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Glaude

Illustrated Dictionary of Watch finishing & decorations

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Glaude

Engine-turning - Grain d'orge [French] {ɡʁɛ̃ dɔʁʒ} - Listen French pronunciation

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Can be translated to barley grain into English, this is a slight variation of the Grain de riz pattern, this is less used and often confused with the other one due to their extremely close look, Grain d'orge is rounder than Grain de riz.

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Glaude

Engine-turning - Tapisserie [French] {tapisʁi} - Listen French pronunciation

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Tapisserie or tapestry pattern as you'll most often hear, even by the big brand themselves, is another popular pattern of guilloché.
Every repetitive motif in a guilloché style on a watch should be called tapisserie. The difference between the other guilloché pattern is that here, we are talking about an original design or motifs, later repeated on a surface, like a texture.
This type of guilloché pattern is done on a modified rose engine or via CNC.
The modified rose engine is following a pre-made bigger version of the final desired look and is going up-and-down following a rose-wheel at the same time.

Spoiler

The most iconic tapisserie pattern, the Royal Oak dial from Audemars Piguet : 

 

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Glaude

Engine-turning - Vieux panier [French] {vjø panje} - Listen French pronunciation

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Vieux panier or old basket in English is a rather unusual pattern and can have a few different variations amongst manufacturers. They all have in common an intricate woven look and even if some of them aren't square they always remind of the pattern of an old basket, hence the name.

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Glaude

Engraving - Gravure [French] {ɡʁavyʁ} - Listen French pronunciation

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Pretty self-explanatory, engraving is what you can call any process that involves scratching the surface of a material with a tool to produce a specific pattern or design.
Engraving can also be done to add information on movement parts.
And engraving is either left as is when it's finished, or it can be beautified by using paint, chemicals or other decorative methods such as enamelling or silvering.
Mostly found on very high-end timepieces, engraving is done by hand with various tools that can be either non-powered or powered.
On less expensive watches, you could find engraving done by CNC.

Spoiler

Engraving of the balance bridge at A.Lange & Söhne, each balance bridge is unique and they are able to retrieve the name of the engraver for each timepiece.

Engraving of a Rolex Submariner, custom job by Bram Ramon

Full engraving process of a Sterling Silver watch dial

Hand engraving using a powered chisel tool with various bits in order to achieve different effects :

CNC engraving on brass :

 

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Glaude

Fluting - Cannelure [French] {kanlyʁ} - Listen French pronunciation

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Fluting is when consecutive grooves (of various shapes) are cut the length of a surface.
This can be done on any surface and almost every material, most of the time it's found on a bezel, a crown or a dial.
Beside being decorative, on a crown the fluting improve the usability by allowing the user to have more grip to operate the crown.
Even though fluting is a form of knurling (a common term in the machining world) knurling is more often used to create complex patterns rather than single grooves.
Traditionally done like with an engraving tool, it's now done by using CNC machines.

Spoiler

CNC fluting with a large pitch, using a broaching tool on a CNC lathe (not watch related, but the technique is the same) :

Animation of a CNC straight knurling, resulting in a fluted pattern :

 

 

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Glaude

Gilt [English]

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Not to be confused with Gild which is when a layer of gold leaf or gold powder is applied on a surface. Even though you can suppose a common origin for the name.
Gilt dial is a process resulting in an overall dark or coloured surface on a dial, with the lettering and other elements like the chapter ring or hours, minutes and seconds markers being the natural dial material colour.
One of the methods of achieving such result is to use a soluble paint to cover the part that will show the bare surface and apply a definitive paint on the rest of the dial, later the soluble material is removed showing the bare material of the dial.

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Glaude

Linen - Lin [French] {lɛ̃} - Listen French pronunciation

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Linen dial (mostly found on dial) is called that way because of the strong resemblance to the texture of the linen material.
It is quite uncertain how such dial is made, there's not much documentation about it, but it's safe to assume that they are made by hand on a rose engine machine, carefully controlling the depth of the tool to ensure a regular and light scratching of the surface of the metal.

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Glaude

Luminescent - Luminescence [French] {lyminesɑ̃s} - Listen French pronunciation

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Better known as lume or luming, the direct translation from French can be : something that glows.
Initially done with radioactive materials such as Radium, the emission of light rays was done by the radio luminescent property of this material.
Nowadays mostly done by the use of fine powder containing traces of Tritium or with tritium filled tubes.
The luminescent material is mostly applied on the dial and its elements, but can also be found on bezels

Spoiler

Visit of an atelier specialied in watch luming :

Overview of the watch luming materials : 

 

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Glaude

Meteorite - Météorite [French] {meteɔʁit} - Listen French pronunciation

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As you would have guessed, meteorite dial (can be sometimes found on other parts of the watch) is made from a slice of metallic meteorites.
They usually show what is called the Widmanstätten pattern, which consists of crosshatching strikes of different colours and metals.
Since they are made of a metallic material, those type of surface can be treated as any other metal surface and associated with other types of finishes and decorations.

