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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Seiko Spring Drive Master Watchmaker Junya Kamijo In Action

It never ceases to amaze seeing Seiko's top "Meisters' or watchmakers working on these highly intricate Spring Drive movements with such ease. In many instances, they don't even use a jeweler's magnifying eye piece! It looks like a simple and straightforward task to assemble a Spring Drive movement, that on average, has over 400 separate components. But make no mistake... It takes years of complete dedication to achieve the level of watchmaking required and manual prowess to be allowed by Seiko to manufacture and service these movements.

Here you can see Junya Kamijo at a recent Grand Seiko launch event that was hosted in New York City late last year (2010). Kamijo-San is the managing director of the Spring Drive assembly section of the Seiko-Epson Shinshu watch studio in Japan where every Seiko Spring Drive watch (Grand Seiko, Credor, Izul, Ananta and Prospex) is currently manufactured at:

(Videos embedded from YouTube.com)

Part 1



Part 2



Kamijo-San can be seen here assembling and taking apart a Grand Seiko Spring Drive 200m steel diver model SBGA029 with the caliber 9R65 Spring Drive movement.

2 comments:

Spin Doctor said...

Excellent videos, but I feel sorry for Kamijo-san. There's a party going on and he's stuck on the bench. Hopefully he had some fun afterwards.

JapanWatchConnection said...

Not only that, but he is used to work in a "Library" like quiet environment and not with crowds hoovering over him.

I am sure he was treated to Sake afterwards....