Visiting Grand Seiko: How Their Watches, Spring Drive Calibers, Dials, And Cases Are Made

[Music] the Mystique and wonders surrounding gr Seiko has arisen as a byproduct of their Timeless Artistry combined with their trailblazing Innovations contributing to all of this are terms such as Spring Drive zeratu 9f terms that we've heard of before but what do they entail and more importantly how is it all done today we bring you along for our exclusive tour of gr seiko's Shinu Watch Studio [Music] before we kick off our tour with gr seiko's brand curator Joe Kirk we are given a brief welcome to the studio by Mr UA of the brand so we're inside the Shinu watch studio and I am absolutely honored to be here thank you for having us I am looking forward to being able to walk through see what we have in store for us today so thank you so much for having us here yeah yo yeah welcome Shinu Watch Studio has over 80 years watch making history and we have almost all function like R and D and design and uh manufacturing and one roof and here is a best place of Spring Drive and 9f quotes for exclusively for Grand SEO and since the Genesis of this brand this has been an important site for Grand SEO and just allowing it to move forward with its Innovation so very much looking forward to it and thank you again for having you please enjoy so we welcome always thank you thank you okay so I'm here with Joe Kirk inside of Shinu Watch Studio Joe great to see you as always oh it's very much my pleasure so I would like to First establish where we're at currently so could you give us a more information about the work that is done here before we start to walk through and do our tour yeah absolutely so right now we're at SEO Epson uh shield jiri in Nagano prefecture which is home of the Shinu Watch Studio which is comprised of our Tumi Studio our case and jewelry studio and of course the micro artist studio we're going to do a walk through of of course assembly and adjustment uh which is very important uh we have the zeratu polishing case Studio which is going to give you a really good idea of all the complexity and hand workk that goes into our cases you're going to see dial manufacturing The Cutting of the indices and even tempering of hands and we'll even pop into the micro artist studio which is really exciting of course and a little bit more specifically too the region that we are in and understanding gr Seiko and its Genesis is also important too yeah yeah the shinshu region of Japan is where actually gr SEO was born in 1960 so it's a very important uh part of our brand Heritage but also on top of that you know the manufacturing and development of all the abilities that we have Under One Roof here started even back in the' 40s so long before Grand SEO began so we have a lot of great elements and a lot of history in this region of Japan so we have a lot of walking to do a lot to see let's get going with the tour if we can I'm ready let's go do it all right Joe well first Studio of many where are we at all right so this is the Tumi studio so these are the Craftsmen and women that are in charge of grand SEO assembly so everything from uh 9f quarts to 9R Spring Drive is assembled in this studio and we're going to be able to actually go in and see firsthand so as we're about to do this one question would have is been fortunate to see a lot of mechanical watch making assembly process what is specifically different as you're looking at Spring Drive 9f but probably specifically Spring Drive with the assembly process what other considerations are made or uh it's different as you're going in here yeah I mean there's a lot of similarities between you know assembling a conventional mechanical watch compared to Spring Drive but there's a lot of different points as well so it takes it takes a lot of skill dexterity and uh you know patience which I have very little of as you may know that's why I but you know in in in the end there's a lot of different elements like setting the Glide wheel as an example as opposed to a uh balance wheel these are two very different processes and take you know different uh let's say training that you have to hone in on to develop your skill further so the other elements of uh assembly with Spring Drive is you know if you don't set the wheels and gears perfectly you know any little inefficiency and transmission of energy can equate to a problem or it would not uh trans transer energy appropriately because it has to be very efficient in order for spring drive to work that's one of the reasons it was such a challenge to develop in the first place so with that on top of that this is why we have this clean room is that they have to be very thorough and make sure that there's absolutely no dust and because that could also impede the operation of Spring Drive so here we have a Craftsman assembling uh this is our caliber 9R A2 which is you know it Spring Drive is pretty amazing no matter what caliber you're looking at but 9R A2 is one of the new Evolutions in in technology for Grand SEO so you can also see this new integrated circuit that we developed right the package IC that we use in Spring Drive so this for the first time enables uh basically temperature compensation in Spring Drive allowing it to achieve an ultra high accuracy so exceeding the previous Spring Drive like 9 r65 is an example so with that you have main spring which is going to allow that longer Reserve here compared to a 9R 65 and in addition to that we were talking about a temperature compensation what's happening there is going to also make it more accurate almost twice as accurate as a conventional 9 r65 absolutely so incredible so another impressive point of caliber 9R A2 and A5 is the finishing level right and 9R 65 in that series 9R 86 you know kind of the the more familiar Spring Drive movements are beautifully finished as well with the line gradation Stripes beautiful beveling but with 9R A2 and A5 uh We've developed the new Shinu Frost finish which I'm sure everyone loves uh this you know beautiful frosted finish representing the snow and frost the hor Frost that grows on trees in in the shinshu region of Japan as you have experienced it gets a little cold here seen it now yes yes yes so you know another thing too is that you know this this finish is actually a bit more delicate to handle so the skill level that's required is needs to be very high uh in order to assemble them without doing any damage let's say so