How We Make Our Watches — Part 1: The Idea
The Watch Journal · Second Hour · How Our Watches Are Made
https://www.secondhour.com.au/the-blog/how-our-watches-are-made-part-2ified, drawn, engineered, rejected at least once, and approved before it was made in volume. This series goes behind the product pages and into the process. Part 1 starts at the beginning — before anything physical exists.Every watch begins with a reason
Every Second Hour watch begins with a motivation — something Peter genuinely wants to exist, for reasons that go beyond filling a product gap. Sometimes that motivation is functional: the Gin Clear began with dive watches Peter had relied on underwater and a conviction that the independent watch market could produce something better at the price point. But sometimes the motivation is cultural and aesthetic. The Memoir began with an admiration for Art Deco design that has never really faded.
Art Deco is one of the most enduring design movements in history — its influence runs through architecture, fashion, jewellery, and horology in a line that has never broken. The geometric precision, the elegant restraint, the sense that proportion itself is a form of beauty: these are qualities that still resonate because they were never really of their era. They were just good. The Memoir is a sincere homage to that tradition — not a pastiche, not a reference point, but a watch that asks what Art Deco proportion looks like when applied honestly to a modern slim dress watch.
That motivation — cultural, personal, genuine — is what separates a watch with a reason from a watch that simply fills a slot in a collection. It is also what makes the design process feel like it matters. Every decision that follows is in service of something real.
From feeling to form — the 2D design stage
Once the design problem is defined, Peter works in 2D — building a baseline design that captures the proportions, the dial layout, the hand geometry, the case shape. This stage is less about technical precision and more about creative direction: what does the watch look like, and does it solve the problem it set out to solve?
The 2D stage is where the most consequential decisions happen — and where the most get reversed. Proportions that look right in isolation can feel wrong the moment a second option appears beside them. The Memoir went through two distinct base versions before the direction was confirmed.
Two base design versions of the Memoir. Version 1 explored bold Arabic numerals and blue hands — a stronger character but less versatile. Version 2 arrived at the restrained baton indices and subdial that define the final watch. The blue alignment lines in version 1 are a working document detail — they show proportional decision-making in real time. Credit: Second Hour.
The difference between these two versions isn't cosmetic. Version 1 is a watch with a strong point of view — Arabic numerals, expressive hands, a particular kind of personality. Version 2 is quieter, more considered, more versatile across contexts. The decision to move from one to the other was a decision about what kind of customer the Memoir was for. That kind of decision can only be made visually — no brief or spreadsheet resolves it.
Into CAD — from concept to technical drawing
Once the 2D direction is confirmed, Peter works closely with a technical drawer to translate the design into CAD. This is where the watch transitions from creative intent to engineering reality. Every curve is dimensioned, every surface relationship is specified, every tolerance is established.
The CAD stage involves a back-and-forth between Peter's design intent and what is physically achievable. A lug curve that looks right in 2D may require a wall thickness that compromises water resistance. A dial recess that works proportionally may not leave enough depth for the movement. These conflicts get resolved here — not at the prototype stage, where resolving them costs significantly more.
The Memoir case cross-section drawing — 12H and 3H sections at 5:1 scale. Every dimension shown here has been specified, challenged, and confirmed. The relationship between glass, dial, holder, and case back is precisely controlled — a fraction of a millimetre in the wrong place means a dial that doesn't sit flat or a movement that runs inconsistently. Credit: Second Hour.
Engineering critique — and the render that follows
Once the CAD reaches a certain stage of completeness, it goes to engineers for deep critique. This is one of the less glamorous parts of watchmaking, but one of the most important.
Engineers don't care about design intent. They care about whether the watch will work — whether it will seal correctly, whether the crown will function under pressure, whether the crystal will stay in place, whether the movement will sit correctly in the case and run accurately once it does. Every dimension gets interrogated. Tolerances that feel adequate on paper get questioned against real-world manufacturing variation.
Early 3D render of a case currently under development — side elevation showing case thickness and crown diameter, alongside a three-quarter view. At this stage the watch exists only as geometry and dimensions. Credit: Second Hour.
What leaves the drawing stage is a technically complete specification document — every surface, every tolerance, every thread, every radius. It is the document from which a manufacturer will produce the first physical sample. Getting it right matters, because every error that makes it past this stage will be present in metal when the prototype arrives.
A note on what the drawings don't show. The technical drawing stage can take months. For a watch like the Gin Clear 3 — with a ball-bearing bezel mechanism, a screw-down crown, 300 metres of water resistance, and a five-link bracelet with micro-adjustment — the drawing package runs to dozens of individual sheets. Each component has its own drawing. Each interface between components has its own tolerance specification. None of this is visible in the finished watch. All of it determines whether the finished watch works.
Part 2 covers what happens when the drawings become physical objects — and what gets rejected before a watch is approved for production.
Continue to Part 2 → See the collection →