Watch hands is a simple thing but there has many things you don’t know
This post will mention:
- Materials of the watch hands
- Types and shape style of watch hands
- Luminous of watch hands
- What should you know about the watch hands? order quantity
- How’s the watches manufacturing process
Let’s step forward:
Materials of The Watch Hands
Ordinary watches, low and medium-grade watches, alarm clocks, quartz clock hands are made of aluminum. The high-grade ones are made of brass, bronze, stainless steel, gold, or alloy materials.
Copper is soft, malleable, and ductile.
Copper has a long history of use, and compared with iron, copper has good corrosion resistance and is not easy to rust.
In addition, copper is cheap and easy to work with. Brass is a commonly used material in watches and is often used in watch movements, most of which currently use brass alloy plates.
Some watch dials and straps are also made of copper, but with the development of watch-making technology, copper is less often used as a watch dial and bracelet material nowadays.
Types and Shape Styles of Watch Hands?
You must know there are hour hand and minute hands, also second hands.
There are thousands of styles of watch hands, commonly used pointers can be divided into 2 types:
- Ordinary hands
- Diamond-cut watch hands
Diamond-cut watch hand also has a branch. that is the stereoscopic diamond-cut Watch hands.
Depending on the usage, you can also divide it into
- High Feet Watch Hands
- Oil Painted Hands
- Polishing Hands
- Polished semi-round watch hands
- Luminous Hands
Shapes of Watch Hands:
Breguet Hands
Before 1783, the hands were mostly short and wide, with elaborate inlays that made them difficult to identify on the bulky and dull dials.
From the beginning of his watchmaking career, Breguet focused on creating timepieces that were simple in appearance and refined in substance.
It is not surprising that Abraham-Louis Breguet left an indelible mark on this field, as the hands are one of the most important components of a watch, both in terms of function and aesthetics.
At first, he used gold English hands until 1783, when he invented a new type of hand made of gold or blued steel, whether the skeletonized tip was called apple or moon, both of which were skeletonized and off-centered.
The slender and elegant hands were an instant hit. Since then, the term “Breguet hands,” like “Breguet hairspring” has quickly become a common term in watchmaking.
Willow leaf Shaped hands
The willow leaf hand resembles a willow leaf, slender and highly contoured, with graceful curves and a light body, which also gives the watch a softer temperament.
The willow hand is graceful, sleek, elegant, and slender, very much in line with public aesthetics, and is a kind of watch hand favored by many major manufacturers.
Bar Type Hands
A bar-shaped hand is shaped like a stick, usually in the shape of a long bar.
It gives the impression of simplicity and generosity, and people who like this kind of pointer are generally more simple and elegant, with a minimalist style.
Arrow Shape Hands
Arrows are generally used to indicate the direction and target, with a strong sense of direction and target, is one of the most seen indication signs in our daily life.
And the arrow-shaped hand is generally thicker and can be filled with materials such as luminescent substances to make it luminous. Generally used more in diving watches
Sword-shaped Hands
The sword-shaped hands here are different from the arrow-shaped hands, the sword-shaped hands are named after the ancient cold weapons – swords.
The shape of the hand is called lancette in French, it is very similar to the willow hands, but there are obvious differences, the sword-shaped hand has no curvature, more angles and more power, but the sword-shaped hand is not too hard, worthy of a taste.
Taffy Hands
The toffee hand is one of the most classic and popular types of hands.
It has an asymmetrical diamond-shaped design with a certain sense of dimensionality, and both the tip and the end of the hands are pointed, but the tip is thinner.
The name Dauphine comes from the French royal family, where the Prince is called “Dauphin” and the wife of the prince means dauphine.
Knief Type Hands
Churches Shape Hands
Peach Shaped Hands
Diamond-shaped Hands
Louie Hands
Mercedes
Fancy Mercedes
Stick
Wide stick
Tie / Tie with tail
Dauphine
In addition to the above-mentioned conventional hands that are used more often, there are many equally good-looking niche hands, such as the pen hand, the spade hand, the snowflake hand, the Lance hand …… etc.
