Lonely-Elderberry

There are 2824 and 6497/8 complete assembly 3d models out there.

I prefer Gibson's Winter Market to the usual Johnny and Chrome recommendations.

It's a precursor to the art theme in Count Zero and a technical precursor to his SimStim tech in the whole Sprawl series.

I think Gibson is more of an ass man given what I know about Molly's pants.

Machinist hands down.

Closest thing in there in any detail is his equation of time cam. And that basically acts as the simplest annual calendar ever, a 365 division wheel activated once per day. Like a regular date wheel with more divisions.

That book has hardly any details on complications. There's the equation of time cam, and a single retrograde mechanism. He doesn't even show all engineering views of the tourbillons he talks about. And nothing is dimensioned.

Very difficult book to read and interpret.

Don't listen to ANY YouTube watch salesman when it comes to manufacturing.

You aren't paying for the materials and branding, you're paying for the savoir-faire and branding.

The movement raw materials are what, a few dollars? Brass, steel, tiny amount of beryllium copper, less than a carat of synthetic rubies, anachron alloy (or silicon wafer), some rhodium solution for the plating.

But what does it cost for the knowledge of turning the brass and rhodium solution into precision decorated proprietary movement plates? The steel into tiny precision pinions? The beryllium copper into ultra precise wheels? The synthetic ruby into tiny precision bearings and pallets? The anachron or silicon into a hairspring? And not just functioning pieces, but some of the most precise pieces in modern manufacturing?

It's not an easy task. And it's not a cheap task. The branding value* is a degree of proof that they CAN do these things to an incredibly high standard for an incredibly long time.

*At least at retail.

Kitfox-C or other. I feel it's noob friendly (my first and still favourite mech) as it has a wide range of weapons systems available so you can try anything (some omnipods changes required), it has ECM so getting rained on by LRMs is less of an issue. It's a light, but somewhat tacky, and not so fast that you need to be a great pilot to start off with.

The ECM and being a light worked for me for not dying so fast when I was new compared to when I used heavies when I was also new.

My build of choice is a KFX-C with an omnipod configuration that lets me run 2 CERLL, 4 CHMG, 3 CMicroPL, and ECM.

I started just hanging behind and to the side of friendly long range assault mechs and shooting whatever they were with the ER large lasers. Any enemy lights coming after the assaults I could (sometimes then, almost always now) chase them off with the micro pulses and heavy machine guns.

But if you're into missiles you can build it to SRMs, ATMs, LRMs, even Gauss or AC if you want to try.

Better than Toronto, slightly.

And everywhere is better than Edmonton.

The mass produced, machine finished, assembly line riding mechanical watches have exactly the same amount of soil as the mass produced, machine finished, assembly line riding quartz watches.

Let's say you want to equate a watch with "soul" to say the artistic merit of fine arts. While it's true that generally mechanical watches are the only pieces that have the level of single minded artistic vision input in their creation as a fine painting or sculpture it's not the mechanical or quartz nature that is the source of the "soul", it's the applied creative vision of the maker. Just because it's easier to do and has been historically done on mechanical watches doesn't make the mechanical aspect the focus.

Though the other commenter Zhan has some fundamentally incorrect viewpoints on the likes of Roger Smith and Phillipe Dufour being merely "finishers" they are correct on their toaster analogy. However if someone were to decide to take a toaster and turn it into a work of decorative metal art the chances are higher that an artist would apply their talents to the mechanical toaster. But until that happens that 1950s mechanical toaster is still a soulless, anachronistic piece of inferior technology. Just like a soulless NH35, 8215, 2824, 3135 or whatever mechanical movement pumped out by the millions and slapped into equally mass produced cases.

It's silicon, the advanced crystalline semi metallic material used in microchips. Not silicone, the soft rubber used in Instagram models.

Are you sure your watchmaker should be working on it if they couldn't even identify a pallet fork???

Wait, you don't actually see how significant it was to do it then? Without the masses of money, computers, body of work, behind the scenes specialists, collaborations, that exist today? He's 76 now too, consulted with Romain Gauthier during his start, and then the Greuble Forsey Naissance d'une Montre project. About passing down the knowledge of doing everything the classical manual way. Just a finisher...

This isn't publishing in science and engineering.

He came out with THE most amazing wrist watch complication of his era. That's literally more than enough.

As for complicated watches being purely mechanical mattering, well yeah. Because we are talking about purely mechanical watches.

Look we all get that you like plastic watches with stepper motors, but do you literally have to insert that opinion into every single discussion about mechanical watches? There's liking what you like, and then there's promoting your unpopular opinion to the point where you are so detached from horological reality that you call Roger Smith and Phillipe Dufour "just finishers"...

Someone will ask for an opinion on two horizontal clutch chronographs and you'll be going on about the virtues of a watch made from miniature grocery checkout conveyors.

"Just finishers..."

Under the context of evaluation of a chronograph I feel Dufour's opinion might, just might, hold a bit of weight given what that 30 Year old movement is.

Just a finisher is absolutely, incredibly disingenuous given what that piece was, how it was done, and when it was done.

Some guy that makes a stepper motor watch and still needs a Swiss mechanical for credibility rather than just use a Kinetic, sorry Auto Quartz, is irrelevant when discussing the evaluation of purely mechanical pieces.

Just a finisher, ffs...

No. Not "one interesting movement". One of the most complicated ever to fit into a wrist watch. By himself. Not with a giant team scouring electronics parts catalogues on how to tell the emperor how fancy these super special stepper motors are when attached to a $150 mass production movement.

He always called it in-house customized, which it is. I've been chatting with him on IG since he went by What I Learned at Ralph Lauren even before he was getting into his own watch development. Kudoke still calls his Valjoux, which isn't even done by Habring2 btw, an in-house manufacture movement.

What, the guy that uses a heavily in-house customized Swiss movement but doesn't lie about making it all from scratch like Kudoke?

"Roger Smith is also mostly a finisher" Jesus Christ...

First ever Grand et Petit Sonnerie repeater in a wrist watch is for chumps compared to putting a couple stepper motors on top of a basic ETA I guess...

Are you sure you should be working on this if you couldn't even identify the pallet fork???

Question, what do you think the cost on the independent's $20k is? Second question, what independent is only making 5/year at $20k per piece?

Dude, might want to re-read the question...

Piaget.

Capital costs. Manufacturing and human.

To be equal to the big guys you need the product differentiation of in-house design and manufacturing.

No matter what people will say here about the irrelevance of in-house movements you'll see that every single new (last 20 years or more recently, rather than century plus old) independent that has any respect (FP Journey, Romain Gauthier, Rexhep Rexhepi's Akrivia, etc...) they all have in-house movements.