that's one of the Prides of this new movement is this finish and it would be a shame to ruin it so other elements are rounded uh beveled edges which you don't conventionally see in uh something in in the $10,000 price range uh which most of the ninr A2 and A5 calibers are which I would say also is really elevated especially with the contrasting of the different surface finishes on the movement itself you really see those polishing you know really pop out yeah absolutely and then uh I'd say one of the other great benefits too is the uh Power Reserve indicator on the back on caliber 9R too with the tempered blue hand so you know lot of lot of great features on this uh evolutionary Calvary let's say but uh at the same time you know the skill set is is really everything for assembly you know most of Spring Drive movements if not all uh have over 200 components at the starting level so and goes up from there yeah that's more components than a combustion engine for a vehicle that we drive around in so just to give some [Music] context so we're also looking at 9f assembly and 9f quarts is one of the pillars of grand Seiko and I think you know a lot of people may shun you know quartz away uh but at the end of the day this is as complex as many mechanical movements in the industry you know over a 100 components that are all hand assembled and it's beautifully finished but also on top of that the engineering is amazing so what we're seeing right now is actually the uh hairspring adjustment that's used and very odd I know to it's a hairspring courtz watch not something you see every day yeah exactly but it's not used as you would find in a convention mechanical watch it's actually used to absorb the backlash of the second hand as it tis forward so there's a lot of complexities of 9f and I think that uh once people do a little research they become obsessed you see you know the work that's done to this I mean this is not just a standard assembly of a quartz move and these are trained Artisans are able to do this and the performance on the other side plus or minus 10 seconds a year I mean this is industry-leading stuff getting here yeah I mean it runs for three years it has insane level of accuracy it's always ready to go set it and forget it right it's uh it's very practical and that's why it's a perfect fit for Grand [Music] SEO so from Spring Drive one point of Fascination for collectors to another dial making yes so now we're at our dial studio and you get to see how we kind of bring the nature of time to life and so this is uh a very delicate process you know most of our dials are made by press patterning so we have these very unique textures uh many of them very organic and uh sporadic let's say um so some of those uh patterns we can actually create by press so we keep them consistent but sometimes there's uh you know hand carving or various tools done by used by hand in order to create the various Textures in the mold and then press them into the dial so you're getting that element of hand finish by an individual Artisan but also being able to do it at you know some additional scale yeah key is consistency absolutely we want every dial to to look the same just as awesome from one to the next mhm there's Al all these dials there's always like this balance of perfection in the imperfect which I really love and you can kind of see that with a lot of like the texture and going on here also indices as well if you want to talk about that yeah so um basically what what's going on in the dial Studio at the moment at least what we're seeing on the screen here is uh setting of The indices so our very highly complex uh indices that have many facets right mirror surfaces on most if not uh their hairline finished so those you have to be very careful to retain the high quality finish they use a special set of tweezers and each indic is set by hand into the dial using uh two feet or posts that go into a very tiny hole on the dial and if the dial is dark it's almost impossible to see yeah so then from there it's attached two ways one by press and then the other by adhesive so that way no matter what those indices are not coming off of the dial so they actually do drop tests as well to ensure that the indices are attached properly so we talk a lot about this dial texture but I think a key part of the formula is also just the heavy fating that you're going to see on both the hands as well as the indices can you explain a little bit more how that actually is done of course yeah so basically uh we have a drum for the indexes as a perfect example so the indexes are placed one by one on the drum and then from there individually each surface is is individually cut by a diamond cutting tool so this uh enables the perfectly flat sharp and beveled Edge on all of the surfaces on gr seo's very complex indices and so after the first surface is cut and sometimes there's several surfaces that need to be cut uh they fixed to the next position and cut the surface again so this is how you get these really uh you know sharp and and complex facets so Joe this is very satisfying to watch in action if you explain what is going on on here so right now we're printing the logos as well as the uh minute track uh for the dials um on the Hannah iar sbga413 so basically what you're seeing is this uh you know metal plate here is has a recessed area with the logo and in the mini TR and she's applying ink uh into into the recessed area and then this gelatin pad comes down picks up the ink and then places it on the dial and one of the most fascinating things about this process is you know we're vertically integrated manufacture in many many ways we make virtually every component in house that includes the gelatin pad itself another point I'd like to talk about a bit more is bluing and tempering because when we see the color I mean that's one thing but further this is also helping with the resilience of the material itself so can you talk about that as well yeah so the when you look at a grand SEO and it has a cobalt blue second hand or GMT hand or even sometimes a power Reserve hand this is done solely by tempering or heating right till it forms an oxide film which creates the blue color but it's a very delicate process you have to know what you're doing and you have to know the perfect shade of blue strictly by sight so our Craftsman individually one by one tempers each hand in order to create a consistent but perfectly even and blued