Calmness Personified
Julius Breyer is a watchmaking apprentice at Beyer. How is it changing him? How does he navigate the complex watch universe? And how does he see the future?
With watchmakers, it’s a bit like with chefs. Often they are the only ones who really understand which ingredients work a minor miracle in what combination and under what circumstances. And they usually prefer to remain modestly in the background while their creations are sold by others.
Julius Breyer seems like the prototype of just such a watchmaker. The third-year student is not just a quiet person, but one that exudes calm. When he answers a question, he only does so when the answer seems sufficiently well sculpted to pass his lips. There isn’t one word too many or too few, pretty much the way he intends the end product of his work to turn out. He clamps a blank made of blued hard metal, as tiny as a speck of dust, into the hand lathe on his workbench. “I’m going to lathe it into a 0.33 millimetre shaft for an anchor,” he says, as if it were as easy as making a good salad dressing.
TRAINING UNDER SELF-HYPNOSIS
Julius Breyer owes his ability to focus not only to his natural talent, but also to his hobby, crossbow shooting. In the last Swiss Championships, he came seventh. The regular training also helps the eighteen-year-old in his job: “When I have to attach a wafer-thin spiral spring with a steady hand or file off an almost invisible elevation in the tenth-of-a-millimetre range, I put myself under a kind of self-hypnosis, just like when I’m shooting. Then I find myself in a tunnel and am absolutely focused, absolutely calm. I love this state.”
That he might become a watchmaker one day, was a surprise to Julius Breyer himself. Neither watches nor other status symbols played any role in his family. For him, the biggest luxury life had to offer was his bicycle. He also liked Lego, the more intricate the better; and the more difficult the challenge, the cooler it was. When he was offered a taster apprenticeship at school, he knew that he wanted to do something with his hands. However, he found polymechanics too crude. Via micromechanics, he came to watchmaking – and thanks to his good academic achievements, to an apprenticeship at Beyer.
“Since then, I’ve been making discoveries several times a week,” Julius Breyer reflects enthusiastically. “For three years now, it’s like I’ve been part of gigantic puzzle, and every new jigsaw piece that connects with something I know is a thrill. It’s intoxicating, you almost can’t stop.” He considers it a special privilege to be able to work on exhibits from the museum alongside high-calibre watches that others can only dream of. It makes him the envy of his fellow students at the vocational college. “The Beyer universe comprises unique dimensions. Of course that’s something to be proud of.”
But this kind of an apprenticeship is by no means a walk in the park: it requires a lot of hard work. Julius Breyer learnt the basic principle by studying clocks. “It takes a good six months to really understand a simple clock and to be able to appraise each tiny component.” Once he was well versed enough in clocks, he moved on to pocket watches. “Everything is so tiny – you don’t expect that,” he laughs. “I enjoyed this phase, because it wasn’t long before the instructor gave me watches that I was allowed to examine and analyse for defects on my own.”
“EVERYTHING IS SO TINY -
YOU DON’T EXPECT THAT.”
With wristwatches, Julius Breyer finally immersed himself totally in this ultra-filigree micro- universe in which it is all about hundredths of a millimetre, about the absolute minimisation of friction, about the perpetual motion in the tiniest of spaces in which fifty to two hundred diminutive components have to interact perfectly.
Getting to the grips with the movement is the icing on the cake. The meat of the training, however, involves filing, drilling, riveting, lathing, milling and grinding. For hours, days, weeks. So that the tools merge with the hand, and the hand becomes fast and effective, until at some point it knows what to do before the brain does. In any case: the tools – they’re the first thing an apprentice watchmaker makes. And they will stay with him for the rest of his life, because the hand doesn’t want to work with anything else. A set comprises a good 30 individual tools. “When I made them, I didn’t know what I needed most of them for,” laughs Julius Breyer. His favourites are the pointed cone burr and the cross burr: “They really turned out perfect.”
PLEASANT PROSPECTS
Julius Breyer also sees stability as a major advantage of his profession. The work of the watchmaker will not change significantly in the coming years and decades. Artificial intelligence, which is currently transforming everyday life in so many professions, has left the atelier virtually unscathed. “Jobs aren’t exactly a dime a dozen in German-speaking Switzerland – but the French-speaking parts are so beautiful, I’m sure I could tolerate living there,” he jokes.
And of course friends sometimes ask him if he can take a look at a watch that’s no longer ticking correctly. Despite his fascination, he would never do that, says Julius Breyer. Not only because he can’t open a watch without the brand-specific special tool anyway. But also because he isn’t “finished” yet, as he puts it. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he made a mistake – he is and remains the focused perfectionist.
THREE QUESTIONS FOR THE INSTRUCTOR
Damian Ahcin is director of Beyer’s watch atelier. One thing he considers extremely important is that his apprentices also learn from history.
What skills are needed if someone wants to be considered for an apprenticeship at Beyer’s watchmaking atelier?
Geometry, algebra, spatial perception: these are some of the disciplines in which our profession has high requirements. That’s why our apprentices must perform academically to a very good standard. And generally have an interest in natural sciences: after all, what we’re trying to do is nothing other than mechanically categorise and represent our universe and our idea of time.
What is different about a watchmaking apprenticeship at Beyer? What can Beyer give the apprentices?
A holistic, comprehensive training programme that goes beyond the usual content and the needs of industrial companies. We train our apprentices as comprehensively as was customary 25 years ago, on clocks, pocket watches and timepieces from the museum. They have to know history and learn old manufacturing techniques. And they sometimes work on watches that others have only heard of in theory.
What about watchmakers’ job security? Are there enough jobs?
There is more than enough work for a good watchmaker – more and more watches are being made, and more and more old watches are being passed on to the next generation. And the good thing is: we watchmakers are getting better every year because we are constantly confronted with new variations and possibilities.
A watchmaking apprenticeship lasts four years. Beyer Chronometrie takes on an apprentice every two years.
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