A very exciting month 📜
Greetings, My Friends,
Welcome to the September newsletter. It's been an exciting month filled with intricate designing and machining, and yet again, significant progress on our journey to bring
Series Two to life.
Let's dive into the highlights!
Crafting the
Winding Crown ⚙️
At the beginning of the month, the making of the winding crown took centre stage. The winding crown might appear simple at first glance, but its complexity lies in the precision and attention to detail required during its creation, especially when a sealed watch crown is desired, as is the case for Series Two. Designing and making a crown that keeps the watch case sealed is significantly more challenging and time-consuming.
This small yet essential component serves as the interface between the wearer and the watch, responsible for winding the mainspring and setting the time. I'm thrilled to report that it's shaping up beautifully, with a focus on ensuring that the crown not only functions but also adds a touch of elegance to the Series Two design. Crafting this miniature mechanical assembly has been a true labour of love.
Here, I'd like to share a sectional analysis of the crown, so you can see the complexity. Each colour represents a separate component: the blue is the crown body with a small internal thread, the yellow is the nitrile O-ring that provides the seal, the pink is a small washer that retains the O-ring and is precisely turned to size, and the green is the winding tube that the crown sits over, which gets inserted into the main watch case body.
In case you missed it, here are two videos I posted on Instagram showing the process of assembling the watch crown and some of the manufacturing process⇩
With the crown prototype complete, it is now time to produce the production crowns!
Case Prototype Number 9: A Milestone Achievement.
While it may not appear that much has progressed in the making of the case, the devil is in the details. Since the last update, I have made four more prototype cases, and each iteration includes many technical design changes and adjustments to the manufacturing process. All up it has been months of meticulous designing and testing to get to this point, but I am delighted to announce that thanks to this past month's efforts, I've reached a significant milestone.
Case prototype number 9 has finally been completed, bringing case prototyping to a close. I can now confidently say it's time to move forward with producing the production cases.
I visited a renowned independent watchmaker in Europe last year, and when I told him I was going to make the entire watch case for Series Two, he responded:
"Cases and escapements, the two most difficult parts of a wristwatch to make. I have not attempted to make an entire wristwatch case. This is outsourced."
This statement prepared me for the challenge that was to come.
The watch case, bezel, and caseback have been designed and refined to achieve the perfect balance of form and function. I did not expect it would take nine prototypes to get the case to function as intended, but there are numerous factors to consider when making a case.
For Series Two, the case is made from three main components: the main case body, the bezel, and the caseback. Together they must: wear comfortably on the wrist, seal to the atmosphere, fit the movement correctly, have a perfectly aligned winding hole for the crown, snugly fitted sapphire crystals front and back, be of optimal thickness, and, of course, elegance above all else!
What's Next?
I will be focusing on making the production cases and crowns. All of my machines are set up for the task, and I am ready for the small production run. I have a real spring in my step, feeling as though a major achievement has been made getting to this stage.
What else has happened? 👀
Car Racing 🏁
A quick update on car racing. I took my car with the new engine to the Canberra Hillclimb event, and everything went great. The car performed well without any issues. I have been building the car to compete in the annual Subinats Supersprint at the Eastern Creek raceway, which took place on October 1st. It was a big week in preparation, working on the car every night after long days in the workshop.
Unfortunately, luck was not on my side. One of the vacuum hoses that control turbo boost pressure failed, even though the hose was brand new. This is considered a rare and unlikely failure point, but it resulted in a catastrophic failure of my brand-new engine with forged internals, on lap 4 of the very first session of the day. The engine's expected lifespan was roughly three seasons of racing, not a mere four weeks.
Given this expensive setback, I don't expect to have another racing update to share with you for the foreseeable future.
Until next time, I want to express my gratitude for your continued support.
Thank you,
Reuben Schoots
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