Pad Printing - The Precision of Watch Dial Printing
Do you know that the lines on a watch dial can be as thin as 0.2mm? The dial area of a watch is about the size of a ping pong ball. However, a basic watch dial contains 12 numbers for hour and 60 marks for minute. A difference of several millimeters can cause the mark to be several minutes off. Printing watch dial, as you can see, requires a high degree of precision.
In traditional watchmaking, different printing techniques are employed for different types of watch dials. One of the techniques which is still utilized in luxury watches nowadays, is pad printing.
Exquisitely Crafted Pad-Printed Dial
The principle of pad printing is using a silicone pad to pick up ink in the shape of the printing image from a steel image plate (called cliché), and then use the pad to transferred the picked-up ink onto the onto the watch dial. Due to the elasticity of silicone, any unevenness or texture on the watch dial do not affect the printing image.
Pad print watch dials thus have the following characteristics: firstly, the images produced can be very fine, because the steel cliché allows great degree of fineness and precision. Also, the ink used in pad printing dries very quickly. This allows you to print multiple passes immediately on top of existing prints, which not only enriches the color but also gives the printed images and texts a certain height. This is why, upon close inspection, pad printed elements on watch dial usually stand out prominently from the rest of the dial. It is, quite literally, outstanding.
In-House Breguet Font
The Malbec series features an in-house breguet font on its dial, meticulously designed to accentuate the pad printing capability of EONIQ’s dial makers. EONIQ’s in-house watchmaker personally pad-prints each dial, ensuring an impeccable finish that reflects the brand’s commitment to detail.
