GRENAGE DIAL

First a final cut solid fine silver dial is engraved with the selected indexes, numerals, and texts. The ultra-shallow engravings are hand filled with a lacquer, and the surplus hardened material then polished off by use of increasingly fine diamond paper. The dial grenage layer is then built by manually treating and brushing a secret mix of silver powder, salt, and other ingredients onto the blank silver dial surface. By electrochemical bonding process, the dial face builds up a frosted pearled and unique silvered surface with incredible depth and granularity. The dial surface is achieved by a process that is handmade. This means every dial is unique, and every watch will, therefore, have its own personality and character.

HANDS

Most watch hands today are designed and manufactured industrially. Many in a simple stamped out shape with perhaps a fold in the center line to give some strength to the construction. Bluing is most often done chemically.

Urban Jürgensen hands are handmade. They are individually honed, polished, assembled, and thermally blued to the specified Urban Jürgensen shade.

The steel arms of the hands are cut from selected steel and hand finished to perfect shape and fit. After careful polishing with increasingly fine grain diamond paper, ending with mirror polishing by use of shape fitted secret types of dried wood. Finally, the arms are thermally blued to arrive at the perfect Urban Jürgensen navy colour.

The eye is designed with an asymmetrical geometry that elevates the elegance of the entire hand by tapering the volume from the dial centre towards the tip of the hand.

The center canons for the hands have been turned on a precision lathe and mirror polished. The arms of the hands have then been carefully riveted in place around the canons for the perfect fit.

Urban Jürgensen hands require numerous hours of highly skilled workmanship and are a key feature of Urban Jürgensen timepieces not found in any other watches today.

TEARDROP LUGS

Contrary to industrial design of lugs for a watch case, which makes them easily machine milled out as an integrated part of the case, the teardrop lugs on Urban Jürgensen’s timepieces have been individually forged, heat treated, hand polished, and individually soldered onto the watch case in a way which makes the soldering line invisible to the naked eye.

The forging requires between 5 and 8 cycles through a process where little by little the final form of a paired tear drop set is forged into shape under the pressure of 50 tons. To prevent the solid lugs from becoming brittle, it is necessary after each forging cycle to release the tension in the metal through a slow heat treatment at approximately 800 degrees with a cool off period. Small variations in the composition of the metal used means adjusting the process by experience is usually needed. This results in the initial process requires a full day of work to arrive at the basic forged lug shape, even in very small series.

The paired lugs are then separated from their base, and carefully milled and hand polished into the perfect fit for the case soldering. The process of soldering the individual lugs onto the case is secret, as the exact way of doing this requires extraordinary skills to secure a perfect soldering of the highest quality obtainable, while ensuring a perfect angle of all lugs at the same time – and with no visible soldering line. The heat level needed is close to the melting point of the used material, and as such it is an extremely delicate process.

The resulting case design is, however, breathtaking in its sheer elegance and classic execution, but due to the difficulties and costs of the time consuming handcrafted process the technology is rarely used nowadays.

At Urban Jürgensen, it remains a treasured and iconic hallmark of distinction.