Craftsman of timekeepers looks in vain for successor

Philip Narong devoted 20 years to learning the craft of watch and clock repair before he felt comfortable that he knew enough to set out on his own.

For nearly a dozen years, he's worn the watchmaker's eyepiece as owner of Reno Watch & Clock Co., surrounded by grandfather clocks and tiny watches in a crowded space in the Sierra Marketplace shopping center at South Virginia Street and Moana Lane.

Narong doesn't worry about competition.

Far from it. Instead, he worries who will carry on his craft in northern Nevada after he retires in a few years. Who, he wonders, will be willing to spend 20 years to learn how to repair the watches and clocks manufactured in the last century? And who will teach them?

Narong learned the craft from an uncle in his native Thailand, starting when he was 14 years old. He built his skills, saved his money and emigrated to a watch-repair job at a Los Angeles jewelry store.

In 1999, he launched Reno Watch & Clock, and customers continue to search out the repair shop even though much of the shopping center that surrounds Narong's store stands vacant.

Effects of the recession? None. If anything, he's even busier as consumers decide to invest in repairs of an old watch rather than purchase of a new one.

And he was plenty busy already working seven days a week at the repair bench, the shop's only employee.

"I never get tired," he says. "I love it."

Customers come from Reno and Lake Tahoe. A steady stream of customers comes over from the nearby Atlantis Casino Resort Spa, hoping Narong can repair a watch while they're in town. Usually, he can.

Money isn't the object, he says. Narong is driven by a desire to help customers and a desire to know that he has a good reputation for craftsmanship in the community.

"It's hard to fix watches," he says. "I know what to fix, and that takes experience."

While he's repairing some older watches and clocks, he digs around for parts in an inventory he's accumulated over the years from other repair shops that have closed their doors.

If that doesn't work, Narong occasionally machines parts himself.

Those skills, built over a lifetime, may disappear when Narong retires in the next couple of years, perhaps to return to Thailand.

The advent of electronic timepieces appeared to spell the end of the need for watch repair shops, but the business nationwide has seen an upturn as expensive mechanical watches returned to popularity in the last decade.

In 2008, for instance, the publication Swiss Watchmaking said that exports of mechanical watches continued to grow even as the recession took effect. Exports of mechanical watches accounted for only 16 percent of the number of timepieces exported that year but accounted for 70 percent of the value.