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The Grey NATO – 355 – The 36mm Tudor Ranger & Other New Watches

Published on Thu, 27 Nov 2025 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

In this episode of The Graynado, hosts James Stacy and Jason Heaton discuss their upcoming Thanksgiving travel plans before diving into a review of several new watch releases. They examine the new Clements Photic Mark II dive watch, which James praises for its refined design and impressive thinness at just 9.9mm. They also discuss Tudor's new 36mm Ranger, available in both black dial and "dune white" versions, which has been well-received by enthusiasts. Other watches covered include a Mark II collaboration with Project Recover supporting veterans, a three-way collaboration between Worn and Wound, Veyr, and Topo Designs for an affordable field watch, and Christopher Ward's luminous version of their chiming Bel Canto watch. The hosts close with recommendations for an Icelandic shelter-building film produced by Veyr, the HBO crime drama "Task" starring Mark Ruffalo, and a 3D printing organizational system called Gridfinity.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacy Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 355, and it's proudly brought to you by the always-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you're listening and would like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is James Stacy, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, Jason Heaton. Jason, how are we doing?
Jason Heaton I'm doing pretty well. We've got a short week, holiday, at least time here in the U.S. I know you're going to partake a bit, and we both have some drives ahead of us here. Yeah, how long is your drive? My drives, uh, I guess if, if the weather's good and the roads are good, it's about four and a half hours. So not horrible. Um, it's across Wisconsin going to, uh, to visit my folks who moved over to a town called Oshkosh on the kind of the Eastern side of Wisconsin. So, um, yeah, Christie and I are going to make the trip over. I've got the winter wheels just, just over this past weekend. I put the snow tires on, on the Prius, which is the car we're going to take and, uh, just hope for the best. How long is your drive? It's more like six or seven hours, right?
James Stacy I think it'll be more like 10. Oh, wow. You know, it's Toronto down to just just southwest of Philadelphia. And, you know, we've got a five month old baby. Yeah. So, you know, there's there's more more stops planned than maybe I would like. Ideally, you know, the few times that I've done it, I've done it once alone. And the goal was only to stop for the one fuel stop that's needed.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy We'll see how long it takes. I want to say last year we left around 4 a.m. and we were in PA for lunch, maybe a little after lunch, 1230, one o'clock, something like that. So it all depends, you know, going down with a vehicle full of kids and their needs for bathrooms and foods and all that sort of thing. You know, you just kind of take it as you go. Yeah. But we'll basically get there just in time to jump into a Thanksgiving scenario with Sarah's family. And then we'll stay down through the weekend. And for those of you listening and who have attended in previous years, we are going to do our Triumph Brewing Hangout. So that's 2 p.m. Triumph Brewing in New Hope. You know, that's not super far from where I'm staying in PA with Sarah's family. And... I would say this is either our third or our fourth of these. And they're just super fun. You know, one of the guys in the crew, Jan M, sets everything up for this. So it's really easy. We kind of show up. We have a little bit of space to ourself with sort of a spot where you could put a watch or two or, you know. people bring more than that sometimes and it you know the food's solid the beer's solid and it's just a really nice easy space there's a huge parking lot which i appreciate because i think a lot of people you know have to travel some distance to come to this yeah um but if you're if you're keen triumph brewing and new hope at 2 p.m uh we've already got a good uh you know we've been talking about this for a little bit longer on the slack for more than a week now. And it looks like it'll be a decent crew of people as it has been in the past years. It's just something I really look forward to because New Hope's kind of nice. I'll go in on my own for a little while, get some Christmas shopping done, and then get to hang out with a bunch of folks at Triumph Brewing. It's a nice way to kind of lock down something fun to do on that Saturday. So if you're around and want to be able to make it, be sure to swing by. It should be a good time.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I know it's been good in the past and I've seen the photos and that sort of thing. And I'm just always struck, you know, I haven't been there in a while, but that part of the country in the eastern U.S. is just a beautiful, very historic area. I've been watching on PBS here, there's the Ken Burns documentary. series on the american revolution and um so much of it like it just really makes me want to go and explore that part of the country more you know the valley forge and philadelphia and new jersey and kind of that that area there's just a lot of history there and it's uh it's still such a beautiful part of the country so that should be great i'm glad you're able to get down there and do that
