Mini-factory: In his 10 square-meter home, a homemade engraving and milling machine, a hand drill milling machine and a mini lathe take up over half of the room, making it a small factory. [Photo/epaper.bjnews.com.cn]

Zhao Zhenling, 28, may look like an ordinary, shy and quiet man, but he is the youngest master watchmaker in China. He is the designer of China's first tourbillon minute repeater, the inventor of the first Wu Ji "Infinite Universe" tri-axial tourbillon movement in the world, and the director of the design center of Beijing Watch Factory.

Childhood tinkerer

Zhao begins his day by inspecting machines and personally supervising workers as they grind parts for watches. Beijing Watch Factory has to deliver over 4,000 watches in March, but the order is far from complete. "We are shorthanded," says Zhao. He had suggested employing five more workers, but technicians are in short supply.

Only two training institutes in China offer precision mechanical watch-making as a major, but few students take it up. Zhao himself became a watchmaker by accident.

In 2004, after graduating from vocational high school, one of his relatives introduced him to the Beijing Watch Factory, where he became a worker at age 18. Unlike many watchmakers, he didn't come from a watch-making family, and had only disassembled a neighbor's alarm clock once before.

However, he had always been a tinkerer. The first thing he dismantled was his family's abandoned meter. "The moment I opened it, I was deeply attracted by it. In order to make the small wheels in the meter work again, I tried to connect the wires, only to hear a 'bang' from a fireball. It blew the fuse and scared me." he said. He also dismantled the TV to see how there were "small people" inside.

He was also a bit wild. At that time, toy four-wheel drive vehicles were popular, and the ones assembled by Zhao ran faster than the others, because he modified the electric motor and exchanged the strings with thick copper wires. Many kids brought their vehicles to him to modify.

The road to watch-making

Zhao's first job at the factory was to wash parts called stripes, washing 600 pieces every day, then sweeping the debris off. Other workers had a brush besides them, washing a stripe then sweeping the debris with the brush. However, Zhao hammered a nail in the roof, hung the brush in front of him and swept the debris much more quickly. This little improvement helped him finish 200 more pieces every day.

This spirit of innovation impressed his manager and he was transferred to operating the CNC machine, opening the door to making mechanical watches. When new samples came for the machine, the master craftsmen from the design studio would come along, and Zhao would beg them to teach him the principles of watch design.

One of them gave him a book, Precision Timing Devices. Zhao said it was like a book "from heaven", like hieroglyphics to him at first, but in two years he had it memorized by heart.

He made three models later, a "single-string alarm clock", a "hairspring-free alarm clock" and a "dual balance alarm clock." In 2006, the father of the Chinese tourbillon Xu Yaonan and master watchmaker Zhang Youxu both took Zhao as their disciple at the same time.