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Glaude

Mother of pearl - Nacre [French] {nakʁ} - Listen French pronunciation

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Not really a finish nor a decoration, but can be considered as the last one, since the only purpose of this material is to modify the appearance of the watch.
Mother of pearl is a natural iridescent material that comes from the inside surface of certain type of sea shells, it's consisted of Aragonite crystals linked by conchiolin proteins.
Mother of pearl is the same material than what is found on the outside layer of fresh-water pearl.
Mother of pearl can have various colours depending on their internal structure and can be artificially coloured.
Synthetic mother of pearl does exist and is made from fish scales and horn.
Working with Mother of pearl require safety precautions, the fine dust generated by its cutting and forming contain arsenic in dangerous quantity.

Spoiler

Cutting of raw mother of pearl material :

 

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Glaude

Plating - Placage [French] {plakaʒ} - Listen French pronunciation

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Plating is a process whereby one metal is covered by another, it's a good way to obtain certain property of the plating metal without having all the part in said metal.
Mainly for decorative purpose, plating is also useful to reduce corrosion.
Plating is the name of the process in general, but is often used to talk about electroplating and most often for gold electroplating.
Plating can be done by various methods, like liquid coating, powder coating, Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD, see the definition), Chemical Vapour Deposition (see the definition).
Alongside plating you'll often encounter the term "wrapping", mainly encountered in the rep world, this term refers to the gold filling process as known in the jewellery word.
The difference between wrapping or filling and plating resides in the method and result even though the appearance won't change between the two.
Wrapping or filling whether it be gold or any other material, is the deposition of multiple sheets of material on top of the base metal, it requires a lot more of the precious metal and offers a more durable product. This is a mechanical process.
Plating is only depositing a very thin layer of material on top of the base, just to give the colour and some protection. This is a chemical process.
Even if technically there's no limit to the thickness of an electro-plating, it will usually be used to put the thinnest layer possible, whereas wrapping/filling is usually thicker.
You'll eventually hear the word Vermeil when talking about plating, it's simply when the plated material is silver and the platting is at least 2.5 micron of gold.
There's no regulation regarding gold plating but there is for gold filling and vermeil.

Spoiler

Detailled and quick explanation of the electroplating process :

Example of DIY electroplating commercial kit : 

Awesome old school video of the gold filling process :

 

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Glaude

Plating - CVD - CVD [English] {cevede}

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CVD or Chemical Vapour Deposition is another plating process, close to PVD but differ in the method and result.
Where in PVD the coating material is in pure liquid or solid form to start with, in CVD the coating material is mixed with a volatile material called a precursor that will carry the coating material onto the desired surface.
PVD is what's called a "line of sight" deposition method, which means you only get a coating on what's in front of the source (mostly circumvented by having a rotating apparatus inside the chamber). CVD doesn't suffer from that limitation.
CVD is a more complicated process that requires a lot of heat, hence making it harder to coat certain material that wouldn't tolerate such heat (300°C to 900°c).
Although you can now find some CVD method that doesn't require so much heat.
CVD has the advantage of producing a thicker layer of coating but its use in the watch industry is rare.

Spoiler

Simple explanation of the CVD process :

 

 

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Glaude

Plating - PVD - PVD [English] {pevede}

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PVD stands for Physical Vapour Deposition and is a form of plating, despite being different from eletroplating and filling, the end goal is the same, having a different appearance than the plated material and increasing the toughness of the final product.
PVD is done under a vacuum to produce a thin coating from a material that is first condensed in a liquid or solid form then in a vapour state then again to a condensed state as a coating on the product.
There's multiple way of doing PVD, the main ones being sputtering and evaporation.
Even though PVD is mostly seen as a black coating on watches, nothing prevents using PVD to deposit gold or other materials.
PVD offer many advantages over regular electroplating. Harder and more corrosion and scratch resistant. It can also be applied to any base material.
Alongside PVD the term DLC (Diamond Like Carbon and not Diamond Like Coating) is often opposed to PVD. It's a mistake, DLC is a form of PVD.
DLC is a very hard and very durable coating that share some structural property with the diamond and with the carbon.

Spoiler

Demonstration video of the sputtering PVD process : 

Full process of producing a PVD coated part in Taiwan Chinese Taipei : 

Thermal deposition method of PVD coating :

 

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Glaude

Railroad - Chemin de fer [French] {ʃəmɛ̃ də fɛʁ} - Listen French pronunciation

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Railroad is a simple decoration used to show the minute and hour markers.
It can be of any general shape as long as it presents the parallel running lines and the perpendicular ones.
Usually applied via pad printing or painted on the dial

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Repoussé - Repoussé [French] {ʁəpuse} - Listen French pronunciation

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Repoussé means pushed out in English and this name clearly explain how this decoration is done.
Usually with the help of a hammer and tools or with a ready-made form, the desired pattern or design is pressed or hammered from the inside out to produce smooth edges and deep engravings.
This can be done on every metal or ductile surface, but usually reserved to gold, silver and copper.
Quite common on pocket watches back in the day, it's almost inexistent in modern wristwatches due to its appearance being a bit too outdated.
In the non-artistic world this technique would be called embossing.
It's often associated with other techniques of engraving to give the final design a more precise and refined appearance.

