InkRose
11
Frosting
The frosted gilt finish used to be done like Roger described it, getting both the surface form and the gold plating at the same time, whereas nowadays the plate is usually frosted first (bead blasted or ground with silicon carbide or something), and then it's given a standard electro-plating treatment.
The difficulty comes largely from the fact that you really can't automate this method (unlike for example Côtes de Genève), and once applied it is very sensitive to scratches and such, the tiniest mark will scream out from a good frosted finish, so the handling of finished components is very tricky.
Question re: movement finishing
When addressing the finish quality of a watch movement, emphasis is often placed on decorative features, such as guilloche, Cotes de Geneve, perllage, and other engraving. On the other hand, I have also often heard people include Roger Smith as among the ...
gilded
This type of movement finishing is known as a 'gilded finish'. I am no expert so have no idea about the difficulty of this process relative to other finishing styles, however I do know that this is a traditional finishing often found in English watches. Y...
I heard almost the same thing...
It is a traditional polishing method from UK and close to sand-blasting.
Here's a bit of info; sounds dangerous!
I seem to recall Roger at the dinner talking about the plate being finely polished, then struck repeatedly in a random pattern with a tiny punch, and then another step of blasting or something to get the all-over pebbled finish. I found this gilding proce...
Frosting
The frosted gilt finish used to be done like Roger described it, getting both the surface form and the gold plating at the same time, whereas nowadays the plate is usually frosted first (bead blasted or ground with silicon carbide or something), and then ...
Lang & Heyne
Such style of finishing is done by Lang & Heyne Manufacture. I really love this style, thanks for the pics.
Some technical details regarding Marco's finishing...
Similar in look to Roger's but a completely different technique, one that is an 18th century method. Marco has improved upon it with excellent results! After bridges are finely polished they are coated, by a stiff pigs hair brush, with a mixture of fine s...
Silver frosting
is also used at restauration. For example Steffen Pahlow pocketwatch-maker describes the similar methode. Your pictures are amazing!
As other posters have mentioned this is something of a national English style. . .
. . . in watch decorating; I don't think anyone does gilding the old fashioned way anymore as the mercury fumes are extremely toxic. The most challenging part of the process as I understand it is raising a frosted surface on the plates --it's done (again ...
Here are some more Roger Smith images, closer
The standard disclaimers apply - hand-held camera, wine was being consumed, other WIS nerds were snatching at the timepieces, etc. Doesn't the Breguet Tradition use the same sort of finish?...
Breguet does use this style of finish. . .
. . . on the tradition and of course Breguet used it extensively in his own work. I'm not a hundred per cent sure but I seem to remember reading someplace that Montres Breguet uses a slightly different technique to raise the frosted finish on its gilt pla...
very interesting
to read different Methods ( above) on how to make a Frosted Surface. however the Process seem so complicated.( to me). i did simething very similar to this a few years ago , not Watch but Dental related . and got some succesful results. and it was fairly ...