James Stacy Yeah, I appreciate, you know, folks that are able to kind of help set that up, like with Jan's support. And, you know, there's a crew of people that kind of show up every year that I'm excited to see. And, you know, I think we have a Tom Place planned arrival, which is very exciting. Nice to see Tom and that sort of thing. Should be a really good day. And certainly, you know, that pushes us well into the very ends of November. So let's not forget that. If you're interested in picking up one of the TGN limited edition or pre-order only pens from Tactile Turn. The ordering window will close on Sunday, the 30th of November. So if you've missed the past several episodes of the of the show, we did a collaboration pen with Tactile Turn. It's made in the US. You can go back and listen to the episode with Ed Jelly for all the information about how Tactile Turn makes these pens. But it is a titanium side click pen. with a special design on the pocket clip that includes uh kind of our custom camo that we used for the packaging on the cwn1 we're calling this the cpn1 uh it so it has an engraved barrel it uses a variety it comes with a pilot g2.7 millimeter ink refill but you can there's a wide variety of of uh different uh ink refills that you can use in it Pre-orders open now, runs till November 30th, prices $139. It is sort of a higher end, nice buy once, cry once, keep it for a long time sort of pen. Also, for those of you who are maybe running out of ideas, makes a really great gift. So be sure to check that out if you're interested. And a huge thank you to Tactile Turn for partnering with us on that pen. It's been an absolute delight. And people are just starting to receive them. I don't know if you've seen that in the Slack, Jason, but people are starting to receive them. And there's a channel now dedicated to the CPN1. And I'm really pumped because I'll see mine on Thursday. I had them delivered to Sarah's parents' house just to keep it nice and easy. And I'm really excited to see the pens in person. So that's on my radar for just a little later this week.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's great. And the, the photos that, that tactile turn put up with the, with this on the sales page are great. You know, they've got the CWN one next to it and the packaging and the coloring, and it's just, they're nice crisp photos. I've actually had the privilege of, I've actually, as I'm, we're sitting here, I've got the, the prototype pen that was sent to me. Oh, you know, before we opened up the pre-order and it's great. And I've got a couple of the production versions on their way. I think they're arriving here tomorrow. So I'll actually get to see the the finished packaging which uh was designed by evan at stay calm industries and there's a couple of goodies inside there as well so um really excited happy to see them being delivered now you know this was a really smooth process and we have to thank tactile turn for their cooperation i mean they're obviously old hands at this sort of thing and do a lot of yeah collaborations and this one turned out i mean just exceeded expectations it's it's really a beautiful product
James Stacy Super. Yeah, no, I agree. And I'm looking forward to more and more of those landing in people's hands in the coming days and weeks. That should be great. Yeah. But yeah, aside from that, look, this episode, we're largely talking about a handful of new watches. You know, we were kicking around a few different ideas and then we saw the new Tudor Ranger and. a couple of other watches kind of popped up and we figured, well, I mean, that's your show topic right there. But let's jump into a little bit of wrist check. And I know that yours kind of has a bit of an overlap with maybe a way to branch us into the main topic. So maybe I'll go first if that's good for you. Good idea. Yeah, you know, I've been traveling a ton. I think if you've been listening, I mean, we sounded a little tired and that sort of thing. I've been feeling a little bit burnt out on watches after the last month. And I find that when I feel that way, the smart thing to do is always to try and go home back to like the core of what I like about watches or something that feels very, you know, packed full of personality. So I've been for the last day or two. I had to reset the time and resync the digital display on my 40th anniversary Aqualand, my Citizen Aqualand. And I've been wearing that and I just love it. I've got it back on the canvas strap. It's a little bit more suitable for this time of year as it gets cooler and cooler in Canada. But yeah, I've been wearing the Aqualand and just really, really enjoying it.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Nice. I, um, I always see that watch in my mind as more of a summer piece that I wear more in the summer, but I think, you know, putting it on the canvas is a, is a nice idea and I can see doing that, uh, with, with my own as well. So that's a good, good pick. Will that be your watch to, uh, to take for Thanksgiving and kind of the meetup or you've got some other things in mind?
James Stacy I'll probably bring a couple things, you know, want to kind of keep up with what people are kind of tracking that I might have, you know, maybe the Nomos will come, a CWN1, that sort of thing, which should be fun. I like being able to show off whatever, you know, for people who listen frequently, like whatever we might have been talking about more recently.
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely. And how about you? Yeah. Speaking of recent watches, um, as well as our main topic, uh, I have a brand new watch actually on, um, it's not mine. It's a loaner. In fact, I'll be sending it off later today. So this is my last minutes with it. It is the, uh, the Clements photic mark two. So this is, uh, the second generation dive watch from our buddy Tom Clements, who we got to see and actually got to see this watch, both of us, for the first time at the Toronto Timepiece show back in September. Boy, that seems like a long time ago now. But it's a great piece. And, you know, Tom was kind enough to send me this early sample piece to assess. And he sent you one as well for photography because we've got a story that we'll publish on Hodinkee in the coming days. uh, about this watch, but the pre-order opens, uh, I believe, uh, you know, the day before this episode went up. So yesterday, um, but we won't get into too much about it since we're going to cover it in our main topic, but that's, what's on my wrist. Yeah. Very nice.
James Stacy I've got, uh, I've got one here to check out as well and to shoot some photos and, uh, it's a, it's a good piece for sure, but, uh, do you want to kick it off with the photic and then we'll, we'll jump into the others.
