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Horological Meandering

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 silver powder, tartar and salt. There is a chemical found in pigs hair that acts as a catalyst in order to bind the silver to the brass surface which results in a frosted finish. The piece is then gold plated to reveal the L&H stunning frosted finish.

As far as I know no-one else is doing this exact form of finishing. BTW a synthetic brush will not work, Marco tried it, as the bristles do not contain the catalyst chemical inherent in pigs hair!

From what I've seen first hand and speaking with Roger, his frosted finishing is also superb and very difficult to master.

Cheers,

Tim

Marco's version, my WG Johann:




A friends RG Johann...




Picture from Basel, the Heinrich in WG.




 
A unique flying Tourbillon by Roger Smith:





Roger Smith's Series 2 movement:



Cheers,
Tim

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14 Comments view entire thread 

Question re: movement finishing

 
By: Craig LA : August 18th, 2010-12:30
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

 
By: pejp : August 18th, 2010-13:49
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...

 
By: Ogygia : August 19th, 2010-01:57
It is a traditional polishing method from UK and close to sand-blasting.

Here's a bit of info; sounds dangerous!

 
By: cazalea : August 18th, 2010-15:31
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

 
By: InkRose : August 20th, 2010-02:03
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

 
By: Ger : August 20th, 2010-08:28
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...

 
By: Tim Jackson : August 20th, 2010-14:40
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

 
By: Ger : August 21st, 2010-00:45
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. . .

 
By: Jack Forster : August 20th, 2010-10:57
. . . 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

 
By: cazalea : August 20th, 2010-11:50
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. . .

 
By: Jack Forster : August 20th, 2010-13:56
. . . 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

 
By: Tony A.H : August 24th, 2010-16:20
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 ...