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The first episode of the Analog Explorer podcast for 2023 has an interesting innovator and maker. In 2014, an 18 year old engineering student found a newly discovered fascination with watchmaking. With the mind of an engineer and a futurist with a vision of 3D printing, as a freshmen in college he set out to create a working 3D printed watch. Not just any watch, but a watch that to him was the penultimate design and tribute to mechanical engineering. By his senior year, he not only had a working 3d printed homage but his own original design to be 3d printed; and a passion to strike out on his own as an independent watchmaker and company.

Meet Karel Bachand, founder of Barrelhand watches. While studying engineering in his undergraduate program, he stumbled upon watchmaking but not in the traditional sense. Blending his newly discovered fascination with watchmaking and his futurist vision of 3D printing, as a freshmen in college he set out to create a 3D printed watch. By a sophomore, he was flown out to Switzerland by the avand-guard watch company Urwerk because of what he created. And by his senior year in college he had an all original watch design of his own and the start of his own company Barrelhand. Oh, yeah, and he graduated with his engineering degree too.

In this episode of AE, we sit down with Karel to hear his crazy story, where he is now as 28 year old, and what is in the works for Barrelhand watches. All from the lens of the term “avant-garde,” and how it plays a role in analog explorations.