Jason Heaton I'm fresh off writing my story about it for Hodinkee, which people will see, so I'm not going to give too much away about it, but the watch itself is a really impressive watch. As I said, the pre-order just opened on the 26th and runs through December 11th with an opening price of 525 British pounds. I always liked the photic from Clements. Tom is one of the nicest guys in the watch space. I always enjoy bumping into him at shows. We've met him in Geneva a couple of times. The photic was his first effort when he launched his brand back in 2021. I hesitate to call it strictly a dress diver, but it's kind of a classic size and shape dive watch on a kind of traditional three-link steel bracelet. With the second generation, really what Tom was going for was to kind of refine his first effort. And he did so by actually shrinking the height of the case. And it's quite impressive. I was looking for examples of other divers. This is a 200-meter rated dive watch that... kind of come in in similar dimensions. And Tom, I think he's being modest. He hesitates to say it's the thinnest in its class because someone's always going to find an exception. But if you don't count the top hat crystal, it comes in at 9.9 millimeters thick. So it's a really slim, well-wearing watch with some nice kind of refined polished bevels on the case and on the markers on the dial. the beautiful kind of slightly domed sapphire bezel in various colors. I have the, um, the, it's called the shoal, which is the kind of the light gray dial with, with a ghost bezel. And I believe he sent you the Kraken, which is a black dial with an orange, uh, minute track and, and kind of faded orange bezel. And I think that one's handsome as well. It's really tough. I mean, he's, he's done a nice job with, with kind of color and design on this. And it's a, it's really a beautiful watch. And one thing that I'll just say this, that kind of, I was struck by when I was handling this watch is not only, you know, both of us kind of came up in the, I wouldn't, I don't know if it's the earliest days, but some of the earliest days of kind of the micro brand boom and the, the, the leaps and bounds by which micro brand watches have, have come in just that short period, you know, 15 years or so. um, is really remarkable. This watch is like, even when I compare it and I might take some flack for this, when I compare it to something like my Z series Submariner, you know, with a, with an aluminum bezel insert and that kind of rattly hollow end links and pressed steel clasp, like this, this watch objectively is. is just a more solid, better feeling watch than that. It's just so full feature that you, you know, to, it seems ludicrous to compare a micro brand, you know, sub thousand dollar watch to something like a Rolex. And obviously there are differences in other ways as well, but like it's, it's just a really great watch that, um, is a real overachiever in my mind. It's, it's a beautiful piece.
James Stacy Yeah, I would agree. I think it's quite a solid piece offered at a good price. The dimensions are really, really good for it. You know, coming in just over 10 millimeters, 20 millimeter lug width, 39 millimeter diameter for the bezel, 38.5 on the case, you know, all the stuff that we've mentioned. And I really like this sort of yellow orange. bezel and minute track with the black dial. It gives you just a nice punch of color without it being, you know, a whole dial. It still has this sort of classic feel to it. But I think it's more something that I kind of consider as like a whole package for the price. It just feels quite reasonable. Good, good bracelet, single sided screws, nicely finished, very comfortable, nice class with, you know, the push button micro adjust built in. I think it's just a nice package from from a brand that that's maturing kind of more quickly than one might expect for a young brand. And and, you know, we've like you said, we've had a chance to hang out with Tom a couple of times and I think he's making a solid product. So definitely happy to see this one hit the market and hopefully the preorder goes well for them.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. It's great. And it was, uh, it was fun to see it in person in Toronto and then to kind of make this happen with, with a review and a little bit more extensive time with it, uh, has been a real revelation for me and really great. So congratulations to Tom and Clements. And I'm sure the, I'm sure the sale will go well. Cause I think people will be impressed by this piece. It's a, it's a really nice offering.
James Stacy And yeah, with the Clements cross off the list there, probably the next one to talk about is sort of the big announcement within our space from the very fancy world of Dubai Watch Week. And that's a brand new version of the Tudor Ranger. It's being offered now in two specs. Everyone listening to this has already seen the stories about this, but it's now offered in 36 millimeters. It's 11 millimeters thick, still stainless steel. But now you get either the standard sort of black dial or this creamy, they're calling it dune white. it's a printed style dial, very similar hands to the 39 millimeter model, 100 meters of water resistance. And then you still have your option of, uh, the steel bracelet with the T fit or a, uh, fabric strap, like a striped fabric strap. Um, and then these ones, I believe in very similar to previous, uh, using an empty 5,400, which is 70 hour, four Hertz, uh, cosc certified movement and uh and yeah they're coming in at 33 50 on the fabric strap and 3700 on uh on the bracelet and i think this feels i mean the dune part is surprising uh from my perspective but the the 36 millimeter in the black dial feels very tutor giving people what they've been asking for right what do you think of these um
Jason Heaton I'm utterly smitten. I've loved the 39 millimeter just black dial Ranger in kind of the current generation ever since they released it. You know, I was never that taken with the first generation reissue Ranger. It was just, it was a nice watch. It just didn't hit the mark. And then I just am taking second and third and fourth looks at the Ranger every time I pass by the Tudor website or see it in a store or something. And I, you know, I've gone on record that I'm, I'm someone who likes something to fiddle with on a watch, whether it's a chronograph or a rotating bezel, and this has neither. Um, but there's just something I love about that handset that's so distinctive. And then those numerals. And I think my, my, my feeling is, and this is an aesthetic change, obviously in a size change on these. So there's much new to talk about in terms of the movement or, or other aspects. But I, I think the, The dune white dial, like when I look, I'm looking at both side by side here in this lead photo on the Hodinkee story. I really like the dune dial, but I think the 36 millimeter black dial would be the way I would go on this one. And I think I, I have a bit of a problem with, um, um, kind of white dial and, and kind of lighter colored hands like that. The contrast just isn't quite there. And I realized that this is just a kind of nitpicking, but, uh, as much as I liked that one, I think I'd go 36 millimeter black. It's, it's, it's really a handsome piece. It just has those 1016 vibes or kind of that old school, you know, early 70s Ranger look to it. It's a beautiful piece.