Spoiler

Example of repoussé work :

 

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Glaude

Satin - Satiné [French] {satine} - Listen French pronunciation

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Satin finish is made the same way as brushed finish and rely on the same techniques. The only difference is that a finer abrasive is used in order to make the scratching lines almost non-visible.
Satin finish is the step just before a shining polish surface. You can best describe the satin finish as a polish that is not a mirror polish, meaning that nothing except the light, is reflecting on it.

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Sector - Secteur [French] {sɛktœʁ} - Listen French pronunciation

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A sector dial is a type of decoration and an added "functionality".
Any dial subdivided in bigger section than just minutes, hours or seconds can be called a sector dial.
A common type of sector dial is the crosshairs, subdividing the dial in quarters.

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Setting - Sertissage [French] {sɛʁtisaʒ} - Listen French pronunciation

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Setting is the name of technique used to secure a stone, a gem (whether it is precious, semi-precious or any other type) into another material, usually metal and most often precious metals.
The main objective of setting (or stone setting as you will more often read) is to show most of the stone and the less possible of the material in which it sits.
There are quite a few methods of stone settings, the most common one are the following :
- Bezel/collet setting : the stone is encircled by a strip of the base metal (or another metal for aesthetic purposes) and this metal is pressed over the border of the stone (the girdle of the stone). This is the oldest method and the most resistant.
- Bulk setting : the stone is held by tiny bits of the base metal, usually at the corner of the stone, those tiny bits of metal are obtained by removing most of the base material with a graver tool, by hand. Multiple type of bulk settings exists depending on the desired final look. (pavé setting, grain setting, illusion head setting, etc...). Mainly used when a lot of stones are involved.
- Prong/claw setting : the stone is held in place by prongs, they are then bent over the border of the stone
- Invisible/Mystery setting : a groove is cut into a rounded stone and a metal rail snap in that groove, the stone hide completely the metal, making this setting technique invisible, hence the name.
- Snow setting : the stone (most often diamonds) are set side by side with various diameters to cover entirely the base metal, this technique rely on a careful selection of the stone to hide every bit of underlying metal.
Depending on the method used, the process can involve the use of power tools, cnc or only non powered tools.

Spoiler

Stone setting on a Patek Philippe bezel : 

Closeup shot of square stone setting : 

Collet stone setting

 

 

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Glaude

Skeleton - Squelette [French] {skəlɛt} - Listen French pronunciation

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Skeleton or open work is when the dial of the watch is partially or totally absent, revealing the movement. The movement has also its plate and bridges cut out to expose the wheels and various parts of it, leaving only the necessary material to hold everything together.
The skeletonised movement can also be further decorated to improve the overall aesthetic of the watch.
Skeleton watch are often made on movement that is worth looking at whether they have been engineered that way or because of their natural appearance in regards of their functionalities.

Spoiler

Making of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Open Work :

The art of skeletonising at Audemars Piguet (Video in french but turn on the subtitles) :

 

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Glaude

Sodalite - Sodalite [French] {sɔdalit} - Listen French pronunciation

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Sodalite is a gem stone used mainly in the making of dial. It's most of the time a dark blue background with inclusions of white, grey, yellow, pink or green.
It's one of the constituant of Lapis-Lazuli.

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Spotting - Perlage [French] {pɛʁlaʒ} - Listen French pronunciation

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Called Perlage in French, a word that resembles Perl (Pearl in English), because of the result of this decoration technique that look like the shine of round freshwater pearl.
Mostly used on movement parts to make them look nicer than just bare metal, this can also be used on any part the watchmaker want to embellish.
Strictly speaking perlage is the decoration formed by concentric circles overlapping (or not) each other.
A lot of different technique can be used to produce that result, going for simple hand-operated tool to CNC machining.

Spoiler

Perlage with a power tool : 

CNC machine dedicated to perlage :

 

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Sunray brushing - Décor brossé-soleil [French] {dekɔʁ bʁɔsesɔlɛj} - Listen French pronunciation

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Sunray brushing or sunburst as you will most likely hear, is the distinctive pattern of very thin to almost invisible lines, starting from the centre of a part and going to the outside, simulating sun's rays.
This pattern can be applied on other decorations like guilloché to give the part more variation in the way it reflects light.
Usually this is done by using an abrasive powder called Tartare and metal brushes. Nowadays this is mainly an automated process via CNC.

Spoiler

Creating the sunray finish with a CNC machine at Franck Muller dial atelier : 

 

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trailboss99

I would just like to thank Glaude for this amazing thread that is such a valuable resource for RWG. 

It is works like this by members that make this forum special and make understanding some of the terms used in horology so much easier for folk to understand. W eare indebeted to him for his efforts here, thank you sir! 

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