secondhand or GMT hand so it's a really unbelievable able especially at the price range of grand SEO that each hand is blued individually and they have that almost clock in their brain to know exactly when they've just have this experience to be able to know exactly when to pull it off because if you don't do this at the right time that color will change as well uneven yeah yeah there's a lot of things that could go wrong so it takes a lot of skill and and uh training so now we're at the K studio and this is where all the magic happens to create that beautiful Distortion free mirror finish you find on Grand Seiko through what we call zeratu polishing so a little bit behind the the scenes before we get into the zeratu process um you know to make our cases we have a couple different methods that we'll use or adapt to and so we can either make our cases by Cold forging which is basically compressing the metal at a room temperature H or we can do the CNC milling process so after that we can bring it in for its famous zeratu polishing polishing is not something that is exclusive to gr SEO but zeratu polishing it's of course become this almost so celebrated idea about what gr Seiko is what makes it so distinct how would you describe that to somebody that hears this term zeratu for the first time in that technique I mean there there's really a lot to say about zeratu so it's it's very difficult for me to convey it in kind of a condensed format but realistically you know I I think what a lot of people don't realize you know is that it's not just about the Distortion free mirror finish we're actually utilizing zots of polishing to actually create the final form of the cases so when you look at Grand Seiko it's a very geometric shape right a lot of flat surfaces sharp edges and beautiful intersecting planes and the case really plays off light and Shadow which is based on the Japanese sense of aesthetic right so this beauty of grand SEO which you know really was introduced to the design through the 44gs in 1967 uh this is you know how we look at all of our cases now how do they play with light how are they uh you know um complex and shape and what are we going to do to continue to evolve that so zaratsu is a different in regular buffing might say or conventional polishing right where you're using a buffing wheel which is typically like a soft cotton type material yes so zeratu is not uh we do use buffing in in some of our processes of course but uh with zeratu it's actually a metal disc with an abrasive sheet that is essentially grinding the surface to create that flat uh and then also by you know creating this Ultra flat surface on these multiple planes you can bring it to a sharp point and that's how you get these really sharp angles on Grand SEO cases so hard surface on hard surface and even the motion as well to get that one thing I was recognizing with the zeratu polishing versus if you see a traditional polishing wheel is even the motion of going back and forth from a tradition polishing wheel this is more of a back and forth adding the pressure on this disc that is spinning and you're able to get that Distortion free finish because of that yeah absolutely it's uh you know part of the beauty of grand SEO cases too is kind of the emotional value because everyone is done by hand so zeratu cannot be done by machine and that's you know uh bringing those hands together to to create your grand SEO is a part of the beauty of the brain are there challenges with specific cases that you hear like a 62gs versus a 44gs that are like you know some of these specific polishing elements that are more difficult than others of course so with our cases it's not just the case shape so it varies by Design but also the material so we have stainless steel we have high-intensity titanium we have gold and platinum in some of our watches of course so you know each one is increasingly more and more complex and timec consuming to finish so the other element is when you look at a grand SEO case and you see this beautiful hairline finish which they call suim in the factory this is something that actually has to be Z polished first and then the hairline is applied by hand so all of the elements of grand SEO cases are zat polish first and then we apply the hairline finishing [Music] after so it's been a very eventful day so far Joe but we are going to save something very special for last indeed so we're here now at the legendary micro a studio so I'm sure you know very well but uh this is where the handcraft the meticulous handcraft of convex beveled edges hairline finishing on the bridges and the Sprint Drive technology all merged together so this studio was created in 2000 to basically preserve handcraft within the company and the meticulous nature of the artisans in this studio has really brought their recognition to the next level talking about the artist here what does training look like for them and like you know where are they in the grand mix of things in terms of their skill level I mean these are the the best of the best the company has to offer in many ways in terms of these specific crafts correct oh yeah absolutely and you know it's a they vary in skill sets so it's a very small team so there's uh you know different tasks let's say that are done by different people but when it comes to assembly we definitely want to introduce you to someone very special [Music] m ass for so far we've had a view into a variety of grand SEO skilled expertise from the likes of their case polishing dial finishing their fine crft within their micro artist studio and of course Spring Drive assembly speaking of Spring Drive to connect the dots of its development we speak to a gentleman who has had a front row seat in its Evolution over the last few decades Q spring Spring Drive CHR for for for spr spring elect d [Music]

Channel: Teddy Baldassarre

Views: 226,414

Keywords: teddy, baldassarre, teddy baldassarre, grand seiko, grand, seiko, spring drive, 9f, 9s, 9r, 9rs, dial making, watch movements, watch finishing, ziratsu, polishing, dial texture, spring drive movements, Grand Seiko spring drive, Grand Seiko dials, how are Grand Seiko dials made, how are Grand Seiko movements made, Grand Seiko manufacturer tour visit, behind the scenes, inside grand seiko, shinshu watch studio, watch artist, micro artist, hand made, hand assembled, luxury watch

Id: phyTAAwN5b0

Length: 25min 12sec (1512 seconds)

Published: Sat May 18 2024