The Oakleigh Watches Chronograph
The Production Story
I have been passionate about watches all my life and have been in the business of trading watches since my early twenties. In 2013, I was lucky enough to turn my passion into a profession and Oakleigh Watches was born. You can read our full story on our About Us page. However, not many people know this but for for as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed about designing and building my own watch – The Oakleigh Watches Chronograph.
A pipedream chipped away by years of negativity – the cost, my lack of experience and mostly, “stick to what you know Giles!”
However, life is short and as Van Gogh famously said …..“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
One year later – The Oakleigh Watches Chronograph landed. A limited production of 10 handmade watches – 1 watch for each year of business.This was such a personal project, one of celebration and a dream finally realised. I’m incredibly proud of the end result and wanted to share the process from start to finish. Now, I’m well aware that my dabble into the world of watchmaking is just that, but it has been a wonderful experience and I hope that it might inspire others to have the courage to follow their dream.
The Design Brief
It was important that our 10th Anniversary watch should be individual and should contain some of the features of my favourite sports / dress combination watches. I drew inspiration from Breguet and Girard Perregeaux amongst selected others.
It was also important that the watch should have integrity and that mainly meant basing it around a proper Swiss movement. Initially the quality of the dial and hands were the other key features, although in the end I became obsessed with the quality of each and every feature, even down to the card wallet containing the warranty papers.
I gave myself 12 months for the project from start to finish and honestly, I thought I had loads of time…. How wrong I was.
The Heart & Soul: 1-2 Months
Beginning with the heart of the project, I sourced ten original Swiss made Valjoux 7750 automatic movements. We could have saved some money by using slightly lower quality ETA-based 7750s, but ours are proper Valjouxs that decisively ticked the ‘credibility’ box.
On to the case. It was important that they should be beautifully proportioned with a sapphire case back to display the Valjoux. We found some Swiss made ones that fitted the bill – and the movement – perfectly.
At this juncture with just two components in the bag and no detailed designs finalised, we were two months in, and I realised that time might end up getting tight.
Design Detailing & Production: 2-4 Months
Onwards and upwards, I designed the two-part dials myself using the basic layout from a template of the 7750.
The detail that I wanted on the dial, combined with the hands, ran the risk that the overall effect might become too ‘busy’ so I decided to leave the date window off.
With the final dimensions decided, I made a proper engineer’s template for the two-part dials and sent them to a local machine shop who made them from sheet brass. The backplate of the dial began as a plain disc and the top one was cut away to be used as an overlay, revealing the detail beneath.
The back plates then went to a highly skilled London watchmaker who hand machined the guilloche pattern that would be visible through the cutouts.
Hand Precision: 4-6 Months
Now that we had the final accurate dimensions of the dials, complete with sub dials and edges, we could calculate the length of each of the six hands. This process required INCREDIBLY fine and precise measurements that had to be accurate to tenths of a millimetre. 1/10 of mm too short and they would look wrong, 1/10 mm too long and they would snag.
The only watchmaker in the world who could make the Breguet hands that I wanted as I wanted them were in Paris.
The minimum order was 20 sets, the timescale was considerable and the price high – we doubled the cost per watch as we had to order 10 sets that we didn’t need…
But, the quality of the hand made, hand blued Breguet hands was essential, so I took the plunge.
Once the dial back plates were back from being machined, they had to be carefully cleaned and degreased without softening the sharp edges of the guilloche pattern. Once that was done, they were silver plated in the first of the processes completed by Michlmayr & Co here in my home city of Norwich.
Dial Alignment & Ancillaries: 6 -10 Months
We were now six months in, and we had movements, cases and machined silvered dials – and a long way to go.
I designed the printing for the dial, carefully aligning and re-aligning the Roman numerals and Arabic numbers until the spacing was perfect. Guided by Simon Michlmayr, I learned a lot about the positioning and features of the details of a watch dial. Which way up do the numerals go at the bottom of the dial? Have you ever noticed the layout of the Roman number ‘4’ on a watch dial….?
Once we had the final design and the cutaway dial had been silver plated, they were sent to London to be screen printed.
While waiting for the printed dials to come back – it took AGES – I worked on the ancillaries.
Watch Straps
I wanted to have as many components made as close to home as possible. There are no makers of handmade leather watch straps in Norwich so I looked a little further afield to David, The Strap Tailor, who is based in Oxford.
I had already done a little market research into strap colours by polling some valued customers and assessing their opinions. Interestingly, the vote was almost 50/50 between black and brown as the best colour so the answer quickly became obvious.
I ordered handmade straps with quick release spring bars from The Strap Tailor, all embossed with the Oakleigh Watches logo – 10 in black and 10 in brown. The watch would be supplied with both, and the quick release spring bars would allow the owner to change the feel of their watch in seconds.
Watch Pouches
Looking to presentation, I found a watch pouch that I really liked in Romania, made by Genteel Handmade. They usually came embossed with the Genteel logo, but George was very helpful and agreed to emboss the Oakleigh Watches Oak tree / Crown logo instead. He also embossed the limited-edition number of each watch on the inside of each individual watch roll.
Box & Papers
I easily sourced the outer box online and the warranty paperwork was printed here in Norwich. By the time we had all the component parts in one place on my desk, ten months had passed, and time was very very tight if were to hit our November 1st deadline.
The Final Countdown: 11-12 Months
The skilled watchmakers at Michlmayr & Co sprang into action, pulling together all of the components that I had sourced from numerous places across the globe.
At this point, 11 months in, I had no idea if all of the precisely designed and crafted pieces would work together to create a meaningful wristwatch worthy of the occasion that it was designed to commemorate – but they did!
The day that I received my own Anniversary Oakleigh Watches Chronograph is one that I will remember for the rest of my life. Everything came together perfectly and created a watch and an overall package of which I am extremely proud.
It’s About Time – The Oakleigh Watches Chronograph
In the end, time itself seemed to be our biggest hurdle. More precisely, lack of time which meant we only managed to produce five watches in time for the Anniversary on 1st November 2023. However, the first batch of 5 watches sold immediately and allowed us more time to refine the second batch. Specifically, we enhanced the original dial, ordering extra and offering an upgrade to the owners of the initial five. So far, they are very happy!
The second tranche of Oakleigh Watches Anniversary Chronographs was released in February 2025 and levels of interest have been high.
They may not be for everyone, but everyone who has one loves it – that’s by far the most important thing to us.
If you’d like to find out more about The Oakleigh Chronograph, get in touch today or visit our online shop for more photos and video.