Brass dial cutting is becoming repeatable, so this week’s Bench Notes shifts toward calibration and fast design testing. After dialing in LightBurn dimensions with help from Steve Makes Everything, I started experimenting with colored aluminum cards as quick NH35 dial prototypes — useful for testing layouts, logo placement, date windows, and proportions before moving into more permanent materials. Next up: dial feet experiments, epoxy vs. solder, and the first steps toward airbrushed finishes.

Sunday night’s rapid prototyping session produced ten experimental dial variants while exploring cleaner cutting techniques and refining NH35 date window geometry. Along the way came a familiar reminder: changing too many variables at once makes it nearly impossible to understand what actually improved the result. A short reflection on iteration, process discipline, and troubleshooting laser-cut brass in a workshop suddenly deprived of music.

A first brass dial blank, designed in LightBurn, cut in the workshop, and held in hand. It came out a bit burnt, but with a little sanding and plenty still to refine, it feels like a real first step.

Turning raw brass stock into dial prototypes has quickly revealed the difference between digital concepts and physical objects. The workflow is still rough around the edges, but slowly, the process is beginning to feel real.

An introductory wristwatch servicing course reinforced something I’m learning repeatedly through this project: mechanical watches become far more impressive once they exist in pieces instead of fully assembled objects behind sapphire crystals.

Pine Street Dial Works is being built: a slowly evolving basement workshop beneath an old Philadelphia rowhome. Plumbing pipes, stone walls, shipping boxes, and all.

A father-and-son hobby building Seiko mods slowly evolved into a deeper curiosity about dial design, fabrication, and the craft behind mechanical watches. Pine Street Dial Works exists as a workshop journal documenting that learning process openly — one experiment, setback, and small improvement at a time.