Luminous on Watch Hands
some watches can check the time at night, this is luminous oil that was put on the hands.
Luminous Materials of Hands
Most of the luminous hands are hands filled with Luminous oil, while inside of luminous material is the luminous powder.
There are two types of luminous materials for watches: self-luminous and storage type luminescent.
Self-illuminated luminous materials are composed of radioactive materials and do not need to absorb energy from the outside, so they can emit light continuously, not only at night but also during the day.
Storage-type luminous materials rarely contain radioactive materials, with no restrictions on the use, but they rely on the absorption of external light energy to light and to reserve enough light energy to ensure that always light.
Another drawback of light-storing luminous materials is the brightness is not enough.
Photoluminescent storage luminous powder is a luminous powder after being irradiated by natural light, daylight, ultraviolet light, etc., the light energy is stored and then slowly released in the form of fluorescence after stopping light irradiation, so at night or in the dark, you can still see the luminous, lasting for several hours to a dozen hours.
Luminous coating (luminous material): A new generation of luminous material, applied to the hands and dials, is illuminated by daylight and absorbs energy; at night, it emits light without radiation.
In this way, you can check time when darkness is in the area, In the early days, radium salts were used to make luminescent coatings, but due to the danger caused by the radioactive properties of radium salts, the element tritium was used instead.
Recently, it has been replaced by a super luminous coating that does not oxidize and has no risk of radioactivity.
Although luminous watches have some radiation, tritium is a radioactive element, but I assure you that no watch manufacturer dares to make their watches produce enough radiation to harm humans, the amount of radiation in watches is strictly controlled within a safe range. So please wear your watch with peace of mind.
In other words, the radiation from a luminous watch is negligible. Wearing a luminous watch for ten years will not expose you to as much radiation as an X-ray, so you don’t need to worry about that.
Different producing countries of Luminous oil:
- China Brand (C1 and S1)
- Japan Brand (HS1/NLC1)
- Swiss Brand (BGW9/SLC3)
Different Luminous color of watch hands
- Green
- Blue
- White
- Orange
- Other colors
There are different kinds of luminous filled effect, up , down, flat.
What Should You Know About the Hands? Order Quantity
This is the aspect we need to know for the watch hands:
As mentioned before, hand styles are important, but the below aspects are more important, it will decide if your watches work well or not.
The Watch Hands Weightness
if too heavy, The movements can not hold it. it will fall off too. So the watch hands supplier will need to know what movements you will use for put on the hands.
The Hole Dimensions of the Watch Hands
A pointer is usually made up of two parts: the barrel and the needle.
The aperture is the size of the hole where the watch hand and the movement pin shaft are fixed, and the aperture of the watch hand is strictly in accordance with the size of the movement pin shaft aperture.
For example, if the outer diameter of the hour wheel shaft of our common ETA 2824-2 movement is 1.25mm, then the engineering bore of the hour hand’s needle shaft hole should be around 1.26mm. A hand is usually composed of a barrel and the needle.
The Hands shafts of the regular three hands are hollow except for the seconds hand, which is solid, and the minute and hour hands.
Once we know the diameter of the pinhole, we know that the diameter of the pinhole is the same as long as the watch uses the same movement, but this does not mean that the pinhole diameter is the same and can be interchanged in the watch.
There are also two key data, needle height and needle length.
The Tube Height of the Watch Hands.
Hands height refers to the height of the Hands tube, which determines the space between the hands(minutes, seconds, and hour hands), also the space between the top hands and the mirror.
The needle length is the distance from the center of the hand hole to the tip of the longest end of the needle, which is the size of the dial that determines the longest size of the hands.
