Dial Finishing

When someone looks at a watch, the dial is the first thing they notice. It's the colour, texture, and how light moves across the dial; all of these are determined by one technique: dial finishing. It is a manufacturing technique that shapes how the watch looks in different lighting conditions, and how clean or rugged the dial feels. For centuries, watchmakers have experimented with various finishes to give each watch a distinct identity. 

At Bangalore Watch Company™, dial finishing is a design decision tied directly to the story a collection wants to tell. Here are two key finishes used in modern watchmaking and how they appear in BWC watches.

Circular brushing creates very fine strokes that radiate around the dial’s centre, following the natural geometry of a watch. As the wrist moves, light travels along these circular lines, creating a uniform rotating sheen across the surface. 

Circular brushing is used in the Peninsula Collection, BWC’s outdoor watch inspired by India’s diverse natural landscapes. These watches come in bright dial colors. Agumbe in forest green represents the dense Western Ghats, and Laccadive in ocean blue represents the waters of the Laccadive Sea. 

Because of circular brushing, the dial does not look flat. As light hits it, the finish highlights the surface like reflections on leaves or waves. This effect supports the story of the outdoors, and the dial behaves like elements you see outdoors.

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Sunburst finishing also uses radial patterns, but with finer and more intense strokes. Instead of a consistent circular sheen, sunburst finishing creates a shifting play of light from the dial's centre to its edges. As you rotate your wrist, the dial brightens and darkens dynamically. 

This finish is used in the Apogee Collection, inspired by India’s accomplishments in space exploration and space stories beyond. The Apogee Supernova represents radiant cosmic light, while Apogee Horizon takes its color inspiration from the blue atmospheric line visible from low Earth orbit. It gives the watch depth and makes the space theme immediately visible. 

Every dial used in a watch is selected deliberately. More than decoration, it is about matching the surface to the story. Other collections use layered construction and motifs, like the tree motif on Peninsula, the Indian Air Force Fin Flash on Mach 1, and the sandwich dial construction in Cover Drive. 

At Bangalore Watch Company™, every collection tells a story. Our Indian luxury watches bring those stories to life with Swiss automatic movements and meaningful design. Here, the dial surface shines with the contemporary stories we tell. 

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