 3: art behind it is so beautiful and the amount of
Speaker 3: work that goes into it is recognized. So for me,
Speaker 3: I wanted to take that and expose more people to it.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of people who they don't
Speaker 3: even really know about mechanical watches. They may have heard it,
Speaker 3: but they don't understand it. I'll show my watch to
Speaker 3: people and I'll tell them it's mechanical, and then they'll
Speaker 3: see the movement and they'll still ask me, where's the battery?
Speaker 1: Ha ha? Right. I think a lot of people like,
Speaker 1: of course a watch is mechanical, and you're like, no,
Speaker 1: there's actually like taxonomic things like if it's a quartz watch,
Speaker 1: there's a battery, and if it's a mechanical watch, it's
Speaker 1: all based on springs and tension, and there's far more
Speaker 1: parts and more complexity to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right. I feel like you're kind of like the Jack
Speaker 1: White of horology. There's something about mechanical watches that's very
Speaker 1: like a kin to, like I appreciate hearing music on
Speaker 1: wax cylinders and vinyl and you know what I mean
Speaker 1: very much.
Speaker 3: So, just like winding your watch every morning, it becomes
Speaker 3: this ritual. And because my watches have a display back,
Speaker 3: I always wind mine looking at the movement.
Speaker 1: A display back is where if you flip over a
Speaker 1: mechanical watch, you can see the guts tiktoking and working
Speaker 1: and clicketty clocketing and doing all of their horological magic. Now,
Speaker 1: I thought these were just glass backs, but I looked
Speaker 1: and know oftentimes in really good watches, including camerons, they're
Speaker 1: not glass. They're made of polished sapphire crystal, which is
Speaker 1: hard as hell.
Speaker 3: And I watch all the wheels turn and it's like
Speaker 3: maybe thirty seconds, but I do it every morning, and
Speaker 3: then when I look at my watch, I know that
Speaker 3: I've wound it and set it. And it's almost like
Speaker 3: this connection you have, like if you had an animal
Speaker 3: and you feed it in the morning. You know you're
Speaker 3: feeding your watch every morning.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's an interesting way of looking at It's kind
Speaker 1: of a thirty second mechanical meditation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I love that your watches have that display back.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a sleeping beauty glass coffin where
Speaker 1: you can see inside.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, And was that like one of the first things
Speaker 1: that when you're like, well, I have a watch company,
Speaker 1: it's going to be displaybacks all the way.
Speaker 3: Definitely, Yeah, because, like I said, I want to show
Speaker 3: mechanical watchmaking to a lot more people, especially here in
Speaker 3: the US, where we used to make a lot of watches.
Speaker 3: It used to be a major industry here. There used
Speaker 3: to be a lot of watchmakers around the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 3: It was a massive industry, right, and you would actually
Speaker 3: meet watchmakers. But now I'm the only watchmaker that people meet.
Speaker 3: Usually they're like, oh, I've never met a watchmaker, this
Speaker 3: is amazing. What does that mean? What do you do?
Speaker 3: How did you become a watchmaker? It's always interesting to
Speaker 3: talk to people.
Speaker 1: So did you listen to like every drop of S Town,
Speaker 1: that podcast about horology?
Speaker 3: I did not.
Speaker 1: Did you listen to any of it?
Speaker 3: I have not yet, Cameron, I's.
Speaker 1: Gonna bounce in here with a quick email update. I figured, okay,
Speaker 1: we recorded this a few months ago. He probably listened
Speaker 1: to it, so I'll get his reaction. I emailed the company.
Speaker 1: I got this back. Cameron still hasn't listened to S Town,
Speaker 1: but I would estimate he's had about seventy people ask
Speaker 1: him thus far.
Speaker 2: Oops.
Speaker 1: End quote. I'm just saying, just put it on your list.
Speaker 1: Do you listen to anything when you're watchmaking? Or do
Speaker 1: you just need like the sound of silence?
Speaker 3: Usually silence, But sometimes if I have a lot to
Speaker 3: get done, I'll turn on some music and that helps
Speaker 3: me sit at the bench for a longer period of time.
Speaker 1: What kind of jams we already know he's not a
Speaker 1: huge fan of jay Z and Kanye, classical or just
Speaker 1: like old Carly Simon.
Speaker 3: Sometimes when I polish, I'll listen to classical music if
Speaker 3: I'm at the polishing machine, but usually just a bunch
Speaker 3: of and them mixes. You're just like Pandora anything. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: play me.
Speaker 1: Some hot jams.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of questions that people want to
Speaker 1: ask you, so I'm going to fire them up. This
Speaker 1: is kind of like a speed round where I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna lob a bunch of questions that people want me
Speaker 1: to ask you. Okay, Emily was like, did you listen
Speaker 1: to Estown? Everyone wants to feel this test down. Elspeth
Speaker 1: wants to know what is your absolute favorite time piece
Speaker 1: you've ever worked on the rarest or your favorite that
Speaker 1: you've ever worked on?
