DuFrane Watches

DuFrane Watches Mechanical watches designed in and inspired by Austin, TX.

I only use Swiss movements, and all assembly, timing, testing and regulation is done by me here in Austin

Hammered copper.The texture on this dial is physically there, not printed on. A few hundred small raised surfaces, every...
09/08/2026

Hammered copper.

The texture on this dial is physically there, not printed on. A few hundred small raised surfaces, every one catching light in a slightly different direction. The numerals aren't printed either. They're milled into the chapter ring, which is the slower way to do it and the only way it looks like this.

Hands are thermal blued, not painted. That's why they swing from near black to bright depending on how you turn your wrist.

39mm, Swiss automatic, assembled and regulated by me here in Austin.

09/06/2026

Happy Labor Day weekend y’all!

No rotor. No battery. Just you.The Bergstrom runs on a Sellita SW261-M, hand wound. Which means it doesn't do anything u...
09/04/2026

No rotor. No battery. Just you.

The Bergstrom runs on a Sellita SW261-M, hand wound. Which means it doesn't do anything until you decide it does. Crown out, wind it up, and the whole thing comes alive in your hand.

That's what got me into mechanical watches in the first place.

Timed and regulated by me here in Austin.

Black dial, polished steel.The combination I keep coming back to. The case throws light everywhere (coin edge bezel, mir...
09/02/2026

Black dial, polished steel.

The combination I keep coming back to. The case throws light everywhere (coin edge bezel, mirror finish, it catches everything in the room) and then the dial just swallows all of it. Bright case, dead flat black face, and the only thing breaking it up is that orange seconds hand.

No color story here. No sunburst doing tricks. It reads exactly the same at noon and at midnight, which for a pilot watch is arguably the whole point.

316L steel, hand wound, assembled and regulated by me here in Austin.

Two dials. Same watch.Blue Horizon and Black Horizon, and I still can't pick. The blue does more with light (sunburst ru...
09/01/2026

Two dials. Same watch.

Blue Horizon and Black Horizon, and I still can't pick. The blue does more with light (sunburst running out from the center, near black in a dim room, then it turns all the way on the second the sun finds it). The black doesn't change on you. Same dial at noon, same dial at midnight, which is arguably more correct for a pilot watch anyway.

Both get the artificial horizon sub-dial. Both get the orange seconds hand. Both assembled and regulated by me here in Austin.

Blue or black, y'all?

08/31/2026

Come on Trafford Watch Co. what do ya think?!

Swipe to turn on the lights.Swiss C3 on the hands and on every numeral, and it carries down into the horizon sub-dial to...
08/28/2026

Swipe to turn on the lights.

Swiss C3 on the hands and on every numeral, and it carries down into the horizon sub-dial too. That last part is the part I care about. Plenty of watches light the hands and quit there, which means at 2am you know it's roughly something o'clock.

This one you can actually read.

It's a pilot watch. Legibility in the dark isn't a feature, it's the job.

About thirty seconds under a lamp before this shot. Hand wound, timed and regulated by me here in Austin.

08/27/2026

Showroom is open next week! Thank you Nathan from Trafford Watch Co. for stopping by.

Look at the small seconds.That's not a sub-dial. That's an attitude indicator (Yes, attitude. Not altitiude). Sky up top...
08/26/2026

Look at the small seconds.

That's not a sub-dial. That's an attitude indicator (Yes, attitude. Not altitiude). Sky up top, ground below, horizon line splitting the two, pitch marks laddering off both sides. It's the instrument a pilot reads when the window stops telling him which way is up.

Then the orange hand runs across it. All day, over and over.

I went back and forth on that hand a long time (too much color and it's a toy, none at all and the dial goes flat). Orange won.

41.5mm, hand wound, regulated on my bench before it ships.

Most of y'all have said this name out loud without ever knowing whose it was.Captain John August Earl Bergstrom. Thirty ...
08/25/2026

Most of y'all have said this name out loud without ever knowing whose it was.

Captain John August Earl Bergstrom. Thirty four years old, administrative officer with the 19th Bombardment Group at Clark Field in the Philippines. December 8, 1941. First Austinite killed in the war.

Two years later they put his name on the Del Valle airfield. It outlived the base (decommissioned, rebuilt, gone civilian) and it's still sitting there every time you fly home.

Seemed worth a watch.

Blue Horizon dial, hand wound, assembled and regulated by me here in Austin.

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Austin, TX

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