What is Bronze Watch Case

Recording the Flight of Time

Bronze: the luster of raw metal

Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, is a frequently used material for watch case, most notably for dive watch, due to its outstanding corrosion resistance and excellent strength.

Nowadays, bronze watch is popular not just for its practical property, but for its attractive appearance — its surface oxidizes over time, so it gains a deepening patina as time goes by. Visually, you would see the case ages from the initial light gold, to a certain hue of vintage brown. This is where it gets interesting: depending on your watch wearing habit and your daily routine with your watch, the resultant patina would differ. Say, you are a frequent swimmer, and you wear your bronze watch to the sea daily. The patina will build up much quicker than usual; or, specific parts of the case which are more frequently touched, like the crown, would gain a deeper patina than the rest of the case. Your bronze case will record, with its patina, every day it spends with you. There is no identical bronze case. Yours is unique only to you.

And this layer of oxidation is not simply just aesthetic: it blocks additional air from contacting the metal underneath, thus providing extra protection against corrosion. This means that, as a bronze case ages, it actually becomes more durable.

One step further

As mentioned, bronze is an alloy, which means it is a mixture of different metals, and in the case of bronze, copper and tin. In reality, besides copper and tin, trace amount of other metals can be added to the mixture to provide improvement in certain quality and appearance.

The bronze case from EONIQ is made of aluminum-bronze, which means that a small amount of aluminium is added to basic bronze. This provides the alloy with a remarkably improved corrosion resistance and strength. As an added bonus, unoxidized aluminium-bronze shines with a more alluring luster on a lighter tone of gold color than usual basic bronze.

Modifying the patina

Artificially oxidizing bronze case is what many watch lovers are enthusiastic about. To gain a patina for your watch case, besides waiting patiently, you can also speed up the process through chemical and physical means. Say, to restore the initial shine of bronze, you simply need to lightly sand away the oxidation layer. To speed up oxidation, you can apply chemical solution to the case, which allows it to oxidize in a much shorter time frame. Our workshop has a detailed tutorial on this.

Here’s what our participants made with our workshop

Bronze watch @The Mills

At our flagship store @The Mills, Tsuen Wan, there is a whole collection of bronze watches you can go through. Not only that, but there you can also give your EONIQ watch a new bronze case, or even design a new bronze watch and assemble it with your own hands.

Our Bronze Navigator Assembly + Case Aging Video Workshop is the complete package for bronze watch lovers. First assemble your own mechanical bronze watch, modify watch parts, and learn how to manually age a bronze case.

Another option is our Navigator Pad Print Dial Workshop, with bronze case additional upgrade.