Speaker 3: The rarest that I've ever worked on? Was a grand
Speaker 3: complication from Automarpige.
Speaker 1: First off, grand complication sounds like a Wes Anderson movie.
Speaker 1: Is this an expensive watch? Well, it's not too bad.
Speaker 1: It retails for nine hundred and ninety six thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: but The good news is that I think there's free shipping.
Speaker 3: They've utilized multiple complications in one watch. Okay, plit's second chronograph,
Speaker 3: perpetual calendar, minute repeater, and a lot of people this
Speaker 3: won't mean anything to them.
Speaker 1: I don't know what any of those mean.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: A complication is that, like when there's a dial within
Speaker 1: the dial.
Speaker 3: Well, there will be extra sub dials because the more
Speaker 3: complex it watches, the more it needs to tell you.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: The minute repeater, though, is what I like the most
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: What is that? So?
Speaker 3: The minute repeater is it's a chiming watch, so you
Speaker 3: actually pull a slide and then it will sound off
Speaker 3: the time. Oh so kind of like a grandfather clock.
Speaker 3: M it will actually repeat the time to you on demand,
Speaker 3: down to the minute.
Speaker 1: How does it do that? That seems like it's all mechanical,
Speaker 1: so it's a musical instrument. Also, exactly how big was
Speaker 1: this thing?
Speaker 3: It certainly doesn't seem that big. It's still smaller than
Speaker 3: like a pocket watch.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Yeah, so you got to work on that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Were you so nervous?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How did you prep for it?
Speaker 3: Well, there wasn't any prepping for me. It was a
Speaker 3: just a simple little fix on it.
Speaker 1: I'm physically nauseous just thinking about.
Speaker 3: That watch has fifteen hundred pieces.
Speaker 1: Oh god. Yeah, and they're all about the size of
Speaker 1: a grain of rice.
Speaker 3: In that because it's so complex, many of them are
Speaker 3: like an eighth the size of a grain of rice.
Speaker 1: I can't even y, I can't. I don't understand how
Speaker 1: you're not. Your palms aren't just like so sweaty. You
Speaker 1: can't even handle this. Stuff just moves slow, very slow. Okay,
Speaker 1: Lena wants to know if you're a horologist. I love
Speaker 1: this question a lot. Do you feel like a total
Speaker 1: sell out if you want to buy a fipbit or
Speaker 1: a smart watch?
Speaker 3: I would feel pretty weird wearing that. Yeah, it would
Speaker 3: be hard to tell people what I do all day
Speaker 3: if I had a fitbit on my wrist, not to
Speaker 3: say there's anything wrong with it, but maybe on the
Speaker 3: other wrist, and then a mechanical watch on the on
Speaker 3: one wrist with the fitbit on the other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like you'd have to get an ankle
Speaker 1: fitbit or something, you know what I mean, hide that under.
Speaker 3: Your pants exactly.
Speaker 1: You can't. Your wrist is good real estate, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: better be reserved for like a mechanical watch, maybe a
Speaker 1: medical RT bracelet. But I don't think you could just
Speaker 1: like slap a live strong band on there and like
Speaker 1: a fitbit. Okay. A few people asked, Britt wants to
Speaker 1: know why some clocks click as seconds tick by, but
Speaker 1: others are silent.
Speaker 3: So they all make noise, all of them. Okay, the
Speaker 3: difference is how loud. Oh, and it really just has
Speaker 3: to do with a couple of the components that actually
Speaker 3: knock into each other.
Speaker 1: Oh and knock into each other, yeah, on accident or
Speaker 1: on purpose.
Speaker 3: On purpose. Okay, there's five noises that the mechanical watch
Speaker 3: will make. And that's actually how we time the mechanical
Speaker 3: watch and make sure that it is keeping time accurately. Oh,
Speaker 3: because we know how many how many noises it should
Speaker 3: make in a set period of time based on the
Speaker 3: frequency of that escapement balance wheel and hairspring. What we'll
Speaker 3: do is we actually lengthen and shorten the spring that
Speaker 3: hairspring in the watch.
Speaker 1: Oh, got it. So that's how if a watch is
Speaker 1: faster slow, it would have something to do probably with
Speaker 1: the hairspring.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah, it would likely have something to do
Speaker 3: with with your hairspring or some of the oils that
Speaker 3: are on the on the parts associated with the escapement.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have to wash your hands before you use it,
Speaker 1: probably right, or you'll get your grammy dirty hand.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, definitely, no touching the parts with your bare hands.
Speaker 1: Oh you just need like you need tiny tweezers.
