Watchmaker Course

The watchmaker is someone who builds, repairs or sells watches for a trade and works in his own shop as a self-employed and independent worker. The watch is an instrument of timekeeping and, in a more general sense, of measuring the passage of time. It essentially consists of an engine, an energy transmission and control system as well as a real time indicator, the dial. From pendulum clocks to solar-powered models, in many eras the clock has gone beyond the meaning for which it was designed - that of recording the passage of time - becoming a status symbol, decoder of the habits and customs of different peoples and of different generations. The need to measure the passage of time was felt since ancient times. The simplest possible instrument was the sundial, consisting at least of a pole driven into the ground, the use of which is documented in China starting from the third millennium BC. The Stonehenge complex is considered an astronomical device for determining the moment of the equinoxes. In archaic visualization systems, the functional element was also a visualizer of the measured quantity. For example, the shortening of the length of a candle is a direct indication of the time elapsed. The information displayed is obtained by analogy with the information produced by the physical phenomenon, hence the term analog. In the sundials we begin to have the concept of a dial, that is a panel equipped to highlight the reading of the time. With the advent of mechanical watches, starting from the water hourglasses with float and indicator up to the pendulum clock, the use of the dial with hands becomes natural. In the best known version, two or more indicators, generally of a tapered / elongated shape, rotate on a scale in which the hour, minute and second indications are engraved. The axes of the hands are usually coaxial, but not always. In wrist chronographs there are often minor dials within the main dial.