Omega pocket watches – A clever approach makes scratched Watch Bracelets a thing of the past.
Time as a sparkling jewel–watches with crystal or sapphire glass cases are elegant time keepers and enduring, multi-faceted companions. Glass for watch casings however is a risky idea. Glass is renowned for being a material that is extremely sensitive to knocks or falls, shattering into shards.
Nevertheless, some watches do have glass cases. Such watches are available by Swarovski, Lalique and Baccarat, for instance–all names that are associated with glass in a legendary capacity. Lalique has now withdrawn its feminine, elegant creations and no longer offers them.
The feminine and elegant clocks from the before-mentioned brands are distinctly seen as belonging to the world of fashion. The attention is in the beautiful design and the mechanisms are of secondary importance, consisting of a functional but simple movement. The target audience is made up of the people who buy branded goods, who treasure up beautiful household objects in their stylish home and who want to enhance their lives and outfit with the matching watch. However, these companies do not let anyone look behind the scenes: various details about manufacturing or composition and the qualities of the glass cannot be coaxed out of them.
It is quite different with Saro-Gem, the Swiss watch and jewellery brand, whose watches and watch straps are studded with sapphire glass. This is not the only difference between this company and other brands: while the substance they work on is actually glass in the traditional sense–the main components include silica sand (silicon oxide), soda ash (sodium carbonate) and potash (potassium carbonate), which are softened through steady heating and which finally melt and are processed, Saro-Gem uses sapphire glass.
A misleading label. It is actually a synthetically-produced sapphire–a gemstone that has been artificially cultivated–but it corresponds exactly to its natural archetype in its chemical composition and its characteristics.
Synthetic sapphire is therefore comparable to synthetic rubies, which are used as bearing jewels in clockwork. Both materials are produced according to the “Verneuil Process”, which is a melting process. It takes its name from the Frenchman, Professor Auguste Verneuil, who first succeeded in producing artificial stones in 1892. The first step of this process involves extracting aluminium oxide from natural bauxite through a series of chemical processes before it is processed to a powder and melted. This is how synthetic sapphire or white corundum is created–in the mineral world, sapphire belongs to the corundum family. The melting process takes place in an oxyhydrogen furnace by adding pure oxygen and hydrogen at temperatures of over 2050?C. The fluidised substance drips onto a support rod, and in around 15 hours a boule or cone forms–the synthetic sapphire.
In order to stabilise the sapphire, its pressure is relieved through heating. Only then the sapphire can be processed. This marks the start of a complex procedure, as sapphire is extraordinarily hard. On the Mohs scale, on which the hardness and scratch resistance of minerals is measured, sapphire is at number 9. Only diamond is harder, at number 10. The types of glass used by Swarovski, for example, sit much lower on the scale. So are all other bracelet materials like stainless steel, silver, gold or platinum.
The hardness of sapphire however makes it difficult to process. It can only be shaped through cutting, grinding and polishing. Gemstone cutters, experienced specialists, now play the most important role. They need a good eye, a steady hand, and lot of feeling and talent. Their tasks include rough and fine grinding and polishing. The cutters work with diamond-coated grindstones. The sapphire glass facets that are created in this process are cut by hand, which requires tolerances of 0.02 mm to be observed. They are later applied to the steel surfaces. A close up view can be seen here: http://www.saro-gem-usa.com/images/05222006saro033.jpg
The finished watch straps are not conserved or protected by special metal frames as this is not necessary. Sapphire is harder than the metals named and requires no particular attention from the person wearing the watch. One should simply beware of sharp knocks. However, at Saro-Gem there is even talk of indestructibility, as the strap can only be scratched by diamonds.
About the Author
Thom Huggler manages the marketing of SARO-Gem US http://www.saro-gem-usa.com a Swiss Jewelry Watch Manufacturer and the producer of the worlds most scratch resistant watches.
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