Checking out a metal bracelet

While my eventual goal is to produce a metal bracelet for Ka La watches of my own design, I got a commodity stainless steel bracelet in order to evaluate its deployment buckle design.

This was also an experiment to see how the stainless steel cased Ka La watch looks on a steel bracelet. This also demonstrates that is is easy to mount many 20mm after-market straps and bracelets to a Ka La watch.

White strap?

While the size and weight of the Ka La watch (43 mm case and 97 grams with a strap) lend it to being a gentlemen's watch, there are women who wear relatively large watches and appreciate an automatic movement and bold styling.

So, I got a white leather strap to see how it would go with a Ka La Ref. 10141 which has a silver and white dial and stainless steel case.

If I offer this color, the production strap would be likely be genuine crocodile and with a normal (non-deployment) buckle.

Second Customer Delivery

The second customer delivery was sent on its way Tuesday (August 14th). I expect delivery confirmation and customer feedback any time now.

Like the first delivery (which was made in person in Las Vegas on August 10th), this was a Ka La reference 10222 which features a black PVD case, black dial and red dial accents and hands. The strap is carbon fiber with red leather trim.

Being one of the three pre-order watches, this watch was sent in a hand made Hawaiian Koa wood box with special laser engraving on the inside of the box's lid.

First Customer Delivery

The Individual Design launch event was in Las Vegas the weekend of August 11 & 12, 2012. The first customer delivery was to Mike Hamner of a Ka La watch which was an early birthday present for his son Mychael (who was also with us).

More photos are posted on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/IndividualDesignHawaii)

This very first customer watch was a Ka La Reference 10222. 

Details are: Black PVD case, black dial with red hands and 12 o'clock hour marker. The other hour makers have lume (which the hour and minute hand also have). The strap is genuine carbon fiber and is trimmed in red leather.

This pre-ordered watch was delivered in a hand make Hawaiian Koa wood box. The inside of the box's lid was laser engraved with "Individual.Design" and "Patron d'Origine". Only the three pre-order watches will ever have koa boxes with "Patron d'Origine" engraved upon them. The watch was in a deerskin pouch which was then placed in the koa box.

"Piece Unique" with a Hawaiian Koa wood dial

Hawaiian koa wood is most beautiful when it has "curls". These are sections in the wood where there are visible "stripes" that most often run at 90 degrees to the grain. When the angle of the light changes, these stripes  reverse from light to dark. In effect, these are an example of nature creating an polarized material. The curls are the result of stress present when the tree was growing. Most often, these are in areas where a large (and heavy) limb joins the trunk.

I have a very limited amount of extremely thin curly koa veneer. I laser cut and laser engraved a piece to make an overlay for a Ka La watch dial. I selected a base dial with round hour makers trimmed with PVD rose gold. The watch was completed using rose gold ion plated hands, a black date ring (the date is visible at 3), a PVD rose gold case and, for the moment, a brown crocodile strap.

I have a custom strap being created by Rob "Montana", aka The Strapsmith, which will be fitted to the watch in a few weeks.

At this point, this is just a one-off item for me. However I could do a strictly limited edition run if there is enough interest. The wood on each piece would be unique, even though the dials would be made from the same piece of koa veneer.

Prototype Ka La Ref. 10141

My watchmaker completed assembling an example of Reference 10141 of my, about to be released, Ka La watches. This model has a white and sunray (silver) dial with applied black roman numeral hour markers. The hands are ion plated blue and the stainless steel case is fitted with a cognac genuine alligator strap.

Partial prototype with Cognac Alligator strap

Below is a partial assemblage showing an older prototype Ka La watch case with a silver & white dial with roman numerals. It has a second hand disk taped to the dial but no hour and minute hands. This was thrown together to just get an idea of how this dial and case combination would look with a cognac genuine alligator leather strap. I think it looks pretty elegant and makes for a nice dress watch.