COVER STORY
Above , from left : RS 14 Rouge , enameller Sophie Cattin and RS 14 .
to their land and village , to the artisanal way of life ,” explains Alexis Sarkissian , whose company Totally Worth It distributes the brand in North America .
“ Their bond with the region and the local craftsmen and women is evident in everything they do , from the name Rudis Sylva to the partnership with the engravers , enameller , guilloché artiste , angleur , and watchmaker . All are situated at a stone thrown from Rudis Sylva ’ s own very traditional offices in Les Bois .”
That bond with local craftsmen and craftswomen seems quite evident when one admires the workmanship of Rudis Sylva timepieces . Epitaux has made sure that the brand ’ s aesthetics match the high level of technical watchmaking seen in the Harmonious Oscillator .
As a result , the movement itself boasts polished and beveled angles on steel and titanium components above the main plate , where firm ’ s guilloché craftsman , Georges Brodbeck , manually carves designs using a series of rotational ( rose engine ) and straight line ( linear engraver ) machining . Another result is an
interesting tapered pyramid pattern exclusive to Rudis Sylva . This hand beveling can be seen best as one examines the work done on both the inward and outward corners of the bridges , which Rudis Sylva explains ( correctly ) that no machine can reproduce with such superior results . The very visible cage bridge of the oscillator , made from titanium , is not only complicated to make , it ’ s equally difficult to polish thoroughly . Yet here fully twenty-eight closed angles can be seen and admired . But every surface – whether visible or not – is decorated to high levels .
Local artist Sophie Cattin contributes enamelwork to Rudis Sylva . She grew up on the Les Rosées-Dessous farm that houses a sundial that dates to1750 . She now creates an enameled image of that sundial on the back of every Rudis Sylva watch . For each engraving , she crushes silica stones by hand , mixes them in water and applies the resulting paint to the already hand-engraved surfaces of the caseback . After baking in a kiln at 840 ° Celsius , the enamel is cooled and then polished to obtain a perfect image
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WRISTWATCH | 2017