February 26, 2026
“Welcome to the building blog of the third time gage in the Square Skeleton line from GPF. This is going to be a marriage between a vintage pocket watch from the 1960s and a modern, square case in the Cartier Santos style. I’ve been meaning to skeletonize this particular Unitas 6325 movement for a year and a bit now, but I have been reluctant since I did not have a case for it yet. That has now changed! The square case that has just arrived in the mail is a perfect fit for this movement!
OK, not quite perfect… There is one snaggy-poo… the stem of a U6325 is 1.2mm, and since the case is meant to house a Seiko movement with a .9mm stem, the U6325 stem will not fit through the stem tube. So yeah, first order of business is to pull the stem tube out, enlarge the stem tube hole in the case, and press in a larger tube that will accommodate the larger stem…
And a second snaggy-poo… the crown that came with the case is meant to screw over a .9mm stem , and not only that, but it will also not fit over the larger tube… So I will have to adapt the crown from the pocket watch, and make it fit into and over the new stem tube… a delicate job on the lathe…
When it rains, it pours… A third snaggy-poo…the pocket watch crown is too big, and will not fit in-between the crown guards…
Out come files, grinding stones and polishing sticks to make some space, but hey,… that’s some “high key aura” as my son puts it…
March 12, 2026
Before I skeletonize the movement, I have to figure out how much of it will be showing behind the dial, so the dial is next. I will be modifying the original pocket watch dial, since it has the dial feet already in place, as well as a good seconds sub-dial I can us as an engraving pattern…
I’m pretty sure that I want a square opening in the dial, to match the case, so that’s what I do… while I still have the original printing on the dial, I etch the seconds markers and dimple the locations of the hours markers
Had to remind myself not to cut off the areas with the dial feet (at the NW and SE corners)…
After engraving the seconds track, just the area of the sub-dial gets oxidized to black, then radially brushed to remove all the oxidation besides what is left in the engraving… Recesses the size of the hour markers are partially drilled into the dial, the entire dials is cold silvered, and the hour markers get glued into the recesses.
March 19, 2026
Now that I know the area of the movement that will be visible within the dial, the main plate can be shaped accordingly. I opt for an angular design with mostly straight lines. Below is a general progression…
Took the time today to also cut and reshape the time train bridge on the back side of the movement. This shape makes it underpose perfectly beneath the main plate, making it not visible unless viewed from an extreme angle…
