Traditional Enamel Dial Manufacturing

Dials made of enamel can last forever, have a great smooth aspect, are prestigious because of their very artisenal production process and have existed since the 17th century. We find them today in historical pieces visible in museums. This technique was used until the beginning of the 20th century. Then metal dials replaced them because it became possible to add colorful decorations. Since then, enamel has used mostly been used on exclusive watches.

Enamel is composed of glass powder extracted from silica. We don’t produce enamel powder ourselves; we buy it from companies mostly based in France, the United Kingdom, and the United-States. They contain metal oxides that give different colors to the substance, essentially added to transparent enamels. The whiteness and opacity of the white enamel dial comes from the breakdown of arsenic. But today, there is no substitute for obtaining the whiteness we have on our dials, for instance. We work following the same traditional method used before.

This starts with a disc made out of copper. This precise metal is used because of its maneuverability. It allows us to create dials with different shapes, both domed and flat. First, we weld feet to the back of the disc. Then we heat the dial to about 950°C to relax the metal. The process continues by cleaning it and scrubbing it to reintroduce some tension. Thus, the piece remains solid during the next operations. The first layers of enamel are put on the back and front of the dial at the same time by dusting enamel powder before putting it in the kiln for the first time. The back layer is necessary as every new one added on the front adds tension to the metal. Without it, the dial would bend and finally break.

A dial made out of enamel is like gold: timeless.