James Stacy Yeah, I would agree. I think it's definitely not a surprising release, even in the white. I think it makes sense for the Ranger. There's obviously also a backstory to a white dial in this format of watch from Tudor stretching back into the 50s. I think the notable elements here is... They seem to have hit a price point that people don't seem to be broadly complaining about. You know, when the 39 millimeter came out in 2022, I believe it was just a hair over three grand for the steel bracelet and just under three for the strap, like in the $2,800 range. And now we're seeing a jump up in price. But I think when you factor for how expensive watches have gotten... in the last three, four years. And on top of that, the fact that they're just kind of giving people what they're asking for, which is a ranger for a smaller wrist or for the preference of a smaller wrist, a ranger within the format of a classic Explorer. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Uh, I think, I think people seem to be responding quite well to that idea. And, uh, and yeah, I think between the two, again, I haven't seen them in person. I've seen lots of photos. Uh, we have a hands-on coming out from Mark, uh, from Dubai, uh, Might be out up by the time or pretty close to when this episode airs. But I haven't seen them in person, so it's difficult to talk about how it would fit or that sort of thing. But obviously, we have lots of experience with 36 millimeter watches, both from the things like Explorers to Datejust to other stuff entirely. And it is genuinely a pretty wearable format, even if you have a larger wrist. They just kind of sit well. You're not dealing with a lot of lug-to-lug and that sort of thing. I think of the two, I would lean on the black dial as well. But that's the kind of thing I would want to see in person to kind of really weigh in on the white. I am a sucker for a white dial. But with the printed black numerals, I do prefer the inverted with the black dial and the light tone numerals. And I think it matches the hand quite nicely and that sort of thing. But yeah, I mean, there's obviously a ton of competition for a watch like this. But again, because it's Tudor, because it's something where they had the 39 and now they have the 36, I think that they have a built-in buyer base for this pretty quickly. But I mean, the idea of a nicely made higher-end field watch can start at... like $1,000 now, and you've got great options certainly from Zinn and Hamilton and things like that, and then you move up to something like maybe some of the versions of the Spirit line from Longines could kind of fall into that platform as well. Yeah, Vertex. Of course, yeah, the Vertex with the M100 is in this price category. And then with the Tudor, it really is a very, you know, vintage inspired feeling watch with the with the painted numerals and in the more simple dial design and that sort of thing. But I think quite successful in the feedback, both on the story and on the product has been quite positive. So I think there's a lot of people interested in this. And, you know. Pricing and product aside, it just shows the value of being a brand that's in a position to kind of slowly dole out what people are asking for, right? That people wanted a Ranger, they got the 39. Maybe that felt too big for some people. And now, I mean, to be fair, years later, three years later, we get the 36. And, you know, it seems to have been quite well received and certainly caused something of a, you know, a wave on the Slack as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Um, I, you know, I need another watch, like I need a hole in the head and I, I just, I'm just, I could see myself in a moment of weakness, just, just giving in and getting one of these. I, I, I just don't need another field watch. I, I just, I don't need another tutor. Um, but yeah, I just, I keep coming back to this and the 36 strangely for. For somebody like me that is not averse to large watches, the 39 felt perfectly fine for me. But having sold my 14270 Explorer last year, I liked wearing that watch. Actually, I prefer the dial on this to the more modernist numerals on the Explorer. There's just something so pleasant and comfortable and quaint about the Ranger format. really well done Tudor. And just in closing, the one thing I would say is I, you know, to buy it just on the fabric strap. I mean, Tudor does a nice job with fabric straps, but it's this watch just is made to be on that bracelet. It just looks so perfect that way.
James Stacy That's great. And I think it'll be one that I definitely will endeavor to see in person in the next little while, as I am quite interested. I don't know. It's not for me, a Ranger. I understand the appeal and that sort of thing, but I think if I was going to wear something in that category, I'd wear my Explorer 2. And then, like you, Jason, kind of describe you like having the fidget, something with a bezel, something with a pusher, something to that extent. And I think in a world where I'm not wearing a dive watch, I would want it to be a GMT or have a GMT bezel. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And maybe that's just weirdly picky. But I own a handful of various sort of smaller, even in the same size range, 38 millimeter sort of Hamiltons and that thing. And I just don't wear them a ton. I find that I opt for things that have a little bit more complexity to the layout. But I do understand that in many ways, the appeal of something like the Ranger or an Explorer... and that sort of thing, is that they are just the watch, right? And you go from there. Yeah, yeah. Cool stuff. Good work, Tudor, on that one. People seem real pumped about it. Actually, another one that we have on the list that kind of falls into a similar category in terms of the style of the watch is this new, and we mostly want to talk about this because we like Mark II watches, but we also really like Project Recover, who... You know, when we had Brock on a little while ago, we learned more about that program to return service members to to the US, you know, service members who have been killed in the field. And and so they recently teamed up the Mark two and Project Recover to create this Helion Baku tribute watch. And it's basically a watch that supports the Project Recover in a version of a charitable donation tied to each watch. So there's two different types of the watch, and I'll include the story, of course. There's a standard package, which is $650, and there's a premium package, which is $765, and each includes some extras. We can get into that in a moment. They're going to do 180 of the standard package and they're going to do 20 units of the premium package. And the donation respectively for those is $80 per watch or $135 per watch if it's the premium. So not an insignificant amount