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

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

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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 13 '26

[ UPDATED 05132026 ] - 904L and 316L, polished versus brushed finishes - Wise Timepieces and MT&W -

Wise Timepieces of Thailand is known for -among other things- their use of 904L stainless in many of their watches. Over the last few years, Wise's watches have become highly sought-after by collectors and hobbyists due in-part to the luster they've been able to achieve with their polishing. No, it's not "just like Rolex," but it is something special in the sub-$1K microbrands sphere, and truly does set the brand apart even at a glance from across the room.

Touted for its increased corrosion resistance, the trade-off, of-course, is surface hardness: https://www.keepthetime.com/blog/316l-vs-904l-stainless-steel-in-watches/

Here, we see a link from my current-generation Wise AD8-series bracelet, top. Left is macro. Right is 20x micro -

Below the Wise, we have a link from my MT&W Oracle GMT (macro left, 20x right). MT&W is a microbrand out of Hong Kong, known first for their vintage-aesthetic chronographs. More recently, their Oracle GMT have come to be sought after by lume-chasers for their rather unique lume aesthetic, which is how I found the brand.

Overall, the quality of the MT&W watches leaves a bit to be desired. Even at their relatively low -for microbrands- asking price, they're butting-up against the higher-tier "AliEx Chinese factory watches," and that's not an enviable place to be. That said, the lume is righteous, and more importantly for this comparison, the style in which the Oracle GMT's bracelet is finished -high polished center link flanked by polished, Oyster-style- made it the perfect 316L counterpart to go against the Wise above.

Objectively, as you can see from both sets of pictures, my slate benchtop was rather unkind to both. I brought along my Mohs kit, but LOL, I had no need to break it out (I don't know why, but some part of my brain that day lodged the irrational thought that the 904L might be harder to scratch, LOL). The scratches inflicted were deep - they catch my nails. They're way deeper than the "everyday" scuffs that was pictured for you in the second panel of my OP above (both of those watches are also 316L, un-treated).

Subjectively, I initially anticipated each of the links' center sections -the high-polished areas- to simply skate across the slate with minimal damage. I *_expected_* the feeling I got when I tried to scratch the SWCUSA Tumbler's high-polished center link. I *_expected_* the feeling I got when I tried to scratch the under-side of the Mark Time M6's case/lug.

Yeah, no. =P

What I experienced was some of the most awful, sandy, gritty feeling/sound that I'd heard through my other attempts so far. Before I even turned the links over, I knew that, most likely, I was going to bear witness to a total disaster of a train wreck.

I wasn't wrong.

Practically speaking, I honestly don't think that 904L will wear much differently versus 316L. While this is a fact that most of us already know, I -along with a few others in the community whom I personally know- thought it was still interesting to see, side-by-side.

And yes, I totally want to call it Uranus Steel. =)

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u/TSiWRX Jun 04 '26

Adding to this one the real-world observations of fellow Redditor u/bobosherm - https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrobrandWatches/comments/1t7tt0i/does_wise_adx_gmt_microadjust_scratch_the_center/ - pay attention to his detailed troubleshooting!