HYT Masters Glass Manufacturing
These exclusive images are the first of the fabrication of a capillary at HYT. The brand has gained the ability to manufacture the micro tubes of glass used to display the hours on its watches. This was not an easy task, and Gregory Dourde, CEO of Preciflex, sister company of HYT in charge of producing the whole liquid module, explains why in this report.
The fact is that the dimensions of the tube of glass that displays time on HYT watches are extremely tiny. The inside diameter measures less than a quarter of a human hair, about 0.025mm, and manufacturing them implies significant amounts of research. We viewed the manufacture of a capillary, the technical name of the glass tube, from the Skull model. About one year’s worth of tests was necessary to perfect the process of bending the original horizontal tube. As you will see, the final shape is the result of manual operations combined with the intervention of a special machine conceived by Preciflex. Working with glass is not new in watchmaking – for instance, hairspring were made out of it -, but it has never been done this way. Seeing that one of the most innovative and disruptive brand of the plateau developed also manual processes to manufacture its watches show that human hands are always necessary when working at the highest levels of complexity in watchmaking.
