When the spindle broke off his wife’s sewing machine, Michael Sorkin refused to replace the device. Instead, he bought a 3D printer and built the part himself.
Four years later, he is using the technology to change how to make the Swiss watch you might get for Christmas.
On a rainy afternoon in his company’s dimly lit office in central Berlin, an employee in a white lab coat checks on the progress of six cubes tinted in see-through orange. A laser silently slices resin, layer by layer.
Photo: Bloomberg
Formlabs’ product: 3D printers. Interested customers include Swiss watchmakers and jewelers, which are quietly testing the process’ potential.
“If you don’t concern yourself with new technology, you’ll lose out,” said Sorkin, Formlabs Europe’s managing director, as he pointed to printed models of figurines used in movies and rings used by jewelers spread out on a table in a conference room. “We are disrupting an industry that hasn’t changed in centuries, and bringing fresh wind into it.”
The technology is also starting to be deployed in the Swiss chocolate industry, although it is less far along.
Nestle SA, the world’s biggest food company, uses 3D printing to research prototypes for chocolate confectionery and said it is interested in going further.
Zurich, Switzerland-based Barry Callebaut AG, which makes almost one-quarter of the world’s chocolate and supplies Unilever PLC with chocolate for its Magnum ice cream brand, is testing new ways of decorating and forming chocolate in its gourmet business.
For the makers of Swiss watches, embroiled in the most challenging times since the introduction of battery-powered timepieces in the 1970s, new technologies could help speed up manufacturing while containing costs.
Declining demand in Asia has spread to Europe and the US this year, leading companies including Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA to cut jobs, buy back unsold inventory from retailers and refocus on more affordable pieces.
About 64 percent of more than 50 watch executives surveyed by Deloitte this year said they already use 3D printing for prototypes.
Swatch Group AG said the technology is deployed for multiple uses.
TAG Heuer SA uses it for models of buckles and crowns. Romain Jerome, whose mechanical timepieces cost as much as 200,000 Swiss francs (US$194,818), has enlisted 3D companies Zedax SA and Materialise NV to print its prototypes of cases, dials and bracelets.
In 3D printing, objects are designed on a computer. A connected printer reads the file, then heats up the material of choice — from specialized plastic to metal to chocolate — to the point where it melts to a hot wax-like consistency. Then, it shoots out layer upon layer through a heated nozzle in the specified shape.
The process can cut down the time and effort in crafting desired products, while expanding design possibilities that might be too intricate for human hands.
Johann Rupert, chairman of Richemont, owner of the Cartier and Montblanc brands, last month said that the company needs to be more flexible, adding that might involve completely new innovative production methods that the group already has in some of its “secret labs.”
He did not specify whether they were related to 3D printing.
The impact the technology would have on the price tag of the timepieces could go both ways, according to Yves Bellouard, who holds Richemont’s chair in multi-scale manufacturing technologies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
“A personalized watch — a certain type of watch for one single person — would certainly be added value, and people would buy it for that, so the price could go up,” Bellouard said. “Simplified manufacturing by reducing the number of components could also make it cheaper in certain aspects.”
TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver said the transition is still at the beginning stages.
“Today, it’s more part of accessories, but we’re on the way,” Biver said by telephone. “You should never laugh at technology. There are many things that nobody would’ve thought possible — like that we’d walk on the moon some day.”
It might take time before watchmakers print an entire watch.
The equipment and materials can be pricey, and completely printed timepieces could hit resistance from customers who prefer handmade craftsmanship and quality, Romain Jerome CEO Manuel Emch said.
“Customers are increasingly looking for bespoke and unique pieces,” Emch said in a telephone interview. “There’s still a high barrier to integrate the elements of rapid manufacturing and prototyping into the world of handmade craftsmanship.”
Somerville, Massachusetts-based Formlabs is trying to break down those hurdles. Its European unit in Berlin sells thousands of 3D printers per year across all industries, including watchmaking, jewelry and dental.
Switzerland is its fifth-biggest market in Europe and the biggest for printers shipped to watchmakers and jewelers.
In Hedingen, a quiet village outside of Zurich, an engineer is pushing the frontiers of what is possible for watches.
Christoph Laimer, who started out 3D printing Lego bricks for his children, has printed one of the most complicated features in a timepiece.
In a workshop in his basement, Laimer this year made his own tourbillon — a spinning mechanism that is one of the most complicated features in a timepiece — using a 2,500 franc desktop 3D printer.
While the end product, in orange, red and black plastic materials, only runs for about 30 minutes after being wound, it demonstrates the potential for professional watchmakers who are willing to invest in industrial printers capable of printing metal, at a cost of more than US$100,000.
Finding no practical use, Laimer’s watch sits on a wooden table in the basement, along with other experiments he has printed, such as a wall clock and an electrical motor.
“In the watch world, it’s the gold standard,” Laimer said. “It’s not comparable with a real wristwatch, but the technology is only going to get better.”
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