MK2 Dial - Part 3

As we discussed in the last installments, the MK2 dial is a complex assembly of small individual elements. All made one by one, finished one by one and assembled and fixed one by one. In this installment of the "behind the scenes" we will show you the process of how the dial elements are made and finished, and how the base dial is anodised to our "topaz blue". First: the end result:

The hour markers, or as we call them "batons" as well as all three hands are faceted. The facet is at 4 degrees, a very small angle, but the effect is massive. In person, the facets on the dial and hands not only dance in the light, but also give a strong visual line down the centre of the hand. The keen eyed of you will have noticed another interesting feature- the 2nd "grain" angle within the facet. We call this technique feathering. The grinding finish that we apply on the hands is angled at 45 degrees to mimic the shape of a feather. The inspiration comes from the coastal birds you see on the Sydney's Northern beaches- seagulls, sea eagles, even sulfur crested cockatoos and lorikeets! There is a massive technical challenge in making this decorative pattern. If the facets are off centre by more than 10 microns or so, your eye begins to pick up the lack of symmetry, so it becomes very important that all the jigs, and raw hand dimensions are checked and kept to a tight tolerance Secondly, the angle of the "feathering" creates a complex compound angle that we have to hold the part on, which calls for a very complex jig-making exercise. But without getting ahead of ourselves, we still have to make all the other parts! The numerals, batons, and hands all start in the same way. Raw material of 0.8mm titanium is glued down to a special pallet. The material itself has been stress relieved and flattened in prior operations. Here you can see the progression of the batons and numerals being milled out. The hands are done in a very similar way.  A special high strength glue is used to hold the parts to the pallet, allowing us to profile the outside and inside shapes. The tools we use to cut these parts are so small that the tip of the tool can get lost in the space between the lines of your finger print! A drop of oil on the 0.2mm drill. The batons and the numerals are not simple 2D shapes, they actually have two little "feet" on the backside. These feet fit inside the holes we drill on the base dial. The diameter of the foot is 0.19mm with a tolerance band for the diameter of +0 microns , -10 microns. The thickness of the batons and numerals is also important, If they are too thin they will distort and twist when assembled on the base dial. Quality control - Measuring the thickness of the numeral and baton. Measuring the diameter of the baton pin. Measuring the thickness of the parts we make is quite tricky. The probe tip we use had to be custom made for us in Germany! Standard probe tips available as off the shelf items are too large and would not allow us to get to the small areas between the pins of the numerals and batons. This custom probe tip is one of the many thousands of dollars of custom equipment we had to either make ourselves, or in this case commission from gauge making specialists. After all this care, time, attention and patience we are left with our raw, ready to be finished parts! The next step is feathering. There are a couple of challenges in this process. The first one is how to hold such a small part. This leads to a complex exercise in jig-making. The jigs used to hold our parts take weeks to design and make. They go through many iterations to land on the right approach.  The feathering is done on a machine called a surface grinder. Surface grinding is an extremely accurate method of removing small amounts of material in a very controlled way. It takes years of expertise to master this machine by tradespeople called "toolmakers". James, our in-house toolmaker is an expert and only after nearly 20 years of experience, is he comfortable with this type of work. The type of abrasive wheel used is a critical part of achieving the right finish. In fact we tried numerous different combinations of wheel and coolant to arrive at our own "titanium feathering recipe". Dial Anodising The base dial is now cleaned and prepared for anodising. Funnily enough your fingertips are some of the best cleaning implements available! The textured surface of your fingers allows for dirt to be trapped and taken away from the surfaces you clean. In combination with soap and detergents we manually clean each base dial. It's imperative that the dials are free from any residual oils, so 99.9% Isopropyl alcohol bath in an ultrasonic cleaner is the final cleaning step. Titanium anodisation is an extremely complex electrochemical process, but in essence a Titanium dioxide (Titania, which is a ceramic!) film is grown on the surface of the material. The thickness and the structure of this film layer is responsible for diffracting light, which gives colour. Titanium can be anodised within a well defined spectrum, but achieving bright vibrant colours that are not "dull" is a strongly guarded trade secret. This is a function of the electrical voltage and current applied during the anodisation process, the temperature of the bath, the quality of the bath, the room humidity, how the raw surfaces have been chemically prepared and the overall process cleanliness... basically chemical magic. Unfortunately this is not something we can share. The faceted and feathered parts as well as the numerals are then assembled onto the freshly anodised dial by very lightly pressing the feet of the parts into the holes in the base dial. These dial feet are then laser welded from behind to ensure that they are secured strongly onto the dial. More on that process in a future installment! Next... Pad Printing (to be continued). NOTE: We have received a number of inquires in regards to the pricing of the MK2. It is obvious that the price will depend on the number of watches produced in a batch. Based on your pre-sale interest, we expect that the production run would be 50 watches at price of $6,900 (plus box and strap). Producing fewer watches would result in a higher price; making any more will choke our manufacturing capacity.  If you wish to register your interest, please send us an email to mail@clockmaker.com.au Unfortunately we are not taking deposits or partial payments. Once your watch is ready for delivery, you will be notified with sufficient time to make a full payment. More technical details will be provided next week, but for now: the MK2 is based on a Swiss made Soprod automatic movement, 40mm stainless steel case, on a leather strap. Titanium guilloche dial, markers and hands, as well as complete assembly is done 'in house'. Manufactured in Australia. A completely assembled MK2 "Curl Curl" topaz blue is available for viewing at our Sydney showroom. To check it out and try the watch on, please make an appointment.