u/Grievear

I wanted to share a watch that I made for myself from walnut burl, moissanites, and a swiss La Joux-Perret g100 movement. My inspiration was the wood dialed Rolex references made in the 80s and 90s (see the picture in the album).

I chose the G100 because it’s dimensionally compatible with ETA 2824 cases, dials, and hands (which made sourcing parts much easier), but it also fixes some of the ETA’s notorious shortcomings, like redesigning and beefing up the keyless works. Compared to the Seiko NH/6R series I'm used to using the faster 28,800 (4Hz) beat rate and a massive 68 hour power reserve are noticeable upgrades.

The main part of the project was creating the burl wood dial and date ring. I designed them in Fusion 360 and cut walnut veneer with a laser, bonding the wood to metal backers. I had to lap down the brass dial backer by hand to about .25-.3 mm so that I'd have proper clearance between the dial face and hands once the veneer was added and sanded, with the help of some 3D printed jigs.

Once the dial was at the right thickness, I used the laser again to cut deep reliefs for the super luminova outlines for the hour indices and small lines for the minutes. I sanded the lume flush and returned it to the laser to finish cutting out the holes for the gemstones. I filled the gemstone holes with white gold-leaf paint, then attached the moissanite hour markers. After removing the movement's top bridge to install my custom wood date wheel, the final hurdle during assembly was carefully bending the watch hands slightly so they would sweep cleanly over the raised gemstone at 12 o'clock.

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed making it. Dog tax at the end.

Here's my latest iteration of my walnut burl and moissanite dial, now with a walnut date wheel. All lumed with BWG9 super luminova, including reluming the hands.

The case is an ultra-thin titanium "dweller" style case with a Swiss made LJP-G100 movement. This was the first time I'd worked on a G100 and luckily nothing went wrong!

I originally tried to put lume under the stones, but it filled in the holes too much and made the gemstones sit too high. Plus with the way they refract light barely any makes it to the lume, so it barely glows even after getting hit with a strong flashlight.

So I ended up with this version which has a little lume around the edges of the indices and underneath the logo. I wanted you to not notice the lume until it's dark.

I cut the numbers with a laser and filled them with BGW9 lume. Not the most legible at a distance but it works.

I still can't pronounce their name correctly half the time but that didn't stop me from ordering this last year as a milestone birthday gift to myself. I loved what they were doing with impossible looking 3d printed titanium cases.

Just received my Lab 1.24 today and it's a work of art. The dial is quite captivating and constantly shifts between blue and green in different light, but honestly I'm more blown away by the case and lugs. It's hard to capture how almost ethereal it looks in person. I can't stop staring.

Servicing took about ~9 months, so I was quite happy to get it back. Even though it took a long time, their customer service was great. When I asked, they were happy to overnight it back for me so it would arrive in time for a trip.

Customizing a date wheel for a La Joux-Perret G100 based watch I'm building. Next is lasering the numbers and I'm sweating about getting the alignment right. Wish me luck.