How do you spot "better finishing"?
The title says it all. How do you spot watches with better finishing?
Asking because I got my hands on a few Grand Seiko the other day. Apparently they are known for their superb Zaratsu finishing. But for some reason I didn't get how good it was.
Going back home, I took out my three watches. Surprisingly I couldn't spot the difference between Nomos and Longines in terms of finishing either 😅I would say Farer is not as well finished as the other two. That's easy to spot.
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“Time is the best author. It always writes the perfect ending.”
New York, NY, USA
Member since
Last active: 37 min ago
I've done a lot of finishing work on furniture, carpentry and metal work. Finish can absolutely be subjective. The Zaratsu finish is special because of all the hand work that goes into it. Is it always identifiable? No. Lots of other brands have great finishing, and different finishing methods appeal to different uses or people. Is it always desirable? It's a personal decision. You're paying for the hand work, the history and the name. Buy what you like.
Do you like the nomos bracelet? I’m afraid the polished links will show scratches easily.
Do you like the nomos bracelet? I’m afraid the polished links will show scratches easily.
I like it. It doesn't catch scratches that easily, but the clasp, which is also polished, does. I personally don't mind it much though 👍
I am interested as well. I'm still a relative newb when it comes to determining what is a well-made watch and what isn't.
What I can tell you is that one day walking past a Grand Seiko boutique in a mild hurry to somewhere, out of the corner of my eye, 10 yards away, the sparkle of light play from a Grand Seiko Snowflake caught my attention so well that I had to stop and see what it was that had glittered so much. To see that it was a watch and not a device whose only purpose was to sparkle so much... well it was kind of magical.
Gary from I Like Watches did a comparison of some finishing which has helped me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaxZK4DyEHQ
Finishing is almost entirely subjective so exploited to the max by watch brand marketing departments.
Any finish is easy and cheap to achieve with modern computer controlled machine tools.
By looking close with a loupe and by feeling you can detect those little but significant differences in quality😉