2017cnc10-11

40 www.CNC-West.com CNC WEST October/November 2017 Cameron and Whitney Weiss began assembly and finishing of the first Weiss timepieces in 2013 from inside their LA apartment. In June 2013 they debuted 10 of their Standard Issue Field Watches at an event in San Francisco. Today, they are sold through 45+ retailers including Barneys New York and MR PORTER. Cameron has always had a love of timepieces and wanted to base a career off that passion. “Whitney and I met at USC while I was studying business when I decided watchmaking school was something I wanted to do,” explains Cameron Weiss, founder, president and designer at Weiss Watch Company. “I spent the next two years in Miami learning the craft.” Miami is not known for its watchmaking, but the watch manufacturers set up schools there to lure young people into the trade. The skills gap exists in watchmaking same as it does in CNC manufacturing, so having a new generation of people to service and repair products is necessary. “The big brands like Omega and Rolex need qualified watch makers to service the watches they sell here in the US,” explains Whitney Weiss, VP of Sales and Marketing, at Weiss Watch Company. “So Cameron went to school at their expense and learned the Swiss curriculum.” InMiami, Cameron learned the basics of design, simple repair, simplemove- ments and fabrication of parts. “The school is really small,” details Whitney. “It is more of an apprenticeship with only six students.” Two master watchmakers taught students how to reverse engineer parts, micro mechanics and how to machine parts on hand turned machines. After graduating from the Nicolas G. Hayek Watchmaking School as a WOSTEP Certified Watchmaker, Cameron and Whiney moved to New York and Cameron went to Switzerland for yet more training. Cameron honed his skills at Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin, two of the most prestigious luxury watch brands in both Switzer- land and the US. The extensive training covered complex watches, perpetual calendars, tourbillons, more mechanical memory, and more moving parts. “Time is only so much, but how you split it and how often it is split becomes more complicated,” explains Cameron. “Hours, minutes, and seconds are all IT’S 10:09 SOMEWHERE Article by Sean Buur Photos by Sean Buur & Supplied by Weiss WEISS