WatchTime - August 2012

WatchTime goes behind the scenes
to see what happens when a watch
is serviced.
BY MIKE DISHER
H
PHOTOS BY JOHN JOHNSTON
ave you ever wondered exactly what happens
to your watch when you send it in
for an overhaul? To find out, I visited
Stoll & Co. in Dayton, Ohio, an independent
watch repair company, to take a
look behind the scenes. Stoll & Co. repairs
all types of watches, from inexpensive
quartz models to the most complicated
luxury timepieces, and from vintage
fusée pocketwatches to wristwatches featuring
the latest escapement designs.
Founded 30 years ago, Stoll & Co. performs
wholesale repairs for many leading
watch and jewelry retailers, and they also
accept repairs directly from watch owners.
In short, they see it all.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I
first got there. Ask most people to envision
an independent watch repair company
in a midsize Midwestern town, and
they probably conjure up a small workshop
with a couple of watchmakers
working on perhaps a dozen watches per
week. As I learned, Stoll & Co. operates
on a larger scale – much larger. The size
and complexity of the operations were
SPA
the first things I noticed. The 6,000square-foot
facility is divided into 11
main areas. Each week, more than 3,000
watches arrive for service. Stoll & Co.
employs 44 people to handle them all,
and a watch may pass through the hands
of as many as 15 people, including four
different technicians and watchmakers,
before a service is complete. A highgrade-mechanical-watch
overhaul includes
an initial inspection; disassembly;
case and bracelet disassembly and refinishing;
movement disassembly, cleaning,
August 2012 WatchTime 113