My father was a watchmaker. Fond memories of going with him in his van to the various jewellers he did work for picking up and dropping off. I remember being given a big metal lamp from his workshop when he passed away and realising the body of the lamp was not isolated from the incoming power, although luckily not at mains voltage (not what killed him).

Maybe it was a touch lamp? (Like a clapper but works when you touch the body not through sound)

Not unless touch lamps are supposed to give you an electric shock :)

Some of the older/cheaper touch lights did/do give a slight shock! It was a different time. (They worked by detecting a change in resistance).

Fond memories and a slightly terrifying electrical inheritance

Is this still a viable career?

It depends on what you consider viable, and your level.

As someone in love with fountain pens and ink, I can tell you that there are absolutely wealthy pen turners, private designers, and the same with watches.

I'm glad fountain pens came up here. There's a shop a few hours away from where I stay in an old town in India called the "Pen Hospital". It was a thriving business in the 60s when my father went to college. Lots of people came there mostly to repair fountain pens. He's mostly just a stationery store right now but if you take a fountain pen there for repair, he does it for free just as a nod to the tradition I guess.

My friend told me when he visited India that they repair everything over there: it's a beautiful thing IMO

That's an exaggeration. Things are not as repairable as they used to be and people are not as thrifty as they used to be. However, I do think the culture of repairing things is strong and mostly financially motivated.

My dream is to visit this store. I've heard that it's by far the greatest modern fountain pen store in the world. I'm dying to go, just for this. I've ordered from them before - all the way to Canada and Israel. A gem, might be my favourite store in the world.

I don't know if that's the same. There's another here called Kim and Co. which makes ebonite pens without fillers. They became popular via. social media and a lot of people ordered pens from them. Perhaps that's the one you're referring to?

No, I'm referring to Pen Hospital in Kolkata: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kolkata-pen-hospital. By ordered, I mean had friends who have stumbled across it and brought me things. If there were a website mind you.

I don't have the socials, so I don't see things like what you mentioned.

Ah. This is something I'm not familiar with. This is the Pen Hospital I was referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2a_yKeCS7M

Oooh thank you!

highly doubtful if it was your career and you are just starting

probably would make more $ from it if you were a YouTuber or TikTok creator and did "watchmaking" content.

I mean people do make a living doing it, but my understanding is that it requires a lot of hustle—as a hobbyist you can just take your time and meditate and take a million pictures, but if you're trying to make a living you have to focus on volume, volume, volume... So you have to have a system, this one goes in the cleaner and you are immediately disassembling the next, another is in a tray next to the machine that tells you how fast or slow it's ticking... It is maybe less glamorous than it first sounds.

Can one end up working for TAG out of this for example? What does it take for that career ladder to happen?

Probably going to the school above is a good start.

To my understanding it depends mostly on the applicant age.

Watchmaking can take a heavy toll on eyesight, due to working with magnifying glasses on tiny parts during decades. Also each brand has unique processes and machinery, for which they have expensive learning courses.

Thus they would rarely consider applicants past their forties even if they have experience and favorable relations.

I would think so, in the same way instrument maker or painting maintenance can be careers: not for many, but a decent career for a few aficionados.

It’s not likely to employ millions of people, but there will be demand from people with serious money. For instrument making, research labs will need specialized glass parts, for example; for painting maintenance, museums have a need to keep their centuries-old pieces in the best condition. For watches, if you pay a few million for a watch, paying 10k a year for maintenance should not be a problem. For that money, you can make a decent living of 20 customers a year in many countries.

Availability of parts is something of an issue --- couldn't get my father's 27-jewel Seiko repaired for want of parts, and still trying to justify the expense of either salvaging from another watch or paying someone to fabricate a replacement part.

I wonder too. About a year ago I dropped a ~1970s Citizen mechanical watch[1] of mine and it shattered into a few pieces. I took it to a small-device repair place that advertised they can fix watches. The guy there said it was out of his abilities, but his business could send it out to some guy in California to repair. I took him up on that and a few weeks later it came back in one piece. So I guess someone out there is making a business of it. Cost me like $200 which is more than I paid for the watch, hahah.

[1] This model! https://www.fratellowatches.com/citizen-homer-second-setting...

The image of him in the home shop with the radio playing and people still bringing him supposedly unfixable things is wonderful