Which extraordinary techniques are used today to decorate watch dials? We continue to explore exquisite craftsmanship.
Lacquering
Strange as it may seem, the reason European lacquerers used to coat dials with lacquer wasn't to increase the value of dials but to bring down the cost of making them. For instance, lacquer was used as a cheaper alternative to costly and time-consuming enameling.
That's why fans of haute horlogerie were pleasantly surprised to see the Vacheron Constantin release its La Symbolique des Laques in 2010. The dials of these models were finished using a largely unheard of technique called maki-e, which can be translated literally from Japanese as a "sprinkled picture".
The maki-e lacquer technique is the most complicated form of decorative lacquering which only a select few artisans have mastered. That's why the Swiss watchmaker turned to the oldest Japanese lacquering company Zôhiko, founded in Kyoto in 1661.
This technique creates a pattern by taking the utmost care to sprinkle gold or silver powder over usually black lacquer before it sets. The lacquer is made from sap tapped from the bark of the Rhus verniciflua lacquer tree, which now only grow in southern China, Vietnam and Japan.
Meanwhile, the luxury watch and jewelry manufacturer Chopard signed a contract to have its dials decorated by another famous Japanese lacquerware company called Yamada Heiando, which hold the secret to another ancestral Japanese lacquering art known as urushi.
"Urushi" is the Japanese word used to refer to the natural lacquer made from the sap of lacquer trees. Every June, sap-tapping horizontal incisions are cut 5 mm deep into the bark of trees which are at least ten years old.
The raw material is harvested, filtered several times, blended and strained. During this process, the sap's water content is reduced by 30 percent to one third and it takes on a light brown color due to oxidation.
In order to achieve the desired color for the lacquer, the pure sap needs to be mixed with the right pigment. A high humidity level of 80-85% needs to be maintained at a temperature of around 30°C for the urushi lacquer to dry and fully set. Dials decorated using this technique obtain a perfect glossy surface that won't fade for centuries.
Koreans like to combine the art of lacquering with mother-of pearl. They rightly believe that the mother-of-pearl will continue to shimmer forever with all the colors of the rainbow beneath a lacquer shield.
In the najeon-chilgi mother-of-pearl inlay technique, a motif is pieced together from mother-of-pearl fragments on a surface which is then frozen in time with a layer of lacquer. This very popular ancestral Korean art form was used by the watchmaker Jaquet Droz to decorate the dial of the Petite Heure Minute Thousand Year Lights model.
Metal "Paints"
The latest nanotechnology coupled with the resurrection of ancient metalworking techniques has opened up almost endless creative possibilities for masterful modern Métiers d’Art. After all, metals can also be used as paints, and they offer an almost infinite color palette.
Cartier learned how to change the color of gold using flames for the first time by 2015, hence the name "Flamed Gold" to describe the technology. The most important thing to remember when burning gold is to keep the temperature of the flame under control.
The color will change if the metal is overheated by around a dozen degrees. The watchmaker showcased this know-how in the Ronde Louis Cartier XL Flamed Gold model. The spotted big cat which graces the dial of this watch is drawn on what started out as a white gold dial using gold rods heated to different temperatures (colors are achieved from red-hot to white-hot, from 204 °C to 337 °C).
The jewlers also achieved the dial's blue backdrop by holding the disk in the fire for a fixed amount of time. In order to give this member of the noble Panthera genus its rich colors ranging from light beige to deep brown, a little enamel did inevitably have to be used.
The dial is also decorated with Etruscan granulation in places, where an image is created by arranging tiny gold spheres on the dial's surface which are subsequently melted using an acetylene torch.
Masters of the craft at Blancpain revived forgotten decorative techniques in the same year which were thought to have been forever consigned to the past: shakudō and damasquinage. These were the techniques used to finish the dial of the Blancpain Villeret Shakudō.
Damasquinage is the art of inlaying different precious-metal threads into one another, while the technique of shakudō allows a special gold and copper alloy to be treated to develop colors all the way up to black. The watch dial depicts a seated Ganesh — the Hindu god of wisdom, intelligence, prudence and education.
One year later, the lacquerers went on to decorate the Blancpain Villeret 8 Jours Manuelle model with a combination of shakudō and rokushō (a variation of satin-brushing which creates a unique patina on the surface).
The combination of these techniques with Mexican silver obsidian (translucent volcanic rock) gives the model an unparalleled shimmery appearance. The dial features a very popular Japanese woodblock print by the ukiyo-e artist Hokusai called "The Great Wave off Kanagawa".
Sculpted Dials
Sculpted dials have always been a source of pride among elite manufacturers. Some models boast entire groups and compositions of sculpted dials. Truth be told, the sculptors and architects have their work cut out for them, as their hands tied by the watchmakers in almost every aspect. After all, the extension of the hands is the nemesis of masters working on sculpted dials.
In other words, the maximum possible distance between the dial's surface and the bottom periphery of the hands. This is severely restricted by the height of the central axis driven in the movement's lower plate, which it passes through to hold the hands on its upper end.
It can't simply be made longer by two or three millimeters, because it needs to be calculated in advance like other factors such as weight, stability and load capacity. Any deviations could destabilize rotation and quickly lead to the mechanism going out of sync.
And the calculations which need to be made to increase this extension are nearly as complicated as those required to develop a new watch movement.
You be the judge: a cylindrical tube is needed on the axis to raise the height of hands, the possible consequences of this cylinder coming in contact with the dial also need to be factored in and separate calculations are also needed for the additional load the movement will have to bear. The list goes on. But those are the lengths masters go to for beauty and their clients.