![]() The watch was produced using production-level manufacturing equipment across four different locations in the UK. Cowell has undertaken this challenge over the past three years and answered using his pictured prototype watch to illustrate. To help understand the 3D printing precision gap, I sat down with British watch designer, aerospace engineer, and expert in 3D printing, Gregg Cowell. The Swatch Group’s Nivarox is among the few companies that can mass-produce them - and they still don’t have very many competitors. For example, there are only a handful of companies that can produce their own regulation system balance springs. Much of the know-how remains tightly guarded at companies in Switzerland. In many ways, the industrial machine that the traditional watch industry built to mass-produce precision parts is a key component in its longevity. The current landscape of commercial and industrial 3D printing machines simply aren’t suited for the tiny sizes and near-perfect tolerances even the most basic of mechanical watch movements require. Precision intolerance is one of the major reasons we haven’t seen printed movements yet. Timepiece aficionados often forget that beneath the dial, a movement’s components make up the majority of parts in a watch - which typically number in the hundreds of - if not several hundred - parts). ![]() Certain forms of metal can now be 3D-printed, as well - which is where real watchmaking comes in. And with regard to 3D printing, the frontier has moved beyond plastic. ![]() No more Rolex shortages, right? But while we can print basic parts at home in rough plastic, it’s more complicated when it comes to precise metal parts. You take a CAD model of the watch, feed it into a machine, and out pops your product. The layperson might think 3D printing a watch is straightforward. So, with all these advancements, why isn’t anyone able to solve the challenge of 3D printing a fully metallic watch? The answer comes down (ironically) to accuracy and precision. And your smartwatch can replace some functionality of your phone. Over the same recent timeframe, the most visible miniaturization of consumer technology means smartphones can now replace laptops. Rather, they are mostly decorative or helpful in the context of testing new product designs. Admittedly, these uses are not related to internal watch movements or mechanisms. Lange & Söhne, Parmigiani, and the R&D Q-Lab at Roger Dubuis. Elsewhere, we’ve seen 3D Printing used for rapid prototyping in R&D departments at IWC, A. This makes Panerai one of the few companies to take 3D printing to production. More recently, Panerai used the 3D printing technique DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) on the case of the Luminor Marina – 44mm (PAM01662).
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