Watch Collection:
| Truly wonderful watch worth every penny... |
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| Written by William Jackson | |
| Thursday, 27 July 2006 | |
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"Ever since I first laid eyes on one (a horrible fake ferrari one of all things), I've always had a fascination with mechanical watches. Initially this only manifested its-self through automatic watches - that was until I bought the El Capitan from Ste•••art. The first experience one has of Ste•••art is of their exceptional customer service, it really is second to none. It is rare for me to send an email and not have a response within half an hour, and there is a personal touch to almost everything they've done. The watch arrived in a high quality black piano box with a hand-written guarentee tucked inside the lid. An elegantly simple presentation. The movement wound very smoothly and, by a swift increase in the resistance, it was obvious when it was nearing fully-wound. The first thing to strike me about this movement was the sound. I've listened to a lot of mechanical movements in my time, but this was head and shoulders above the rest. I have some high quality video footage of parts of the movement (taken through a microscope) - if anyone would like to see them just get in touch with me through this website and I'll email them to you. I fully wound the watch the next morning (after one of the best sleeps I've had in a long time thanks to gentle whirring of that Unitas movement) and set it by wwp.greenwichmeantime.org. 3 days later (at the time of writing this) it had gained 2 seconds. It's worth bearing in mind that this is obviously well within the movement's "break-in" period so it may settle elsewhere, but a pleasing result nonetheless. Aesthetically this watch is most pleasing. As one can tell from the pictures, it is far from a "standard" aviator design. I must admit that I was a tiny bit anxious about how it would look "in the flesh", but it actually works incredibly well. One thing worth mention, as it is not obvious from the pictures, is the finish on the steel - it appears to be a brushed effect, yet the "grain" is perfectly aligned perpendicular to the face. The strap is also a very high-quality saddle leather, has a nice feel on the wrist and a very sturdy double-butterfly clasp. A general criticism of mine when it comes to aviator watches is that the luminous numerals tend to be quite hard to read - in that it's always possible to make out blurry dots around the face, but rarely possible to read each digit. I'm fairly sure it's the design of the numerals rather than the material used, but on the El Capitan it is very easy to read each number when it's dark. To offer some form of conclusion here, the El Capitan is a truly wonderful watch and worth every penny. The craftsmanship and attention to detail is on-par with the outstanding customer service and, although I really feel I should include some criticism, I just can't seem to find fault with this watch." William J. |
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