by Jon Edwards

Chess Watch

The making of a homemade, quartz watch mod with a miniature chess match inside.

Image from linked video

Bronze Savoir Faire

Making bronze bracelets with the new, micro-adjustable T-Fit clasp, at Tudor in Switzerland.

Image from linked video

DIY Ball Clock

An Intractable, by Reparator, detailing how to make your own minimalist, magnetic, ball bearing clock.

Image credit Reparator

Permatex

Designed for touching up broken connections in the heating elements found on the rear windscreen of most modern vehicles, in a pinch, Permatex’s Windshield Repair Kit is great for restoring broken coils in vintage quartz and electro-mechanical movements for which spare parts are no longer available.

Programmable Hands

The hands of Garmin's new Instinct Crossover are fully programmable using the company's Connect IQ SDK.

setClockHandPosition (options as
{
   :clockState as WatchUi.AnalogClockState,
   :hour as Lang.Number or Null,
   :minute as Lang.Number or Null
})

:clockState – A framework-level constant for the clock state
:hour – Position for the hour hand in degrees clockwise from the 12 o'clock position
:minute – Position for the minute hand in degrees clockwise from the 12 o'clock position

Tissot has had a 20+ year head start shipping timepieces with independently-controllable, bi-directional hands. It's a shame they haven't gotten around to implementing a similar SDK for their stable of T Touch timepieces.

Image credit Garmin Ltd.

The Hands Behind the Watches

BBC Middle East pays a visit to the workshops of Roger W. Smith and gives voice to the many hands that help craft his marque’s timepieces today (dubbed in Arabic).

A Touch of Gold

Swatch adds a touch of Omega's Moonshine Gold to their MoonSwatch collab. Available for one day only, at Swatch boutiques in London, Milan, Tokyo, and Zurich.

While the Swatch Group has clearly deciphered and put into practice the soul of the shoe drop hype machine, deftly applying it to similarly-priced timepieces, I have my doubts that this particular MoonSwatch will cast anywhere near the same shadow that last year's MoonSwatch announcement did over the whole of Watches and Wonders 2022.

Image credit The Swatch Group Ltd.

Gerd-Rüdiger Lang Has Passed Away

Watchmaker Gerd-Rüdiger Lang, who founded the watch brand Chronoswiss, has passed away at the age of 80.

Image credit Chronoswiss

Selling to Today’s Clients in Today’s World

Jamie Weiss, reporting for DMARGE, digs into Julien Tornare’s balance of high-tech, high touch, and high tradition in turning Zenith’s fortunes around amidst a global pandemic.

Image credit Zenith SA

Airless Basketball

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of Wilson’s new Airless Prototype Basketball, developed in partnership with EOS and General Lattice.

Image credit Wilson Sporting Goods Company

Early URWERK

An early movement created by Felix Baumgartner for the URWERK UR-101 and UR-102 models while he was working for fellow independent watchmaker, Svend Andersen, in Geneva.

Image credit URWERK

Vention

Creators of readily customizable manufacturing and automation solutions, based in Montreal, Berlin, and Boston.

Making Manhole Covers in Japan

I love the character that artful touches like this bring to a cityscape. The mosaic sidewalks of Portugal lend its cities, like Lisbon, a similar artistic charm underfoot.

I particularly appreciate the blend of automation & artisanship that the Japanese bring to the production of these manhole covers.

Self-assembling Carbon Nanoyarn

The approach used by NIF here to draw carbon nanotubes together is borderline artisanal. The end result is a micro-scale thread with incredible tensile strength, developed to replace the spider silk previously being used to suspend fuel capsules for nuclear fusion.

Image from linked video

“Speed Will Always Be at Odds With Quality”

Izzie Ramirez investigates why the longevity of most goods we buy today pales in comparison to those of decades past.

Enea Tree Museum

Situated on parkland near the shores of Lake Zurich, the Enea Baummuseum is an outdoor museum in Switzerland where trees are the art.

Created by Enzo Enea and his team at the Swiss architectural firm, Enea.

Image credit Enea GmbH

Tea Time

A tea infuser inspired by the shape of a pocket watch, the T-Timepiece was created by Dutch designer, Titus Wybenga.

Image credit Alessi USA Inc.

What Smartwatches See

Steve Mould breaks down the way that smartwatches use different wavelengths of light to quantify metrics like our pulse, breathing rate, and blood oxygen level.