Modern artisanal watchmaking, a deep dive into "feathering"

 

Innovation is difficult. Especially when it feels like everything has already been done. In watchmaking, this is almost the norm. Mechanically, the modern wristwatch has stayed the same for a century, or more - and progress, innovation and novel ideation is difficult to conceptualise. So much so that desirable traits in watchmaking are intentionally anachronistic! Within the niche of watchmaking decoration, there are relatively few novel ideas that have surfaced in the last 20-30 years, during the rebirth of modern artisanal watchmaking. The big players of movement decoration: Geneva waves, perlage, more niche - anglage, sunburst graining, straight graining, frosting, diamond cutting, and spotting. Even though this non-expansive list is already reasonably long, there are not many unexplored rabbit holes. In fact, many of these techniques have been around as long as horology has existed!  So what can a small rag-tag team of rogue Australian watchmakers operating out of Brookvale offer the world?  Our humble contribution to the art of horological finishing is not a large one, and to be completely honest, it's very hard to even see without some intentionality. But I hope by the end of this write-up you can foster a modest appreciation of what we hope is something meaningful and novel - feathering.  Feathering is what we call the delicate grained faceting of dial components such as hands and indexes. It's a laborious, time consuming process that produces a subtle, but very deliberate visual effect.

Done manually, individually, with the aid of microscopes, specially made jigs, tweezers and abrasives- feathering is demanding. There are three very notable things about feathering, the facet angle, the direction of the grain, and the centring of the spine. Let's explore.

The facet angle of the feathered finish is something that does have roots in other finishing techniques. Dauphine hands, popularised in the 40s and 50s and used in dress watches, were often were faceted down the centre of the hand. This became a common finishing technique, and leveraged monocrystalline diamond cutting tools to give brilliant mirror finishes. The end result is a highly reflective, almost gem-facetted look. The angle of this facet is quite important - too steep, and the faceting can interfere with the form/shape, too shallow and the light-play, and reflection of each facet can look weak. Finding the optimal angle is a tuning knob for creating strong visual depth, but also retaining mechanical function.

One large difference between standard faceted hands and feathered hands is the type of finish that is applied to the facets themselves. Feathering is incredibly special since the facets have grain applied to them - pointing to the spine in a way that eludes the natural grain of a feather! The inspiration for this type of finishing came from the feathers of native Australian birds along the northern beaches - sulfur crested cockatoos, seagulls, lorikeets. The grain on these facets is on a 45 degree angle to the spine, pointing towards the end of, in this case, a hand. The direction of the grain is crucial - grain parallel or perpendicular to the spine is possible, but creates a totally different effect - in fact a 5 degree change in the angle is visually noticeable! For the engineering inclined, and those who like to think about how things are made - how would you approach making this grain? The direction of the grain, and the angle of the facet both create a very interesting compound angle problem that needs solving!

Your eye is a cruel judge. We've all head the phrase "Just eyeball it". In watchmaking this has an inverse meaning... Often things can measure well on the micrometer, or profile projector, but when your eye acts like a final point of QC, small imperfections that are difficult to measure any way other than visually totally dominate the part! One of the biggest areas where this holds true is with the centring of the spine of the feathering. The two facets lean together onto the centre of the part forming a spine. If one facet is cut too deep, or if the other facet is cut at the wrong angle, the location of this spine relative to the part and features on the part, is thrown off. A change of just 5 thousandths of a millimeter is enough for your eye to distinguish between something pleasing, or not pleasing! Our eyes are attracted to uniformity, and having the spine of the feathered part crooked, or off centre is totally devastating. This means that when we do the manual decoration of feathered parts, we are constantly checking to see if this spine is centered. Just a few microns makes a massive difference.  I could talk about feathering for hours... Like how we do it in Titanium, a notoriously difficult material to use abrasives on, or how achieving consistent results is one of the most challenging engineering problems we've had to solve since starting our manufacturing journey, or how we even manage to feather a seconds hand, barely wider than a human hair! ... But maybe those stories are all best saved for a "watch talk night" one day in the future...  The feathering process, and it's intricacies are numerous, in fact our internal "how-to guide" is about 10 pages long. It's a process that demands total zen, and a mastery of many skills. Some days feathering a part can take 10 minutes, other days you can spend an entire day and not have anything to show for it. The pursuit of perfection is endless - something that encourages constant improvement, and with that in mind we humbly present our contribution to the world of horological finishing - feathering.  Josh