independent watch projects

OceanicTime, the prominent blog specialized in diving watches, has exclusive information about the upcoming brand Helson watch company.

Judging by the picture available on the Helson Web site plash page, models, which will start shipping in November, will be available on brushed stainless steel or PVD-coated stainless steel. The dial, hands and bezel are available in a range of luminous coatings. As specified in the Super-Luminova table (pictured right), options seem to include the C3, dark yellow and dark orange references. You will find exclusive pictures of the different dial colours on OceanicTime.

Developed by Franck Huyghe to provide rugged diving watches, Ralph Tech is one of the rare brands to offer an hybrid movement on one of its collections. The other collections consist of an automatic chronograph and an automatic watch.

photo credit: Watchuseek.com

Ralth Tech watches use a cusion-shape case design with rotating bezel available with several surface colours and are black or grey dials.

tLex, the editor of diving watches resource OceanicTime recently took advantage of the discounts to acquire one of the VM (Vigoria Miletto) dive watches. VM is a new brand featuring diving and saturation diving watches. The designs are very angular and agressive, probably to suggest the watches’ imperviousness to water. At the time of writing, they give out big discounts on selected models.

Here is the company presentation:

VM Exclusive Co., Ltd. is the agent of the Vigoria Miletto sports & dive watch. Vigoria Miletto is a new watch brand from Switzerland. The combination of outstanding design and superb manufacturing, engineering and technology makes VM watch stand in the forefront of the same field. VM watch is popular for its fashionable and rough style. Every watch experiences the creative design, careful making and rigorous testing by technicians before hitting market. It is worth your money.

Revealed by prominent diving watch blog OceanicTime, Deep Blue will start shipping on November 1rst their latest saturation diving watch, the Master 2000. Built to withstand 200 BAR (a static depth of 2000 meter), this will be Deep Blue’s heavy duty model.

Check the OceanicTime article for exclusive pictures of the various dial and bezel combinations.

LÜM-TEC has made its specialty to sell watches with particularly bright varieties of photoluminescent watches using strontium aluminate-based coatings.

The brand features some designs inspired by aviation, but it is refreshing to see that they walk the extra mile and come up with original designs.

LÜM-TEC also uses out-of-the-ordinary movements, like the twin barrel vintage Russian movement of the C series or the Time Module NH25, a Seiko automatic caliber with rotor winding in both directions.

Watch collectors have been allowed to pre-order the upcoming limited Tungsten M series, which is the World’s very first automatic watch with tungsten case. Tungsten has an extremely high hardness and low ductility, which makes it extremely difficult to fabricate. It is not as scratch-proof as the tungstene carbide compound, but it still has a much harder surface than stainless steel.

Editor tLex of OceanicTime has exclusive footage of LÜM-TEC’s iupcoming original diving watch design. Check out the OceanicTime article for details and exclusive renderings.

We’ve already introduced Boschett on this blog, but dive watch resource OceanicTime now informs that the company has started taking orders for their Cave Dweller, which will start shipping in November.

Boschett has been busy upgrading their Cave Dweller which features the ubiquitous Miyota 8215, an automatic movement that we see more and more in independent watch projects, partly due to the shortage of ETA 28XX.

Korsberk currently features two models on their web Site, the Oceaneer and the Ocean Explorer. Both models feature the ubiquitous ETA 2824-2 and a German-made saturation-diving stainless steel case.

Korsberk has started taking input from dive watch enthusiasts on their forum to develop a new model, the Sea Rover:

Prominent diving watches resource OceanicTime has posted teaser pictures of the upcoming sAs cusion-shaped saturation-diving watch. Click here to go to the article.

Benarus has unveiled the sample pictures and is taking pre-orders for the first batch of 100 pieces of its new Megalodon, a saturation-diving watch designed to withstand 250 BAR. Options include: stainless steel or PVD case, stainless steel or PVD case with fully luminous bezel, red minute hand or PVD hand set.

credit Uwe Willert, Germany

We reported earlier on that Zinex Uhrenfabrik was working on new diving collections. The new models are now available to see and pre-order on their Web site.

• The Trimix collection features a watch and a GMT satudation-diving models with two case colours (steel or black PVD) and three dial colours (black, blue and orange).
• The Heliox is a saturation-diving model with stainless steel case, two dial designs (rectangle or square figures),  three dial colours (black, blue and orange) and two hands designs.

The Trimix and Heliox are nice emulations of 1960′s diving watches. All models are respectively rated at 200 and 250 BAR and come mounted on a stainless steel mesh band with security folding buckle. Sold between USD 1,295.00 and 1,595.00,  they really do look the part.

Zinex is also working on some a 1970′s inspired “Vintage DSR” series, which is sneak-peeked at the bottom of Zinex’ manufacturing page (scroll to the bottom of the page).