Independents

Armin Strom's Watches, the Beauty of Skeletons

Don Corson, December 2008

Part 2

Continuing our look at the Armin Strom models we come to the Elegance line.

The Elegance models I saw were all prototypes.  Here in steel.

That these are prototypes is our luck.  Here we can see the difference between the original old stock Swiss caliber from the 1970s and the skeletonized and engraved resulting movement.

A men's Elegance in rose gold.

Now we have seen the watches, let's take a little stroll around the shop.

Here is Mr. Strom's working space.  The front bench for skeletonizing, the back bench for watchmaking, assembly and regulation.

Here on the bench are all the skeletonized and engraved parts of a custom watch, nr.2 of 2.

I am guessing that this will be cased in a gold case seeing the partial gold plating of the movement.

The nr.1, Is that not spectacular ?

It seems that in skeletonizing one uses a file or two J

Here a completed men's skeleton, the original manual winding form movement from the 1930's.

Now we move to the engravers shop

An automatic rotor with the engraving partially finished.  For engraving the parts are held in a kind of heat softening mastic, the vise is mounted on a sphere to allow complete flexibility.

Working under a microscope looks tiring, but it is the only way to be able to have the visibility needed.

Here the edges of a bridge are being cleaned up with an abrasive stick.  The bridge is screwed on a handle to be able to hold it well.  A piece of hardwood in the watchmakers vice serves as a support.

These bridges all need to have their edges finished.  She still has a certain amount of work to do today.

In January Armin Strom will be introducing a new model, "Elements".  Here Mr. Michel is modeling a prototype.  No info for today, we will see more at the product launch next year.

I hope you have enjoyed this visit to the Armin Strom shop.  They intend to continue Mr. Armin Strom's strong tradition of hand made highly skeletonized watches with best quality engraving.

They are at the beginning of a new generation and it will be interesting to follow their development (and their watches) in the coming years.

Don