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MOT Forum watch????

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Sporkboy
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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by Sporkboy »

ManOnTime wrote:
Sporkboy wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 10:06 am A while back I decided to bypass all of the MOQ/3rd Party vendor malarkey and go straight to making my own MoT watch(es). A few even made their way to some generous and deserving members.

It has, and continues to be an adventure. You can see the epic progression at the following link.

viewtopic.php?t=785

We went from the first two with simple plain dials to fully lumed dials.

428875DC-8DFA-4113-A8C9-78A9545688B1.jpeg93F6584C-F00B-43A0-85B2-59DA40C4B07C.jpeg6202AC7C-9409-4810-A54C-D68FFA6DB7DD.jpeg
Please don't think we're not appreciative! I have to be honest, every time I see "MoT forum watch", your username pops into my head.
Don’t worry, I do feel appreciated. It is a testament to this community that we have built that this conversation is even taking place. I absolutely love it when I see on of my MoT watches appear in a thread, the watch box shots in particular give me pleasure. That a watch that I cobbled together can be appreciated by members with much nicer watches is a grand compliment and I don’t take it lightly.

I hope/think that there will be a place for both home grown MoT watches and specially manufactured watches. My ability to make dials is currently cut off and work has been busy to the point that it wasn’t often possible to make the technical progress needed to move forward. Seeing that I can’t meet the current demand, getting something made makes sense.

I am not sure that I would be in for one of these as I really enjoy making these and think that they fill the MoT watch void for me. I also currently have 3 with another one that needs assembly and handset re-luming.

If it was something really special and within my budget then I could possibly swing it. It also depends on my employment situation at the time as a lot is in the air with COVID-19 and all.
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Re: $35 Mechanical Field Watch Challenge

Post by cuica »

Sporkboy wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 12:11 pm
cuica wrote:These challenges are very cool but what I'd really like to see is a MOT watch!
Like an MoT Watch Design Challenge?
Or maybe someone submitting an entry that has an MoT dial?
I was thinking more of designing and producing a complete watch.
I have some ideas but they mainly involve quartz movements, which I prefer:

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cuica
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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by cuica »

Took a look at Chronowatch and they have an interesting catalog. They also have small production batches:
Get free design proposal and offer for this watch
Add different watches to the enquiry basket and receive an offer with a free design proposal.
25 pieces
50 pieces
100 pieces
add to your proposal
Your benefits
Swiss Made
Short production time
Low minimum quantity
Best price-quality relation
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Re: $35 Mechanical Field Watch Challenge

Post by cuica »

I have this connection on Linkedin and remembered a post from a couple of months about custom logo's which may be useful (no affiliation):

https://manbuworld.com/costom-order-c0370
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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by tinpusher »

This would be so awesome! I'm totally down for a group build. I was wearing my 2017 HKED Emperor from that other watch forum just yesterday. I would want something to be proud of and not something that will look super cheap or fall apart after a few spins in the rotation.
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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by baldrick »

This prompted me to take another look at Bernhardt watches.

A Bernhardt Anchor, Binnacle or Corsair would be v interesting...



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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by PetWatch »

This could be a great project. I have never been interested in other similar builds at other forums but could get behind this one if I like the style, quality, finish and price.

In order to make it more affordable, I would think there's no need to look too deeply into a Swiss made to order model since we know it is going to be predominantly Chinese, which should be obtainable for less from other sources. But, it's good to compare available options.

Someone, or a few members. need to take the lead to get the project moving. Hopefully it will stay open to everyone's input and collective decision making.



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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by tinpusher »

I think Nodus would be a cool option. How do we set this project up for real?
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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by MoT »

I have zero experience doing something like this.

If there is a member or members who do, I would love to have insight and advice from them. Or better yet, consider me somewhat of a silent partner with veto option. I will let the "project manager" take the reins, but I reserve final say, and I can possibly front some of the finances, as long as they aren't exorbitant.
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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by Rabirnie »

ManOnTime wrote:I have zero experience doing something like this.

