Interview Why Urwerk Just Can't Stop Using Tantalum

Tantalum is a rare and hard lustrous transition metal. One of its key traits is high corrosion-resistance to acids. When it comes to working with the metal, something to bear in mind is that it is not solderable. Grinding and drilling tantalum is also difficult as the material tends to harden during processing, which can wreak havoc on all manner of machinery.

Urwerk has used the material before, but vowed never to do it again after the UR-110 TTH. But it couldn't quit tantalum. So these watches were announced with yet another promise that this would be the final time the brand would work with tantalum.

Obviously someone inside the company has a deep-seated fascination with the material. As it turns out, it's not just anyone – it's Urwerk founder Martin Frei. And it's not a fascination so much as it is an obsession. He can't get enough of it, much to the chagrin of the staff operating the heavy machinery.

I sat down with Frei to discuss the latest release, and why he was determined to work with tantalum one last time.

Frei: Tantalum is an element – like a pure element. And I think if you can work with nature's pure elements, one that you can find in the periodic table, that's a great thing. It hasn't been used often, obviously, because it's a material that eats the drill bits. It is very difficult to machine and not because it's particularly hard – it is hard – but it is kind of … sticky.

So this is actually the problematic thing about it. But what you have is this pure, beautiful dark metal. Tantalum is a very dark metal, it's a very dark, violet-blue color. Aesthetically, it can't be beat – not with any coating. It's the beauty of the material that somehow makes me want to use it again, even though it's forbidden.

That's how it comes. That's what nature gives us as one of the building stones of our world. Tantalum is a rarer metal. It's used nowadays for cell phones and devices like that. So it's a metal used more often, but it is a difficult metal, it has very interesting, specific specifications. It's extremely corrosion-resistant so you can put it in the strongest acids that we have. Where other things dissolve, it resists. It got its name from ancient Greek mythology – Tantalus was a villain and then as punishment he had to endure terrible torture, but he resisted it.

Absolutely! And that's also the friction, because the guys who work the CNC machines, they know me. