Time flies

< Back to Magazine No. 01-2024

tornos

Time flies

Weiss Watch Company continues to take bold leaps

When Weiss Watch Company founder Cameron Weiss takes a leap, it’s a bold one. Weiss will mark its 10th anniversary in June 2023. In the past three years, it has moved the business 2,000 miles across the country from its Los Angeles, California, birthplace to historic quarters in a former vinyl record label printing shop in Nashville, Tennessee. With expert support from Tornos, it has become an accomplished Swiss-type lathe business.

“This allows me to just focus on making and assembling watches while the machines are working hard.”

Along the way, Weiss has managed to do the impossible: He has made appreciable progress toward restoring prestige to American watchmaking: He introduced his first dive and automatic watches; significantly reduced the number of watches the company produces while more than doubling their prices in order to ensure highest quality while meeting high demand; trimmed his workforce from five employees to just two – himself and his wife, Whitney; and began machining in-house several watch components that he previously outsourced. The rightsizing was made possible by the company’s investments in highly complex and automated manufacturing equipment; the pared-down output maintains the highest level of watchmaking craftsmanship – including in the hand finishing and assembly stages – that truly distinguishes its handmade products. Ten years into this changefilled journey as a watchmaker and business owner, Weiss is as enthusiastic and willing as ever to take on a challenge.

“TISIS takes some stress off of me because I don’t know any alternative to TISIS.”

Capitalizing on Tornos solutions

“Five years ago, I was afraid to touch a Swiss-type machine, but I’ve always wanted to work with them and make the parts – I just didn’t think I could do it,” Weiss explained. “Then, out of necessity with us wanting to move the business and realizing I’d have to find new workers – during the COVID-19 pandemic – I realized that being able to work alone would be very valuable. And Swiss-type turning technology today is at a level where I can do that because our volume and product mix are not huge. I saw that I could really capitalize on using really good equipment like the Tornos SwissNano and Swiss DT 26 to make our parts – and that it wouldn’t be such a huge undertaking if I could program the machines properly.”

That’s where Tornos’ application expertise made a world of difference. “We don’t make high volume parts and we don’t make particularly expensive parts. But for me as a watchmaker, coming from the technical side and being able to make the parts in our own workshop and learn all about it, that’s the exciting part,” Weiss explained. “Time will tell whether this all becomes financially rewarding, but it’s been good enough to support the machine purchases – including the Tornos SwissNano in 2018 and a Tornos Swiss DT 26 last summer – so far. It’s just me running the machines now to make our parts so I’m focusing heavily on using the best technology possible – like the bar feeder on both of our Tornos Swiss-type machines so that I can just program the machine, turn it on, and it can run unattended through the night.

This allows me to just focus on making and assembling watches while the machines are working hard.” To make all that happen – right-sizing his workforce, insourcing an ever-expanding array of watch components, and optimal use of his own time – Weiss turned to Tornos for the technology and in-depth training to make himself a Swiss-type lathe programmer and operator. While he uses his SwissNano to make, for example, sliding pinions – the component that interacts with the watch’s setting wheels of the watch to enable the crown to be turned to move the hands on the watch – he uses his new Swiss DT 26 to produce the watch crown, the small knob that sits on the side of the watch case and allows adjustment of the time displayed.

Priceless Tornos training

Weiss credits Tornos application engineer Piotr Wilk, who is stationed in Poland and a former member of Tornos’ legendary “Jump Team” that can be dispatched anywhere in the world to support customers on-site, with getting him up to speed on the SwissNano and the Swiss DT 26. “Piotr is great, a really good teacher. He taught me the maintenance that needs to be done on the machines, where everything is located, what type of oil to use and where it goes, and what I needed to know about tool inserts for turning, the geometry, the different inserts that you need for different features – even just figuring out what companies to buy those tools from, because watch-making tools are very specific and very few companies make tools that are that small to cut super-specific watch features,” said Weiss, who considers that one-to-one tutoring a highvalue investment. “My Tornos training was priceless because it’s very difficult to find people to teach you – and if you can’t find the right people to teach you, even the best machines are absolutely worthless if you don’t know how to run them.”

“It’s really nice being able to track the 2D tool movements and see how the change in programming affects that.”

hat training has allowed Weiss to enjoy an unprecedented level of autonomy, as has Tornos’ TISIS software, which makes part programming a snap. “TISIS takes some stress off of me because I don’t know any alternative to TISIS. I have never programmed a Swiss-type machine at the controls, so I don’t even know what that would be like,” Weiss said. “It’s really nice being able to track the 2D tool movements and see how the change in programming affects that.” What’s next for the company that is now solely a family business ? Weiss said it’s important to him to maintain a connection with his community of customers, continue to fine-tune his knowledge of machining technologies, and introduce new models of watches “designed and built for everyday adventures.”