If there is a member or members who do, I would love to have insight and advice from them. Or better yet, consider me somewhat of a silent partner with veto option. I will let the "project manager" take the reins, but I reserve final say, and I can possibly front some of the finances, as long as they aren't exorbitant.
So Rolex instead of Patek? [emoji12]


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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by baldrick »

ManOnTime wrote:I have zero experience doing something like this.

If there is a member or members who do, I would love to have insight and advice from them. Or better yet, consider me somewhat of a silent partner with veto option. I will let the "project manager" take the reins, but I reserve final say, and I can possibly front some of the finances, as long as they aren't exorbitant.
So, although the project I was involved in was unsuccessful, here's my input.

Ours was a Steinhart project, so we already knew to a degree what we could and could not do. If we don't have an agreed brand/supplier, we would need to establish various parameters right off the bat. These would probably include:

How many people are keen (this is to gauge *initial* viability, as many retailers have MOQs for custom projects). Ideally, we would want a decent excess to allow for drop-outs. This is probably an on-going task unless deposits are requested and paid in the early stages.

Type of watch.

Max. budget (or range).

Whether this is a truly bespoke design (more fun (?!), but much longer, more work, likely more expensive) or a tweak to an existing option (easier, quicker, likely more certain in terms of numbers/viability).

Those factors may dictate which brands are available to us.

It is probably a good idea for the project to be led (or heavily steered) by someone with design skills and necessary programmes (which rules me out - I have the design skills of a potato and the face to match).

A couple of other points:

Most of the design decisions were done by voting/polls, with everyone having a week or so to provide input. (This is why it is critical to have a designer on-board.) The voting system was an STP system (I.e., you rank your choices and, if your first choice doesn't win outright, your vote gets transferred to your second choice and so on). On paper that was sensible, and worked to a degree, but meant that voting was quite complicated.

It also meant that there were lots of options, often with little between them. That had the effect of splitting votes so while two similar options collectively got the most votes, a less popular option had more individual votes and won the round.

As a result, we quickly ended up in a situation where the majority weren't really happy with the design. In my view, it would have been better to have smaller, simple-majority votes between, say, 1 to 3 substantially different options, before getting to the nitty gritty of any particular design.

The other point to mention is that it is easy to go off on frolics and wishful thinking. It's important to understand at the beginning what is and isn't possible and also what the cost implications might be. Be realistic.

From memory, in our project, there was an early vote to use a new and expensive movement (for no real reason other than its novelty). This led to budget limitations for the rest of the design, which again contributed to the overall dislike of the design and, probably, its failure.

Again, this is also why it is important to have a designer on-board, ideally working closely with the supplier so we don't vote ourselves down a dead-end with something that can't be done.


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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by quincas »

baldrick wrote:
ManOnTime wrote:I have zero experience doing something like this.

If there is a member or members who do, I would love to have insight and advice from them. Or better yet, consider me somewhat of a silent partner with veto option. I will let the "project manager" take the reins, but I reserve final say, and I can possibly front some of the finances, as long as they aren't exorbitant.
So, although the project I was involved in was unsuccessful, here's my input.

Ours was a Steinhart project, so we already knew to a degree what we could and could not do. If we don't have an agreed brand/supplier, we would need to establish various parameters right off the bat. These would probably include:

How many people are keen (this is to gauge *initial* viability, as many retailers have MOQs for custom projects). Ideally, we would want a decent excess to allow for drop-outs. This is probably an on-going task unless deposits are requested and paid in the early stages.

Type of watch.

Max. budget (or range).

Whether this is a truly bespoke design (more fun (?!), but much longer, more work, likely more expensive) or a tweak to an existing option (easier, quicker, likely more certain in terms of numbers/viability).

Those factors may dictate which brands are available to us.

It is probably a good idea for the project to be led (or heavily steered) by someone with design skills and necessary programmes (which rules me out - I have the design skills of a potato and the face to match).

