Staying close to the manufacturing process
HELLO AGAIN, HONG KONG
You know the feeling when you acquire something new, and you start appreciating every attention to detail in your new acquisition, you can’t wait to tell your friends about it, and its hard to wipe that grin. It is just pure bliss! Well, we love that feeling too. In fact, coming from India, we crave for experiences like that where we want products or services to just sweep us off our feet.
We crave experiences to just sweep us off our feet.
It is exactly with that intent that we created Bangalore Watch Company. And in that spirit, we spent the past week in Hong Kong & China visiting our manufacturing partners for final inspections. We could have easily relied on earlier samples or prototypes, or could have asked the suppliers to send us photographs, or hired professional third-party companies to inspect on our behalf and saved a lot of money along the way. But we didn’t, we visited every supplier, reviewed every batch, and spent hours inspecting the components before they’re all shipped to Bangalore for final assembly and quality check.
Having lived in Hong Kong, we’re very familiar with getting around the city. So after getting our fill of dim sum from our favorite joints, we got to work immediately.
After getting our fill of dim sum, we got to work immediately.
CASE IN POINT
The first order of business was the case factory. Our cases are machined out of surgical grade stainless steel and have a satin-brushed, and polished finish. We were very impressed with the finish of the cases from our prototypes and we were glad to see that the production batches had the same finish quality as our prototypes. All satin-brushed elements were smooth, and the polished elements were solid!
The production batches had the same finish quality as our prototypes.
The domed sapphire crystals in the front and the flat sapphire crystals in the back have been housed perfectly. All in all, we were happy with the quality of the cases.
THE MOVEMENT
Our second stop was to visit the engraving facility to check on how our movements were doing. Our Miyota 9015 movements have been customized with a laser engraved oscillating weight. This was a very intense process requiring multiple steps: the oscillating weights had to be removed from each of the movement, the stock labels of Miyota needed to be removed, laser engraving had to be to the correct depth: too shallow and the effect isn’t good, and too deep we damage the base metal, and finally, the rotor assembly had to be put back in place. After all this, the movements had to be rechecked and calibrated for accuracy and made sure the oscillating weights moved freely without obstructions. We personally checked almost 80 movements randomly and every one of them had perfect engraving and perfect assembly.
Too shallow and the effect isn’t good, and too deep we damage the base metal.
PRESENTATION IS KEY
The last and perhaps a very critical step in our tour was in Shenzhen to the factory that was producing our presentation boxes. We haven’t shared many pictures of the presentation boxes so far, but we believe they’re one of the best you’ll ever come across. The boxes are Patek Calatrava inspired “Coffin” style boxes made of MDF with a black coat of paint on them. A metal cut logo appliqué of Bangalore Watch Company is glued to the top side of the box, and once the appliqués are done, a nice coat of lacquer is applied on top of the metal appliqués and the boxes creating an ultra-smooth piano black finish once the lacquer is left to dry for a few days. This is a very labor-intensive process, the boxes looked great in the prototypes, and we were happy that our supplier was able to produce the same high-level quality in the production boxes too.
An ultra-smooth piano black finish.
All in all, our week in Hong Kong and China was very productive, and we returned home to begin work on the next phase of the project: to import all components to Bangalore and start putting together the watches for shipping.
Onwards!