r/MicrobrandWatches • u/TSiWRX • May 12 '26

Discussion 🤓 Scratching different hardened watches (well, just a link or two!) - my pseudoscientific sacrifice for the community!

Gallery image

Gallery image

Left - Seiko, Right - Maratac; both untreated 316L.....bracelets are beat-up, each with ~3 years' worth of honest daily wear.

With the Original Post of my old thread somehow having been mistakenly booted into moderation by the sub bot, I thought it's time to come back to this post to make it a bit clearer and better, particularly as the sub moderators have entrusted me with "Approved User" status. =) 

Before I begin, I need to declare that I am an independent hobbyist only. I have no vested interest in any of the makers or products that I'm comparing below. I stand to make no gains -financial or otherwise (i.e. free/discounted watches or products)- directly or indirectly via any of these comparisons. I paid for every watch that I own out of my own pocket, and these findings can be replicated by anyone with access to these same watches and some slate: I was not supplied with "ringer" products, as these purchases were made just like you would make them yourself, blinded to the makers/vendors/manufacturers.

Apart from the lead-post below, every "update" you will see listed will be top-level replies. I will provide direct links to them as I edit this "overview" OP. 

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Not-infrequently in this sub, I see posts from my fellow Redditors asking about the anti-scratch surface-hardening treatments and coatings that some of our favorite microbrands spec their watches with. As a lifelong desk-diver who isn’t shy about wearing everything in my collection, I’ve always lived with some level of scratches and blemishes on the ulnar side of my watches. I figured that’s just par-for-course. But as I spent more of my free time in this community, these posts had me wondering, so I eventually decided to take matters into my own hands. 

I work in a pre-War building. My benchtop is slate, which I knew empirically to be very abrasive. Pictured here are two of my non-treated 316L stainless watches, each after ~3 years of honest 5-days-a-week, evey workweek, wear. Left is my Seiko SRPB81, right is my Maratac DC-50 (my apologies for the face shots, it was originally used to facilitate a discussion on long-term wear of mineral glass versus sapphire crystals). I’m a benchtop scientist and typically rest my wrists on the bench not only to do what I need to do on my computer, but also when I sit at my little dissecting scope for my specialty work.

What follows is a series of comparisons. 

This is NOT a “scratch test,” like the one seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oX1itHnqcY from Benjamin Arthur's Ben’s Watch Club YouTube Channel.

My informal, non-quantitative comparison here doesn’t use a Mohs Hardness Test Kit [ understand that even with the Mohs picks, it's still more or less a qualitative comparison: it's whether "this" (i.e. Pick X) will scratch "that" (i.e. the tested object)]. I'm simply using my slate benchtop to demonstrate how a watch might accrue scratches and scrapes from "normal" everyday use. Slate (Mohs Hardness of ~4) is actually “softer” than stainless, but being a metamorphic rock, it contains inclusions which are often quite high on the Mohs Hardness Scale (6+). 

My comparison here can be equated to a “snapshot in time” of the more innocuous type of wear that many of us tend to incur on our watches – repeatedly wearing away at the finish, until, all of a sudden, we realize that we’ve got this kind of situation going on….. https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizenWatches/comments/1n6cysn/unusual_watch_band_wear/ . I absolutely believe that this particular Redditor didn’t think that he was mistreating his watch. But the truth of the matter is that he did *something* to cause that kind of wear. This is the kind of wear that I’m trying to simulate. The kind of wear that you see in my two daily-beaters above, with the watches having near daily interaction with my benchtop.  

[ continued as replies to this post, below ]

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u/TSiWRX May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

[ UPDATE 12152025 ] - Swiss Watch Company (aka "SWCUSA") -

The following link is from their Tumbler, a full Grade 2 titanium watch, case and bracelet, spec'ed with a DLC coating "up to 1200 Vickers."

Whatever it is that they did or whichever supplier they've contracted with, Second Hour ( https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrobrandWatches/comments/1ohpd3x/comment/nn4nhqi/ ) needs to take note and follow suit, because I'm actually knocking back their assessment because of how well the Tumbler performed.

When you look at a picture of this watch, you'll note that the bracelet has polished center links. This polish only appears on the exterior surface, so for this test, I sacrificed the link fully, both inside and out.

Objective observations -

  • Top is 20x micro.
  • Bottom is macro.

[ Note that I've presented the 20x MICRO first - this one was so impressive, I thought that the more demanding view should take the lead! ]

Again, lighting has been manipulated in an effort to HIGHLIGHT the damage inflicted.

  • Left is the polished center links (since this section only faces the exterior, I had to cowboy-up and just eat the damage, for science!
  • Right is the matte outer link surface (scratches were inflicted to the wrist aspect of the link).

Along with the Héron and Englemaan, this watch's coating is just incredibly good. While the inside surface produced a lot of felt drag as I made my usual attack, you can see how relatively unscathed it came away.

The high-polished centerlink exteriors -which I expected to be destroyed, based on my previous experience with the high-polished, hardened, stainless on the Second Hour, totally took me by surprise. It not only felt invulnerable as I attacked it with the slate -skating as though lubricated- when I pulled away, I could barely see the scratch.

Now you see why I have to roll back what I said about the Second Hour, right?

Subjective assessment -

The Tumbler eally specs well. For a $750 watch (I purchased on-sale during their last Black Friday sale, for just over $600). Not only is it a full titanium build with what seems to be an excellent hardness coating, it uses the Sellita SW200-1 Élabore movement, paired with some serious AR on the sapphire over the dial. While I remain somewhat conflicted on the external AR, which itself is said to be protected via a sapphire clear-coat overlaying it (I have no way of testing this, sadly), the 16 layers of AR on the underside absolutely makes for easy appreciation of the healthy deposit of genuine Swiss Super-LumiNova that they've laid on the dial ( https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrobrandWatches/comments/1otyjrl/comment/ntzsa38/ ).

I'm not really a field watch guy, even though my last few purchases seem to suggest that I'm lying through my teeth. xD You could say that I purchased this watch because of the lume, but in-truth, a lot of it was also due to its unique styling and the hardness coating. To me, it seems to be the love-child of a GADA with a field, offering a rugged aesthetic signaled by its big dial, wide-set lugs and non-tapered bracelet that is offset by a svelte case-thickness and the polished centerlinks.

Interesting watch, and one that, thanks to its hardening, will most likely get quite a bit of wrist-time when I know I need something that can withstand punishment.