THE PROCESS
FROM RAW MATERIAL TO FINISHED WATCH.
"Vertical integration" is an industry expression. At Roysdon Watch Co., it has a simpler meaning: The person who imagined the watch is the person who has to make it.
DESIGN
Before metal, mathematics. The first hours leave no physical trace. They exist only in decisions. Studying books or online material. Working many days or weeks for gear calculations, movement layouts and tolerances, and produce CAD drawings and renderings.
MOVEMENT MAKING
REMOVE EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT THE PART.
A movement begins as material that does not yet know what it will become. Milling, turning, drilling and cutting progressively remove everything that is not the final component. A machine measured in millimeters. Mainplates, bridges, wheels, pinions, screws.
METROLOGY
Precision is not achieved because the drawing says a dimension should be correct. It is achieved by measuring what was actually made. When a part is wrong, even by an amount almost impossible to see, the answer is not explanation. The answer is another part.
The NS CNC Elara 4-axis Mill is a very accurate CNC mill for the watchmaker with 0.002 mm position accuracy and repeatability. But to verify machined parts, they must be measured on a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) with at least 2X the accuracy as the mill, this is why we use a Keyence CMM.
We measure the concentricity of a wheel and pinion using a micrometer measuring the “hop” of the wheel while rotating the pinion. Any misalignment, and the wheel and pinion must be reworked.
We measure the thickness of our parts with a micrometer on a granite slab. The granite is very stable and provides a very flat surface so that we can accurately measure the thickness of our parts, for example main plates. Any thickness deviation and the part is scrapped.
CASE MAKING
The architecture around the machine. This video illustrates our process to cast a case and buckle using the "lost wax investment casting" process, a 6500 year old technique.
THE DIAL
A guilloché pattern is not printed onto the surface. It is cut into it. One controlled line after another. Light does the rest. Geometry becomes light through the use of tools, e.g., Rose engine and Straight-line engine, and materials like silver, gold and enamel, and finished with pad printed lettering or adorned with 18k gold hour indices, chapter rings and hands.
FINISHING
A movement can function before its edges are beveled. Before surfaces are polished. Before decoration is applied. Those hours are not required to make the machine run. They are required because someone cared how the machine was made.
Anglage.
Black/mirror polishing.
Pearlage.
Straight graining.
Electroplating.
Whatever techniques apply to that watch.
LEATHER
The final part is made for the wrist. The watch may contain hundreds of metal components, but the piece connecting it to its owner is leather. So that, too, is made here.
While there are many videos on YouTube describing how to make a watch band, most videos just layer the leather and paint the edges. Dr. Roysdon took a different approach bytapering the top layer at the edge and draping the top layer over the sides. This new process requires 48 steps (versus 25 in the old process) to make a watch band. The result is a beautiful, continuous, leather grain from top to bottom. While this is a much more difficult process, the result is elegant, professional, and more comfortable to wear.
TOOLS
Watchmaking has always depended upon tools made for extraordinarily specific tasks. Sometimes Roysdon finds the tool he needs. Sometimes he modifies one. Sometimes the only answer is to build it. Below is a small selection of tools that were made to build or finish a Roysdon Watch.
Pearlage Jig
This jig was designed to facilitate the addition of pearlage and Geneva Stripes to a watch movement. Originally built for the Roysdon Model One, this jig was designed in Fusion360 and machined on a 3-axis CNC Mill and Boley F1 Lathe. Initially the jig had equidistant hard stops on the y-axis (as shown in the video). Later we realized that an adjustable y-axis, with a lead screw and anti-backlash block (as shown in the photos) provided the necessary flexibility for various decoration operations.
Free-sprung Balance Tool
The new Model One movement uses a free-sprung balance. Alignment of the hairspring and impulse jewel required a new tool that allows me to “see” the impulse jewel at exactly the same angles as the escape wheel, i.e., if the jewel is centered in the “window” then it is aligned correctly (last photo). Note, the balance in the photo is the old balance that was used for testing the tool.
Dial Pad Printer
This manually operated watch dial pad printer was designed and built by Paul F. Roysdon using primarily a band saw, table router, and drill press (this is also a homage to watchmakers of years past)! In true watchmaker fashion, the design has flowing geometry, and all of the edges of the aluminum structure are chamferred and mirror polished. The edges are straight-grained. The shuttle has pearlage applied in a circular pattern around the handle pivot point. The field areas are specular finished. The handle is carefully sculpted (by hand) and mirror polished.
This pad printer took a few days to design in Fusion 360 and 2 weeks to machine mostly by-hand with some operations performed on the NS CNC Elara 4-axis Mill.
In the near future we will post a complete video of the build, plus a print on a new dial.
ASSEMBLY & REGULATION
At this point all the separate crafts finally come together. Movement assembly. Dial. Hands. Casing. Strap. Regulation.
The finished watch is small. The work inside it is not. Hundreds of hours disappear into something roughly 40 mm across.
THE MOST PRECIOUS MATERIAL IN A ROYSDON WATCH IS TIME.
Not because it measures time. Because it contains it. Hundreds of hours of one person's finite life. Decades before that acquiring the knowledge necessary to spend those hours well. There can never be more Roysdon watches than one watchmaker has time to make.