11. Refining the Design

After spending some time prototyping my original design, I learned a few things about the limitations of some of the processes and also found that my original design was a little ambitious with both the number of components as well as my ability to finish them to a level that I wanted.

The other issue with my design was the size. While I felt a 42mm case size was good based on my initial assessments, when I got the design 3d printed and put it together, it seemed very bulky on my wrist. So, I decided to downsize to a 39mm case size, which is much better proportioned to my wrist.

I also worked on simplifying the design while trying to make it more elegant. The first design now served more as a concept that marked key features that I wanted to carry into this more refined design. I kept the case very similar, included the window to be able to see the movement, but all these forms were more refined. The new design now has only 4 custom components: the case, the case back, the dial and a movement holder. I am still going to try to make custom hands, but will revert to off-the-shelf hands if those do not work out.

The image below shows a rendering of this new design:

One of the biggest weak points of the previous design was the lugs. For that design I wanted to use bent rods and secure them with screws. This proved to be more complicated that I thought! However, the intent of that approach was to keep the form of the case clean and not have to compromise its silhouette to allow for lugs. This new design achieves that same goal by moving the lugs to the case back as shown in the image below. As far as I know, I have not encountered any other watch that does this - I hope this is not a mistake!

While experimenting with different aesthetics of this new design, I came up with a dial design that allows me to experiment with bronze patina finishes - something I had explored in my #8 blog post. In this design, I plan to use a bronze outer ring that I will patina with a rainbow finish. This outer ring will surround an aluminum dial that has ‘geneva stripes’ as the finishing for the dial. A reddening for this concept is shown below, although it doesn’t show the patina or the ‘geneva stripes’, just the bronze outer ring and an aluminum dial.

Bronze chapter ring around an Aluminum dial

One of the design features I really wanted to incorporate in design was to have a dial that was not just a flat piece of metal with pretty paint, but something more three dimensional. For this new design I’ve done this by curving the outside of the dial so it appears as if it is emerging from within the watch.

Dial appears as if it is emerging from within the watch

Parts have been ordered / are being made for both dial versions and I will make a new post with pictures of the parts and progress with the assembly.