Speaker 3: Everything is only touched with tweezers and small other little
Speaker 3: prodding type devices to move things around. We never touch
Speaker 3: the components with their bare hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess there's like you don't want pepperoni smudges
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 3: I think exactly. Fondliness is very or when working with watches.
Speaker 1: No one's eating lasagna at their desk.
Speaker 3: No, definitely not.
Speaker 1: God, can you imagine what a nightmare?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would not want to think about think about
Speaker 3: opening that watch up in ten years and finding little
Speaker 3: bits of oh god, red sauce or something like that.
Speaker 1: Oh god. No. Okay, Well, tell me what your last
Speaker 1: question last two questions, like what is your least favorite
Speaker 1: thing about what you do? And then we'll end on
Speaker 1: a positive note. You can tell me your favorite thing
Speaker 1: about what you do, but what's your least like, what's
Speaker 1: the one thing that drives you crazy, or that you
Speaker 1: didn't expect to encounter when you got into this field,
Speaker 1: or questions that people ask you that are annoying.
Speaker 3: Everything about the making of watches I absolutely love. However,
Speaker 3: the business side sometimes gets in the way of that,
Speaker 3: well often gets in the way of that, and it
Speaker 3: kind of takes me away from why I got into
Speaker 3: this in the first place, which was to work on
Speaker 3: the watches. So I'd say my most favorite thing is
Speaker 3: developing something new and designing and kind of prototyping, testing something,
Speaker 3: making something that I haven't made before. That is very
Speaker 3: exciting to me.
Speaker 1: So do you have a favorite moment that you've ever
Speaker 1: had doing what you do?
Speaker 3: More So, something I didn't expect that would be really
Speaker 3: exciting is driving around and looking at the person next
Speaker 3: to us in the car and they're wearing a watch
Speaker 3: that I made. Something like that is really exciting. That
Speaker 3: just it blows me away, and it reminds me why
Speaker 3: I got into this, which was to expose more people
Speaker 3: to mechanical watches and I try and restore an industry
Speaker 3: and just create this resurgence of watchmaking here in the US.
Speaker 1: Do you ever roll down your window and you're like,
Speaker 1: bro that's my watch.
Speaker 3: I haven't in the car, but when I see people
Speaker 3: in person, I'll usually say your watch, and then I'll
Speaker 3: show them mine and I'll let them know that I
Speaker 3: made theirs.
Speaker 1: Do they freak out?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Usually yeah.
Speaker 1: I bet people want to hug you, but they're like,
Speaker 1: good job, bro. Are they give you like that backpat
Speaker 1: that man backpath that means I respect you?
Speaker 3: And sometimes I won't even notice. I'll be at a
Speaker 3: restaurant or something and I'll hear someone say, Cameron, Karen,
Speaker 3: is that you? And you know lo and behold it's
Speaker 3: somebody that's got my watch, and no way they recognize me, and.
Speaker 1: You're like famous horologists over her. Thanks very much. I
Speaker 1: never would have thought, well, where can people find you?
Speaker 1: Number one? What's website for your company? And also do
Speaker 1: you guys maintain like a social media presence so people
Speaker 1: can go get your wares.
Speaker 3: Yeah, our website is Weisswatchcompany dot com and that's all
Speaker 3: spelled out. We also have Facebook and Instagram, so we
Speaker 3: and on Instagram. On Facebook, we're oftentimes showing the workshop
Speaker 3: and how we make certain certain components, how we assemble
Speaker 3: something new things we're working on. So for people who
Speaker 3: are really interested in watchmaking, they can kind of get
Speaker 3: an inside look at how watches are made.
Speaker 1: And if someone wants to be a horologist, well start young.
Speaker 1: Maybe no, so you don't.
Speaker 3: Have to find it young if you're interested. For me,
Speaker 3: it just so happens. I found it young and it's
Speaker 3: a major passion of mine, So that's perfect for me.
Speaker 1: So if you happen to own a Wie watch and
Speaker 1: you see Cameron around, you should definitely high five him.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering how much his watches cost, which
Speaker 1: after writing up this episode, I was like, how much
Speaker 1: of these watches cost. They're not that bad. There are
Speaker 1: mechanical watches. They started under a thousand dollars, some of
Speaker 1: them go to seven thousand dollars. But in terms of
Speaker 1: other watches, they're not like second mortgage level expensive watches,
Speaker 1: really nice watches. I'm just gonna say, if you're a
Speaker 1: horlu j file, horralo file, horror file. So I suppose
Speaker 1: it's time to wrap this up. Thank you guys for listening, subscribe, rate, review,
Speaker 1: all those things, and thank you to everyone who is supporting.
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Speaker 1: by doing that. I heart you. Don't be afraid to
Speaker 1: ask smart people stupid questions before the bell tolls for us.
Speaker 1: All next week bugs, entomology, packadermatology, homeology, cryptozoology, lithology in technology, meteorology, pedernology, nathology, seriology, selenology,