Here to clarify, the higher the tube height of the hand represents the thicker the dial, usually an enamel dial or relief sculpture dial, which can also indicate that the watch is thick. The opposite is thin.
At this point, we can understand why some different brand watches have the same movement, also the same design structure, But the watches’ thickness is different. except some designs are designed to increase the thickness to match the diameter.
we can basically see that a well-crafted three-hand watch, with the same 2824-2 movement, some manufacturers can do in 8.5 mm, but some are 10 mm?
Not only do you need to optimize the case structure, but also should make the small and accurate space( the hands + hands spaces, also hands+mirror spaces) of them.
So let’s see the below pictures:
You must know that the hand’s assembly needs high technical requirements, if the design of the space is very small, then the assembly error needs to be smaller, otherwise, the hands will rub against each other or to the mirror friction leading to stop walking or scratches.
So ordinary watch factories or manufacturers will design the spaces larger, and assembly errors even larger do not matter.
General assembly error of the hour hand is the easiest to control, because the barrel of the hour hand can be engineered to the upper limit of the hour axle wheel. But the minute hand and second hand are a little more difficult.
Then we can say this: The same movement watch, unless in the design of the special requirements of the thicker table, basically, who do the thin who bully. Here to exclude other designs.
The Watch Hands Length
Let’s not consider the design of the watches.
Generally speaking, the length of the hour hand is not too strictly limited, as long as it does not obscure the scale. The length of the minute and second hands should be decided in strict accordance with the principle of scale matching.
So let’s see the name brand, it is exact on the top of the index
You should consider the Dynamic loading force of the movement
if the hands are too long, The movements can not move them. it will fall off
The Color of Watch Hands
Painting and Plating Color
Painting or Plating color can be any color, as long as the supplier can do it for you. Painting colors can be White, Black, Silver, gold, rose gold, blue, green, etc.. Plating colors always are black, gold, rose gold, gray, etc. just like the watch case color,
The color choices of painting are much more than plating color.
The difference between the Plating color and the Painting color is the thickness, Plating will be thinner, and the Painting hands will be thicker
Burn Blue
What is the material of watch hands – blued steel, burned blue, also known as burn blue. Blued steel is not dark blue steel, but a metal surface treatment;
the steel parts are heated to 300 ° C and then cooled by an organic chemical solution, soap feet so that the surface of the parts shows a dark blue color
The Order Quantities
The order quantity of the watch hands can be different if the supplier has their stocks, Mostly they sell by a set, and you need to tell them which movement of the watch will be used.
The supplier will provide the right measure and weight according to the movement tolerance.
If not their existing styles, Customers want to build their special design, The supplier will tell you they have the MOQ limit and the mold cost. mostly it is thousands of pieces.
Production time of Wrist Watch Hands:
Existing Style: 2 days
Customized: 15-25 days, depending on quantity and style.
Quality Check of the Wrist Watches’ Hands
Let’s talk about the Artwork requirements,
The basic requirement of the watch hands is no scratches, no dust, no distortion of the surface, a flat surface is flat, a curved surface is smooth, and no burrs of the edge.
This is the common method we use to distinguish fake watches.
Rolex hands are good example, No blur, smooth, no dust
Fake rolex is this:
How Is the Manufacturing Process of the Watch Hands?
1.Confirm design, Make the CAD drawing, and make mold according to the drawing, then assemble the mold.
3.Punching the hands by machine
4.Cutting watch hands and make the hands in arrey on the polish tools
5. Polish or brush the fishin of the hands
6.Take off the hands from the tools, and clean the watch hands
7.Plating colors
8. Add luminous oil
I will talk more in detail in my future post. make sure to subscribe to us. so you won’t miss any chance to know watches
Kesimpulan:
The watch hand is one of the facial features of the watch, and its refinement determines its value. In a word, you get what you pay for. If you pay less, Then do not be too demanding; if you pay more, Pls check if it is worth it.
Source link:
- Photoluminescent：(Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoluminescence)