of money when you factor in 200 units total. And then the watch itself is a 39 millimeter sort of field style watch, a little over just a hair over 13 and a half millimeters thick. steel, uh, steel case, black dial printed Arabic numerals, a hundred meters water resistance. It uses a TMI NH 38. So that's the, the, um, sort of white label, uh, movement out of, uh, the Seiko. And like I said, starts at 650 bucks. And at this point, the, uh, the, uh, pre-order sort of opened on, uh, the Monday preceding the drop of this show. Uh, so, uh, there's a chance that they'll be sold out by then. But I like the style of this watch quite a bit. It's a very straightforward, nicely priced, with quite sort of little modern flourishes to the shape of the case without being overly fancy. I just think they did a nice job with the design and the sizing, and then to have it be in support of a program like Project Recover, just thought it was worth noting for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah, there's a, there's a lot going for this piece. I mean, I think, you know, the kind of the donation collaboration aspect of it with project recover, obviously we can get behind. Um, but then the watch itself is, is a strong contender and Mark two is a watch and both of us have owned and, and just solid really well made stuff I mean Bill Yao is he doesn't mess around he makes a great piece and I think you know what saves this watch from just being like huh it's just it's kind of a plain old field watch is they kind of opted for this Bit of a crossover between the A-11 kind of pilot or field watch from World War II and the kind of the canteen style diver that the UDT guys were wearing back in the 1940s. And I think what I love about this one, it's a small thing. Well, it's not a small thing. It's the big crown, that oversized crown. And I keep waiting for... think a few brands have done this over the years but like for a watch brand to do a canteen crown diver i i've always kind of thought that was such a quirky unique way to kind of seal a watch against water ingress um before kind of the the mid-century advent of you know screwing crowns and modern or more modern dive watches and i think This one just has that bit of history and then the attention to detail with the case back engravings and all the stuff you get with the donation packages. It's really a nice offering, really well done by Mark too.
James Stacy Yeah, I agree. Good job on all fronts there. And again, I like seeing a watch that's interesting and even the connection to Project Recover is notable as well, but coming in at a price point that feels quite reasonable, even within the world of Mark II. I think that they really did hit a price point where obviously you're not paying a ton for that. This isn't a watch you buy for the movement or for the dial finishing or something, but it's Mark II. They'll make a solid piece. Yeah. And then speaking of collaborations, we have another interesting one, which was a three-way collaboration from our buddies at Worn and Wound, who teamed up with Veyr, a watch brand that we very much enjoy, and then with a third brand that we've talked a ton about on TGN over the years, Toppo. Again, for kind of a very approachably priced field watch with a few flourishes. You want to walk people through it?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. So this is, um, one thing I'm struck by is, uh, just right off the bat, it's the affordability of this watch. This is a $349 watch, um, that uses, uh, so it's a solar quartz piece with an Epson, you know, kind of sub brand of Seiko VS 22 solar quartz, uh, movement in it. It's a 38 millimeter, uh, steel case. There's a black version as well that uses kind of a DLC coating on it as well. Um, dial colors, you can get green or black and it has a, kind of the dual style bezel that I think we both like, dual scale. The inner scale is an elapsed time and the outer scale is a 12-hour bezel. The watch has 200 meters of water resistance, so certainly versatile enough for diving if you want to do that or kind of field watch use. I think it kind of straddles those two disciplines. A little over 11 millimeters thick and 45 millimeters lug to lug, so definitely very wearable. And then it comes on... This kind of cool hook and loop strap with very prominent Topo Designs branding, which I love the strap. The Topo Designs, the big patch right in front and center, I think might get to me after a while. The watch itself is really nice. And for that price, I think this is kind of one of those pieces that sits in that space that we like from like a Marathon, like an SS Nav or any number of watches that kind of do that versatile field watch thing. And I'm particularly drawn to the steel with the green on the bezel and accents on the seconds hand.
James Stacy Yeah, I really dig it. And I mean, comparing it to the SS Nav D, let's not forget that like the SS Nav D is more than double the price or about double the price. Yeah. Right at 350 with a solar movement. I think they're really good looking. I agree that the appeal of the topo strap with the thing is more like I like the idea that I have that. Yeah. I don't know that that's the strap I would keep on the watch. I really like both versions, the green and the black, and I like the price point. I love that it comes with the zippered topo EDC case, which I think is kind of a neat addition to speak to the ethos behind a watch like this. All of that kind of speaks to me, and I like it. But mostly, I think we should applaud people who are... bringing watches to the market that aren't a fortune yeah um and i thought this was a cool collab from brands that we like i own a lot of topo stuff jason you do as well um i've been continually impressed by what veyer makes and then you know worn and wound has their own aesthetic when they come to these collabs it's it's colorful it's considered uh they don't really miss opportunities to find fun ways and a three-way collab is just kind of fun yeah and and i think at this price point You're getting a watch that feels fairly priced for a Veyr, for sure. They definitely have stuff that costs more than this, for example. I dig the bezel. I like the all-black one. I think it's quite cool. And then you've got little add-ons, whether it's the strap, and maybe you wear that every now and then, or maybe that's your favorite part of the deal. Who knows? Or the EDC case and that sort of thing. So, yeah, I'm a fan of it. I was happy to cover it on Hodinkee, and I think as much as it's cool to talk about... 10, 20, 30, 40 million dollar watches, like whatever it is, like it's fun to know about those. But these are the ones that you can buy and kind of appreciate. And again, being an LE kind of adds a little bit of a collector appeal to it, especially if you're in that top of space. Right.
