Blued hands join the Union Collection

As you know, our new Union collection has highlighted some innovations such as the second hand and let's not forget the blued hands. It is therefore on the latter that we will focus today.

Blued hands for certain models

They adorn some of our models such as the Olympe and the Intrepide and you can easily recognize them by their color with jet blue reflections. We chose them to spin on our dials because they bring on the one hand poetry - which we are continually looking for - contrast - which you will find in every detail of our watches - and readability - their blued tint remains discreet, at first glance you can focus on reading the time.

Today used mainly for the aesthetics of our watches, the blued hands nevertheless originally had a very specific use.

Blued needles, a traditional technique

Let's go back a few decades, say to the Pre-War period. The steel needles were then flame blued to reduce the metal's susceptibility to corrosion. But how do we go about obtaining this color using only the flame, you will tell us. It's very simple – well, everything is relative – the blue color is obtained thanks to a process of raising the temperature which is carried out in two stages. We first heat the steel red hot then we cool it off to improve its resistance. Then we heat it again to a very specific temperature. If it is not heated enough we will obtain a tint tending towards yellow, while if it is heated too much, the tint will be more in purple tones.

You are now fully informed about our blued hands and the contrast they bring to our timepieces, while maintaining easy reading of the time. Each variation provided by these blued hands prolongs the discovery of your watch and these surprises are revealed thanks to the surrounding lighting. For us – and for you – every detail counts, so it seemed important to us, and above all, useful to bring you this “little” additional information about our round needles.

Wishing you wonderful hours,

The Beaubleu team