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12 November 2025Making movements
After a hard day at the office designing jet engines for planes, Frank Heydrich likes to unwind by formulating and making watches. Now his hobby, like his day job, is taking off
'I t started innocently enough,’ says Frank Heydrich about the moment he got hooked on watches. ‘A co-worker left a couple of print magazines lying around and I was instantly intrigued by the Swiss movements.
‘Prior to that I had only owned battery powered watches with an ugly chunk of electronic plastic inside. After, I realised there was still an industry supported by people that appreciated the beauty of mechanical things. I bought some vintage Swiss movements and began taking them apart to see how they ticked. Eventually I had the nerve to start making my own watches, in 2008.’
Born 50 years ago, to a German engineer father who met his Chinese mother at university in Adelaide, Australia, Frank Heydrich is a member of a group whose numbers can be counted on the thumb of one hand – jet-engine designers with a sideline in watch design.
And, thanks to his exotic watch faces – there being nothing like a slice of the Moon or a sliver of a meteorite older than planet Earth to lend a watch cachet – he is becoming increasingly well known.
‘My story is pretty typical,’ says Heydrich from his home in Phoenix, Arizona, not realising his story couldn’t be less typical if it tried. For a start he has no formal training.
‘Not in watchmaking. I was trained as a mechanical engineer and I have spent the past three decades designing turbine engines for business jets and passenger aircraft.’
But there are plenty of similarities between engines and watches, he adds. ‘When I cracked open my first Swiss mechanical watch, I was astounded to find a very tiny gearbox staring back at me! I was sure I just had to swap my wrenches for tweezers and this would be easy. Not so fast…’ he laughs at the memory.
‘I was not used to working under magnification and the parts are far too small to pick up and manipulate with fingers. Many tiny screws have escaped my tweezers never to be seen again. After many fruitless searches, I have since concluded that they have the ability to jump into other dimensions.’
‘Many tiny screws have escaped my tweezers never to be seen again.’
So why not a bit of bowling, or fishing – the sort of hobby average people go in for? ‘Designers like myself suffer from some sort of obsessive compulsion that drives us to create new things. So although I spend my day designing things in 3-D CAD, I am not completely fulfilled. The results of the day job get built by others after many millions have been spent in tooling and materials. My watch designs are self-produced so the no-expense-spared philosophy is gone.’
And initially it was just meant to be a hobby. ‘At first, I made a watch I liked, so I could wear it. Then a friend saw it and talked it off of my arm and onto his somehow. This cycle has repeated itself many times so now there are 70 unique watches out there.
‘I prefer to make watches that I like, for myself,’ he says, outlining a design philosophy that’s the complete opposite of most watch designers. And then if I get a few that are not claimed, I offer them for sale on my website.’
To this hyper-exclusivity can be added Heydrich’s peculiar specialisation – meteorites and the odd chunk of the moon. ‘Most expensive watches contain a painted brass dial; I could never sell one and ask for payment with a straight face. I have been a rock collector since childhood so it is no surprise that I would someday seek out meteorites.’
‘I have another lunar watch in progress and have now made two Mars watches as well. The next rare exotic will likely be Mercury or Venus.’
How does one go about getting a piece of the moon anyway? ‘NASA has a pretty good stock of moon rock, but they are not selling and they are not going back any time soon.
'The only other way is to find a lunar meteorite that got blasted off the moon and deorbited onto Earth. Because only 200 of these have ever been confirmed, they sell for $700 per gram – which makes precious metals seem like a bargain.’
How did the moon watch (No 60 ‘Bella Luna’) come about? ‘I got an inquiry from a meteorite collector who had not been able to get a custom watch built in Switzerland incorporating a piece of Mars meteorite.
'He asked me to attempt to build a watch with it. He was pleased with the result so he bought a large slice of lunar meteorite and sent it to me. Some months later, he had the world’s first moon dial watch.’
And what if someone reading this wants one? ‘Well, we start with a conversation and a budget. And then the colour, hands, movement, case and bands – they are all chosen by the client in stages and I send them mock-up pictures to help them make their decisions.
‘I have another lunar watch in progress and have now made two Mars watches as well. The next rare exotic will likely be Mercury or Venus, depending on which suspected meteorite gets its origin confirmed first.’
Can we talk about anything as mundane as movements? ‘I do not reveal my preservation methods (to keep the iron meteorites from rusting too quickly), so I cannot have anyone else service my watches for me.
'My solution is to offer a lifetime guarantee where I do all future lubrication servicing for free. In this scenario, it makes sense to use very reliable movements.
'Generally I prefer to use the ETA 2892 for automatics that are to be worn daily and the skeletonised ETA 6498 when the aesthetics are more important. Up until now I have been buying and modifying Swiss-made cases, but I have been taking the steps this year to learn CNC machining so I can carve out my own titanium cases.
'Finally I will be able to control the complete aesthetic package and make much more creative watches.’
Sounds like a case of look out, world. Not to mention Mars, Venus, Mercury…
frankheydrich.comWords: Staff
