[kop316]

After skimming through a large portion of George Daniel's book "Watchmaking", if anything, I very much appreciate how complicated making a mechanical watch is, and even more so, how easy it is to get things wrong. From what I saw, you have to have a lot of tooks to make your own mechanical watch, and it would not be something I would want to do without someone skilled in the craft.

That is a long way of saying, I am confused on how making a mechanical watch is a "hobby"?

[Alex3917]

> it would not be something I would want to do without someone skilled in the craft.

I mean how is that different than any other hobby? I've never made a watch but I forage for mushrooms, and you wouldn't want to do that without being skilled in the craft either. It's pretty much the same for any hobby; the whole point of having a hobby is to become skilled at some esoteric thing.

[kop316]

I would assume one could become skilled at mushroom foraging much, much faster and with much, much less tooling than creating a watch movement.

[Alex3917]

Sure, but anyone with 500k to buy a watch can surely afford to buy the tools.

[Hnaomyiph]

I’m all about DIY, my thought process when buying something usually goes like so:

“Huh, this is pretty pricy, I bet I could make that” and about 50% of the time I actually make it, the other 50% I find it on sale and buy it then…

But just because I can make things doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate someone else’s work. I can paint, but I still buy artwork from other artists.

Sometimes it’s just about appreciating other people’s work.

[kop316]

ok, sure they could? I don't get your point. The entry point to buy a mechanical watch isn't $500k USD. I have a 1860s mechanical pocket watch that I purchased for $60.

[havelhovel]

> the whole point of having a hobby is to become skilled at some esoteric thing

Hobbies are activities done for pleasure, nothing more.