Sculpting Watch Clasp With Gold Backgrounds

Finally got to finish this aftermarket Rolex clasp that has been laying around bench for experiments.
Fully carved and sculpted scrollwork.
Elements were cut out as usual but background had to be 3 times deeper.
0.5mm 24karat gold wire inlays on background

Afterwards many many hours of punching steel and shaping it... I could have left it there but I decided to finish every surface with very small stones under Microscope.

Ferric chloride reacts with tinny layer of steel and it gives some shade when acid is neutralised.

Fold was later burnished smooth and even but i had to take it another step further and sandblast gold by hand using old, simple but time consuming method Japanese watchmaker Masahiro Kikuno showed me.
Hand blasting allows me to texture gold but due to low pressure of sand grains hitting metal, stainless remains untouched.

Last few hours of the project i spent applying fine diamond paste with toothpick and polished surfaces even more to remove tool marks.

Then another layer of Chloride and guitar fret rubbers (the ones used for polishing metal parts on musical instruments) were used to polish highlights even more.

All together this took me longer that full high end watch case engraving and therefore adds this technique to most expensive and time consuming in my arsenal...

This clasp is NOT for sale!!

https://www.rshandengraving.com
https://www.instagram.com/reinis.stripnieks/

Music by EpidemicSound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/wTY9LrpMhv

Видео Sculpting Watch Clasp With Gold Backgrounds канала Reinis Stripnieks