A Kickstarter Project Called ‘Zayger’

Shlomo Mockin of Crown Heights pitches his company Zayger Watches, creating timepieces with a combination of 3D Printing and old school manufacturing in a bold bid for funding.

From Kickstarter:

My name is Shlomo Mockin. My passion for watchmaking began when I was a kid, and heard that one of my great-great-grandfathers was a man named Shlomo the Zaygermacher. He was a watchmaker and musical composer with the same name as me. I have always been musical, but my interest in watchmaking grew in me over the years. After reading about the field, I realized that watchmaking is a great career, but hard to learn and even harder to find a place to learn it. Several years ago I was offered the chance to work at a leading online watch retailer and distributor in their repair center. I jumped at the opportunity.

For the past four years i have been learning the art and craft of watchmaking. I learned to repair and make parts for all types of watch movements, from quartz to mechanical and automatic, and I got to work on many great complications such as chronographs, retrogrades, jump hours and perpetual calendars. I also became a master polisher, polishing all types of materials i.e. brass, stainless steel, silver, gold, platinum and titanium. I learned to electroplate with gold, white gold, rhodium and PVC.

As fate would have it, my wife’s grandfather is a master silversmith. During my first two years as a watchmaker, I would go down to his workshop in my spare time. He would show me how to create things out of metals, using techniques like casting and molding, and machines such as the lathe and the mill.

This knowledge has given me the tools to create my own line of watches.

From the start of my career as a watchmaker I spent every spare moment I had scribbling down my own designs in notebooks and drawing apps on my iPad. As my notebooks filled and my knowledge grew, it became clear to me that the huge task of prototyping and mass production would be not only extremely difficult but also very expensive. But that didn’t stop me from dreaming and designing.

About two years ago, I came across the emerging revolution in manufacturing: 3D printing. 3D printing is an amazing and affordable new way to take an idea from the prototype stage all the way to manufacturing and mass production. Its accuracy has recently gotten to the point that it can be used to make watch parts that require accuracy to points of a millimeter. It is also a great match for watchmaking, because in usage of 3D printing one only pays for the amount of material you use. In other words, complexity is free, giving it some major advantages over traditional manufacturing. The prototyping price is the same as the production price, and watches can be made with unlimited design complexity without driving up the price.

Learn more and support Zaygert at Kickstarter.com