Jason Heaton yeah definitely and you know ver is one of those brands that i've known about for years and they just keep popping up with them more and more impressive watches and and they're kind of in that same conversation as something like a um another brand you know like a jack mason like that we saw at toronto timepiece show as well and i think you know that this tier of of watches you know in a very unpretentious very functional kind of quartz or solar space i'm i'm just really pleased to see that it's it's such kind of anti-snobbery, but yet enthusiast based and, and obviously very functional and, um, yeah, really happy to see this. And, uh, yeah, uh, just, just neat that the people are putting together something like a three-way collaboration. And I think, you know, the person behind this, our buddy, Kyle Snar, um, who's kind of worked, obviously works at Warner and Wyoming, but he's done some work with Topo as well. And, and then, uh, for Ver to step up, uh, and collaborate on this is great. Yeah. Just a fun piece and love to, I'd love to see one in person someday. It's great. Congratulations.
James Stacy Yeah. I think, I think I've seen at least one on the Slack already. And then, you know, extending beyond that in terms of just, just a fun piece. The last one that we put on the list is a really fun version of an already kind of fun and exciting watch from Christopher Ward. I mean, you and I are admittedly not guys that are maybe, heavily tracking and following the world of chiming watches. But even if you're not in that space, and I say this as a guy who just wrote 3,500 words about this new Blancpain, that's $1.7 million or whatever. Even if you're not in that space, you can't really ignore the Belcanto, which brought a certain type of complication way down in terms of its price point, way up in terms of its accessibility, while still offering... know the crisp reward of it all the the strong build quality the good warranty the the customer service and all that kind of stuff that they're known for and of course to be fair uh i don't have a bias towards the brand but i do have a bias towards mike pearson who works for the brand yeah so let's not forget that we love mike so much you know occasionally they do these versions of their watches called the lumiere where they really take the loom like as far as possible And that speaks to me, of course, as a diehard lume enthusiast. And now you can combine those two ideas into the Bel Canto Lumiere. And I think this watch is nuts.
Jason Heaton Just really, really cool. I remember a while back you were saying that you were wearing like that Vertex diver to bed and it was just too bright. Too bright. I can't imagine sleeping with this thing on your wrist. It would just be... just, it would light up the whole room. It's, it's just a wild, I've never seen a loom pattern like that with the radiating stripes, uh, on the, on the open work dial. It's just, it's truly, truly amazing. And then to have the chiming aspect of, of it is pretty cool. And I think the idea of, um, you know, I remember years ago hearing that, and this is a bit of a tangent, but hearing that the, In Dresden in the opera house, they commissioned this big oversized clock over the stage because people that were attending the opera couldn't see the time and they were all activating their chiming watches and it was disrupting the performance. So they decided they'd put a clock over the stage and that actually influenced or inspired the oversized date that you see on Langas and on some Glashütte originals and things. That's a bit of a tangent, but I guess my point is it's funny that you have a watch that was, you know, chiming watches were kind of for people to know the time in the dark. And then we have that combined with this incredible loom. I just think it's a funny juxtaposition and it just works so well on this. Just such a funny piece, especially with that loom strap.
James Stacy Yeah. Yeah, it's the loom strap. I also think, like, I think the Belcanto is a very interesting watch, but it was very traditional and colorful in its, you know, the guilloche dial and those sorts of things. And I was always kind of curious, like, what would an industrial take on the Belcanto kind of look like? And I think this is a version of that. Obviously, there's a sense of humor and levity and just fun in going with the luminous route, but you still get this very cool presentation of the chiming mechanism. which is based on Salida movement, which has been modified for this special complication. It's a 41-millimeter watch in grade 5 titanium, still 30 meters water resistance, and priced for something like around $4,900 to $5,300, depending on the strap you go with. And yes, you can pick what one is a luminous strap. The other thing I would shout out is they've they kind of encircled a small dial because the time display is is offset up to 12 to make room for the chiming mechanism, the visibility of the chiming mechanism. And I really like the execution of this little dial, which uses like a smoked. back to it oh yeah so that the the time kind of stands out more than it would with so much light moving around inside this case yeah true because even if it's not glowing you still get the color of the luminous treatment i think this is an exceptionally cool watch um and the most i've liked and and felt like personally connected to a belcanto i think this is a really neat thing And five grand, it gives you a bit of that MB&F of it all. It's just kind of wild and fun, but rooted in watchmaking and you get to see the mechanism. I think there's a lot here that a lot of people have said have celebrated Christopher Ward for this Belcanto design. But yeah, I think that this is the one that I think is unsurprisingly the most fun for me.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And just that take on what, what, you know, has long been considered kind of a high complication that, you know, a chiming watch is just such a joy and such a novelty that, that was always the more of the province of, you know, watches that were. you know, five times the price of this and, and to, to make it accessible around 5,000 or even less. And then to, to throw a luminous rubber strap on a, on a chiming watch is just, it's crazy. It's, it's, it's such a fun mashup and it's just a, yeah, I mean, leave it to Christopher Ward. They're, they're doing some amazing stuff these days and this is a, this is a really cool example.
