There’s always a story to tell when it comes to Adina Watches! This one is no exception, and I can tell you it is way out there!
The story starts with a guy named Scott, sitting on a plane with nothing better to do than read the inflight magazine. Nothing too exciting about that, right? Except that in the magazine there’s an article about a family business which makes watches in Brisbane. That’s right, you guessed it!
The Scott is… Scott Warwick of Warwick Firearms, a family business based in Victoria Australia. They specialise in manufacturing high quality rifles for Australian recreational and commercial shooters, here in Australia.
Now, that got your attention!
Scott recognised an opportunity which led him to our workshops here in Brisbane. He had the idea to bring together our two different business skill sets in order to produce a watch that was to be unlike anything we had ever made before.
The brief I was given was extreme. The new Warwicks Firearms “Special Edition” Adina Amphibian Watch had to be “bullet proof”. Well, as tough as we could make it!
Given, we have a bit of a reputation, making tough work watches for the Australian farmer and miner I felt we were up to it. Bring it on.
As with every Adina watch, we used a cold-stamped stainless steel (316L) case.
Cold stamping is the premium method of making a watch case. The case, after being stamped, goes through an oven, for want of a better term, heated then cooled. This process is called annealing. The annealing process gives a very stable foundation as the case won’t expand or contract with heat and cold to help ensure the water proofing integrity is rated 100% to 20ATM. After the stamping and annealing process, it moves to a c & c machine for milling and drilling before being polished.
Once we reached this point, we stepped beyond where no Adina case had been before. The case has been hand numbered, keyed (sandblasted) then painted with Cerakote. Cerakote is a ceramic based finish that can be applied to metal, enhancing the physical performance properties of the steel, including abrasion, wear and corrosion resistance, chemical resistance, impact strength and hardness. Basically an absolute bad ass coating in a range of military inspired colours.
Once we received the case bodies back we then need to fit each pendant to the case, this is the steel tube that the bi O-ring crown will sit over the top of. We also needed to fit each of the 2.80mm this highly scratch resistant, solid sapphire glasses. Meanwhile, over in our service division each of the High Beat, Swiss Made STP1-11 movements were being reoiled with Swiss Made, Moebius ‘synta-frigo-lube 9030/2 which had already proven itself in the freezing temperatures atop the highest mountain in the world. Each of the 25 jewel, incabloc system movements was regulated to +5-10sec/day before the hand fitting of the dial and hands. It goes almost without saying that this dial is going to glow at night and I mean glow! The dial and hand using a vintage luminous green colour to supreme effect!
With the cases now fully assembled with the rotating ceramic bezels, we fitted the movements, the crowns and stems before tightening the exhibition clear screw backs.
Each one has been then water tested to ensure water resistant integrity, before sliding the Nylon NATO style strap, which is 290mm long, 1.5mm thickness and features sand blasted steel buckles. Wipe down with a polishing cloth and into the special timber boxing.
All this only took almost two years! After you experience the Warwicks Firearms “Special Edition” Adina Amphibian Watch you will be pleased we did.
The result is awesome, just saying.
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