Andreas Strehler

Andreas Strehler: A Blast of High-Tech hits Swiss Watchmaking
By Curtis Thomson and Hans Zbinden

A sneak preview

Andreas Strehler is a watchmaker in the truest sense of the word; he makes watches. From the first thought, computer aided drawing, construction and realization; his mind and hands are working alone in this process to make watches, which stretch technical possibilities with a pragmatism not often seen in today's in your face complication cocktails.

I visited Andreas in his workshop, which is shared with his father who repairs clocks, located in Winterthur, Switzerland earlier this year. Without much detail, as that will follow later, I found Andreas to be generous with his time and information, regarding himself and the industry as a whole. What follows is a photographic teaser to a forthcoming article, co-written by Thomas M., Hans Zbinden, ei8htohms and myself, of our pending visit with Andreas. The completed article will be posted late October.

I met Andreas for the first time at the Basel Fair 2000 and was immediately fascinated by his unique and highly original ideas. Shortly afterwards, I contacted him and asked if I may visit him at his workshop and write an article about him and his work. I spent a highly enjoyable and very interesting afternoon with him in Winterthur but - I won't bore you with excuses - embarrassingly never completed the piece I had promised to write. But soon, with hopefully lots of relentless prodding from the gentlemen mentioned above, I'll be able to make good on my longstanding debt.

Andreas isn't only a watchmaker uncompromisingly dedicated to his work but also a self-taught CAD expert and electronics whiz. He built his first CNC milling machine mostly with the help of information he found on the internet !

Andreas has a well equipped workshop at his disposal. Machinery he is quite familiar with, considering his father was a machinist and Andreas spent a few years with Renaud & Papi as their prototypist. What is visible here are a milling machine, Schäublin 102 lathe and an optical comparator in the right corner.

Inspecting an early creation.

The workshop and repair area

With not much available time to entertain, we thank Andreas in advance for his generosity and willingness to share his work and story with us. To view his current watches please follow this link: www.astrehler.ch and see the progressive applications of The Watchmaker.

The Strehler Collection

Andreas will gladly custom-make you any type of watch you want using his patented event recording system. Presented here are three examples he's made so far.

After all, your computer only needs one screen, even if you're running several programs at the same time

This quote from Andreas sums up what his invention is about. His movements can record several events at the same time and display the readings on a single dial using only one pair of hands.

Die Armbanduhr

His wristwatch shows the hour and minutes, when the button at 2 o'clock is pressed, the minute hand sweeps to indicate the date on the outer scale.

Andreas demonstrates his Armbanduhr in this short video sequence, by pressing the button, the hour hand moves and shows the date (26th). Click on the link below to view or use your right mouse button to download.

armbanduhr.mpg (480 KB)

ZWEI

Hours and minutes are obviously shown, but with one push of the button the date and month are indicated using the same two hands. This unique, Strehler mechanism, is simplified for the Armbanduhr which indicates the hour, minutes and date.

The movement with gilded plates, hand-applied finishing and screw-balanced. The inner values are even more impressive ...The wheel at 6 is visible through a small window in the dial and is a day/night indication with a golden moon.

Perpetual Desk Calendar and Watch

This is the piece with which Andreas introduced himself to the public, a perpetual desktop calendar with digital year indication and detachable pocket-watch. The calendar is powered by the watch and stops once the watch is removed, i.e. on weekends or during a vacation. When the watch is returned to its slot, it immediately sets the calendar to the correct date, day, month and year ! The maximum days it can record is 21 (3 weeks), after which a warning signal (nice detail, a disk made out of red coral) will become visible in a small aperture on the dial.

The amount of time and work that went into the clock's wooden box almost rivals that spent developing and manufacturing the entire clock. It was made by a local carpenter, merely getting the handle just right almost resulted in a never ending story ...

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