James Stacy Yeah, yeah, a good one for sure. And that does round out the five that we had kind of selected for this. I'm sure there's some other new watches out in the world, and we'll try and get to those pretty soon. The next episode will come out in December, which means, you know, stay tuned for our, you know, holiday gift guy. Stay tuned for our holiday buying guide that one of the ones we always like to do. But this was kind of a fun look at, you know, a handful of watches all under five grand that I think offer a very specific appeal that's disparate from each other. Three field watches, to be fair, and a solid diver from Clements. And of course, the glowing personality of this further Lumiere from the Belcanto with Christopher Ward. So yeah, a cool one for sure. But do you want to jump into some final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. I'll go first because it's another bit of overlap here on the, on the back end of the show with, uh, with one of the watches we talked about. And that is, um, you might recall that, oh gosh, it was probably back in the summer. I, I went to the, uh, Banff mountain film festival, um, kind of a series of short films that were playing that were part of the, the annual mountain film festival. And one of the, the short films that they showed was, uh, a movie that was actually, you know, I didn't know this when I went to the film festival, but It popped up that it was underwritten by Vare, so the watch company that we just talked about. And it's a video called Silehus, which means House of Bliss in the Icelandic language. And the subtitle is Icelandic Shelter Build. And I talked about this as part of the Mountain Film Festival, and at the time, this film was not available separately for streaming. And I was kind of waiting for that to happen, and instead I did the North Shore Lifeguard, one that Ver had done a year or two ago. But I'm pleased to say that this Silohus Icelandic Shelter Build video is now available on YouTube, and we'll throw a link in the show notes. But it's around eight minutes long, so super easy to digest. with your morning coffee or whatever. And I just love kind of this, this whimsical approach. This, this, it's, it's this solo guy who kind of narrates or he's being interviewed by, by the filmmaker, um, as he's building this very rustic shelter out of stone and plywood on this remote, um, kind of cliff front overlooking the sea in Iceland. And he, has just a few kind of battery powered power tools and he kind of drives his four by four as far as he can on the road and then hand carries it all to this site on the edge of this cliff where he's building this stacking rocks and mortaring them together and then building this roof for it and outfitting this little shelter um in what he calls um it's kind of a he describes it as sort of a traditional rescue shelter so when there were shipwrecks the you know the the survivors could crawl ashore and maybe find a little respite from the weather and camp out until they could get help. And it's just a neat thing. And then at the end of the video, it says, you know, look, maybe during the video you caught a few clues as to where this is. I encourage you to find this place and hike to it and stay there. Just try to keep it quiet and don't divulge its location. Make people work for it. And it kind of inspired this little urge to go to Iceland and track this place down because it's really cool. So I really encourage people to watch this. It's a lot of fun.
James Stacy That's great. Yeah, sounds really good. I look forward to watching that. They've been doing some solid video projects. That's probably what, maybe the third one you've brought up? Yeah. In Final Notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely. And why don't you go now too? You've got something to watch as well.
James Stacy Yeah, I have something to watch and I have another recommendation that I remembered as we were speaking because my 3D printer is not running and I realized that I'd have something to print, but I'll get to that in just a moment. First up is a TV show that Sarah and I just finished. We're actually a little behind on this. It came from very strong recommendations from my brothers and my sister, Lindsay, who said to check out a show called Task on HBO. And so this is from the same people that created Mayor of Easttown previously, which is a great, you know, miniseries, you know, single season sort of television show done by HBO about, you know, some policing and crime in a certain area. of Pennsylvania. And so this next one exists, I would say, in the same space, but not the same people, not the same characters and that sort of thing. So I'll give you a quick rundown that I pulled from the website. So Task is a gritty HBO crime drama set in working class Delaware County, Pennsylvania, following an FBI agent played by Mark Ruffalo. He's a former priest. He was still reeling from a personal tragedy that they kind of that kind of plays out alongside the, the task forces investigation. He's pulled back into duty to lead a task force, investigating a string of violent robberies, targeting the stash houses for like a certain motorcycle club, like a biker club. And so it's, it's basically about him and the task force. trying to figure out who's perpetrating these robberies. And at the same time, you're brought into the life of the robbers and why they're doing this and what the upsides are and what they're like. And it all happens kind of at the same, you know, the story told from both aspects. And I just absolutely loved it. I mean, we put on one episode and, you know, we're not in a phase in our life with with a young child where we're staying up late very often. It's much more common to go to bed quite early and get up quite early. But with this, we put it on and then we had to watch another one. And the next night we watched a couple more. So we got through the eight episodes in over the course of a week. And I really enjoyed it. If you liked Mayor of Easttown, it's a really easy sell. Other than that, I would say, you know, it's a really good drama with some really strong writing, some really good characters. And that sort of thing. And unsurprisingly, it's getting a lot of a lot of praise. But I wanted to put it on the list because we are entering that season where I think you can watch a little bit more TV than you might otherwise. Or, you know, reruns of James Bond's or what have you without feeling really sort of like you're missing out. Uh, it's not quite ski season yet. It's not quite, but it's, you know, it's a, we're in a little, at least in Jason, I think it's similar in your part of the world is a little bit of a shoulder season might be too cold to be out on the bike, but not cold enough yet to be out on snowshoes or whatever. So, uh, you know, that, that December window is a good time to maybe catch up on some good stuff. And I really liked this, uh, really liked the show. We enjoyed every episode.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's great. I'm looking forward to this. I mean, Mark Ruffalo rarely does something. Yeah, he's great. Anything bad. And yeah, I mean, and again, I'm assuming Delaware County, Pennsylvania is roughly the area you're headed to.