A couple of other points:

Most of the design decisions were done by voting/polls, with everyone having a week or so to provide input. (This is why it is critical to have a designer on-board.) The voting system was an STP system (I.e., you rank your choices and, if your first choice doesn't win outright, your vote gets transferred to your second choice and so on). On paper that was sensible, and worked to a degree, but meant that voting was quite complicated.

It also meant that there were lots of options, often with little between them. That had the effect of splitting votes so while two similar options collectively got the most votes, a less popular option had more individual votes and won the round.

As a result, we quickly ended up in a situation where the majority weren't really happy with the design. In my view, it would have been better to have smaller, simple-majority votes between, say, 1 to 3 substantially different options, before getting to the nitty gritty of any particular design.

The other point to mention is that it is easy to go off on frolics and wishful thinking. It's important to understand at the beginning what is and isn't possible and also what the cost implications might be. Be realistic.

From memory, in our project, there was an early vote to use a new and expensive movement (for no real reason other than its novelty). This led to budget limitations for the rest of the design, which again contributed to the overall dislike of the design and, probably, its failure.

Again, this is also why it is important to have a designer on-board, ideally working closely with the supplier so we don't vote ourselves down a dead-end with something that can't be done.


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Great input. Thanks for sharing.

I totally agree with your points. It is very difficult to get a consensus especially on design.

On costs, I just checked on TaoBao.com and spoke to the seller of San Martin watches there. It's fairly likely that he is the owner of San Martin himself as there's only one seller on TB. I didn't ask.

He said to add a logo on an existing dial design costs an additional 200rmb ($29) on top of the watch price. A little on the expensive side, considering a SM Type A flieger with nh movement only costs around 688rmb ($97). These are for single pieces. I would assume prices are different for say, 50 units or a bespoke piece.

Just a gauge of things.










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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by IKEEPGOODTIME »

ManOnTime wrote: Mon May 25, 2020 2:38 pm I have zero experience doing something like this.

If there is a member or members who do, I would love to have insight and advice from them. Or better yet, consider me somewhat of a silent partner with veto option. I will let the "project manager" take the reins, but I reserve final say, and I can possibly front some of the finances, as long as they aren't exorbitant.
I checked with 2 microbrand owners over the weekend to get their thoughts. Just for a baseline I told them a $200 budget was our target.

1. $200 auto with a complete ground up build is not likely. And if someone agrees to it, watchout for the QC
2. $200 taking an existing model and doing a custom dial/hands may be possible
3. We should talk to brand owners about their willingness to do this because they can make smaller MOQ happen vs a manufacturer who will have a 300 MOQ minimum
4. The easiest route is to take an existing design and just add our logo to it. That would be the easy target of someone like Sharkey to get that done for us. However, this also has the least uniqueness. But you probably get a decent build quality and it should be less expensive

Another source suggested we contact EMG given their willingness to do forum pieces in the past and the overall design and build quality. They use a really good production factory from what I am told. Makes sense considering their connection to HKED. Lastly one of the microbrand owners I talked to was willing to let us work through his factory contacts. But his pieces have been $300 - $500 in the past , obviously thats includes markup to sustain a business and we are looking to break even or possibly allow for some funding to go to the forum itself. I also know someone in the USA that could do final QC/Assembly if we wanted that last but of assurance (obviously for a fee)

But before any of that [mention]ManOnTime[/mention] , I think you need to decide

1. if you want to pursue this for your forum
2. who you want to be on the "project manager team"

Then we can get into other basics of
1. Target Budget
2. Target Design



This picture is here for attention but I'm fairly certain that this brand would do custom dials.

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Re: MOT Forum watch????

Post by IKEEPGOODTIME »

cuica wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 7:34 pm Took a look at Chronowatch and they have an interesting catalog. They also have small production batches:
Link?
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Re: $35 Mechanical Field Watch Challenge

Post by IKEEPGOODTIME »

cuica wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 8:12 pm I have this connection on Linkedin and remembered a post from a couple of months about custom logo's which may be useful (no affiliation):

https://manbuworld.com/costom-order-c0370

Image

Pretty dang cool for $22.
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