Descent is
the easy
part.

Most cases at this price are machined out of bar stock, because bar stock is cheap and a mill does not care. We forge the blank first. The grain follows the shape of the case instead of being cut across it, which is the difference between a case that dents and a case that dings.

Every surface that faces the sky is brushed, so it does not throw sunlight back at you off the deck. The two chamfers that face the wrist are polished by hand, so there is one hard line of light along the flank when you turn it.

Gloss dials photograph beautifully and read terribly. Ours is a matte lacquer, sprayed in four passes and stoved between each, with a grain fine enough that it goes flat grey under a torch instead of white.

The indices are cut, polished and set by hand, not printed. Each one carries four tenths of a millimetre of luminous compound, which is roughly three times what a printed marker can hold.

The caseback is solid. It is a 300 metre watch, and an exhibition window is a lovely thing to own and a poor thing to dive with. Which means the côtes on the bridges, the perlage under the barrel and the polished anglage on every edge are for an audience of one watchmaker, once, in Portland.

We do it anyway. A movement finished only where it is visible is a movement finished by someone who was hoping you would not look.

Solid links, screwed not pinned, tapering from twenty millimetres at the lug to sixteen at the clasp. The clasp extends over seven millimetres of wetsuit without a tool, and retracts on the boat with one thumb.

If you would rather have rubber, the tropic strap is moulded from a 1967 pattern and costs you nothing extra. Both fit through drilled lugs, so you can change your mind in under a minute with a paperclip.