James Stacy It's a slightly different area. We're heading to Bucks County. Delaware County isn't super far away, but it's a different area for sure. But yeah, nice. And, you know, that great accent. I'm a big fan, obviously, Sarah's from that part of the world. And a few of the people on the show do that accent really, really well, which is remarkable. And then, look, I have one more to bring up because my brother introduced me to this thing called Gridfinity. And it's a nerdy thing. But if you have a 3D printer and you'd like to organize things, it basically allows you to print these grids. 42 millimeter grids that are infinitely scalable. I'm sure that people use it for other things. My use so far has been to create grids that go into drawers and then you print bins and other things of various sizes and customization to organize those drawers.
Jason Heaton Oh, I see. Yeah.
James Stacy Basically, you use Fusion, which is like a 3D modeling program. And I wanted a chance to learn Fusion, but in a simple way. And that's kind of why I'm suggesting this is if you'd like to go from, you know, downloading stuff on Thingiverse and printing it. And I know there's I'm bringing this up because I know there's enough 3D printing nerds in the audience. You know, we've got a lot of it talked about on the Slack and that sort of thing. So. If you want to make the leap from printing other people's files to learning a little bit more about this environment, Gridfinity is actually a generator. So it's a plugin that operates within Fusion where you can go in and measure a drawer and then put that math in and create a grid. And I've done it for the two little desk drawers here and I've done it for Sarah's desk drawer upstairs, which is a larger print where I had to do it in two pieces because it was more than 25 and a half centimeters or whatever. And and yeah, I'm really enjoying it. And then once you have the grid done, you can go in and create these bins and you can find other people's bins if you want ones for specific products. Like people will make bins for a certain screwdriver set or a certain tool or a certain flashlight or a certain like whatever you might put in credit cards, wallets, all that kind of stuff.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy Things you would want to organize in like a desk drawer. And then certainly you can do the same thing for kitchen drawers and all that kind of stuff. And I think it's a nice introduction to Fusion and a little bit of the 3D modeling space and some of the understanding. The math is very light. Even I can figure it out, which means any of you can. And I'm having a good time just being able to keep my drawers a little bit more organized than they were. It's not just a mess of stuff kind of floating around. in a plastic bucket hanging off my desk and i was even able like i made these little one by one bins that have a so instead of it just being a square that goes all the way down like with you know corners at the bottom the front side has like a curve hmm So that I put spring bars in there. And if you just want to get one, you can like pinch it and scoop it out. Oh, sure.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy Without it getting stuck in the bottom, you know, the bottom corner or the bottom edge. Yeah. If you will. So it's little stuff like that. I'm having a blast with it. It's pretty fun that, you know, it can keep your printer definitely busy working. And I'm sure there's tons of other uses for it as well. So that's called Gridfinity. And you can use it in the free version of Fusion, which I can link all of this.
Jason Heaton having not seen a photo of the results of this, I, I think to myself that this would, this might lend itself to, um, to organizing, you know, you mentioned spring bars, but, but just kind of watchmaking or just watch adjacent, um, gadgets and accessories like, you know, roll up a bunch of, you know, uh, NATO straps or, you know, you know, little screws or, you know, whether it's a button battery for a quartz watch or whatever, I can see that kind of putting those in a small drawer or a bin or something like that and using them to organize.
James Stacy Yeah. I've definitely thought about the possibility of using it for strap storage. And then, and then I just bumped up against the sheer number of straps that I have. Yeah, I know. Um, which is, you know, which is a problem for me. Uh, I'm well beyond that organizer. I, I've written the story about from, from, uh, DeWalt and now it's, it's in a, it's in a case. It's also in that it's in a, uh, a couple of shoe boxes. So you'd really have to start by organizing and then I might need to cull. Actually, I could probably do that before going down to New Hope and bring a Ziploc bag of straps. That might be a good idea if I can get my act together before we head down in a couple days. But I did just send you a photo of an example from my drawer.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that looks great. Yeah. High visibility to the yellow. Yeah. Bright yellow. Yeah.
James Stacy Yeah. I like the yellow. It's kind of fun. The PLA matte's nice. But yeah, nice little thing to kind of tinker away with. Again, I'm spending more time at the screen, less time kind of. kicking around outside because it gets dark so quickly now uh and this this gave me something to kind of get into and my brother was able to walk me through the basics but i'll i'll share the video that he also recommended um if it's something you want to give it a try and uh i i've really enjoyed this hobby uh the 3d printing my daughters love it i find it quite useful and i'm still printing random things that i maybe don't need for the you know the ikea scatis system and that sort of thing yeah cool nice But yeah, there's another episode. And as always, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or even consider supporting the show directly, get yourself a new TGN sign NATO and a username on the Slack with the rest of the crew, please visit thegraynato.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from the author Anthony Doerr, who said, Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience, buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello, become new all over again.