Atelier Pieters

07/03/2026

Milling the spokes of two wheels for our power reserve system. With each precise pass of the mill, the delicate whirlwind of their geometry emerges — transforming what was once raw metal into something playful, light and exactingly functional.

06/03/2026

🔥Horological Alchemy - Heat treatment🔥

Metals are crystalline in nature. The size and composition of the grains in the crystal micro-structure of steel dictates the overall mechanical behaviour.

By heating & cooling steel within specific temperature ranges & periods we can alter the micro-structure according to our needs.

The ideal grain size depends on the intended use of the piece. As a general rule, smaller grains result in stronger metals and larger grains allow for more ductility.

The temperature key to the structural transformation is dependent on the carbon content of the steel & measured through an alchemy of our experience & subtle colour cues.

As we use traditional hardening methods, our parts are packed into finely ground charcoal powder. Doing so reduces decarburisation (carbon loss) and encourages a more uniform heating of the components.

Reducing the loss of carbon which inevitably occurs using traditional methods means reaching optimal hardness more consistently.

Uniform heating reduces any distortion of the component and encourages a more consistent transformation of the internal granular structure of the steel.

Each component is first cocooned in its own individually made protective casing or tube before being packed into the charcoal powder. The protective casings promote uniform heating of otherwise non-uniform shapes & profiles.

This precaution aims to avoid warping and distortion of components which have taken hours & sometimes even days of meticulous operations in machining and shaping to create.

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05/03/2026

A tranquil moment using a traditional method of tempering to blue to give our rack its desired properties.

23/01/2026

Time is no longer linear when you’re making parts the human way. Each precise manual operation is a fragment of time and attention; often repeated, sometimes discarded, always refined, a cycle of our lived history held in metal.

The finished timepiece may be what is prized, yet each component carries its own beauty, a journey where our world narrows to a single piece, hours of our lives focused entirely on doing one thing, measured in microns.
�Our timepieces are not only the culmination of skill and experience, they are an exquisite record of our lives, built piece by piece, a physical expression of thousands of human moments.

Thank you all for your patience and support - we’re almost there!

Maarten & Jess

04/01/2026

Tiny components - big dreams, hello 2026!

One of our smaller steel pinions, machined on the Schaublin 70.

08/12/2025

Some reflections to start the week...

Although using manually driven machining methods and finishing techniques is meticulous and time-intensive work...it s always rewarding to see what once was a rough and raw piece of material transform into something not only functional but beautiful.

Wishing everyone a week head, greetings from us both at Atelier Pieters 😊

07/12/2025

⭐ Traditional hand-finishing, breathing the soul into each piece & paying homage to the hours of meticulous work & multitude of operations that it took to create them...rewarding work for a winter weekend ⭐

05/12/2025

Little bridge for the power reserve satellite wheel - pictures show the raw machined part & the prototype piece - final finishing is coming shortly.

03/12/2025

02/12/2025

"Watchmaking is pure mechanics for me. The geometry of time carved out of raw materials, piece by piece - it is simply beautiful."

"Taking a dream and creating something tangible that will outlast yourself, a legacy born from machines & microns, mathematical yet alive, deeply technical yet wonderfully emotional - that's the thing."

"I've always been at home on machines, feeling the vibrations, they speak to me in a language that I instinctively understand. They translate my creativity into form, they are the conduit through which my self-expression becomes something that can be shared”

Maarten Pieters ⚙️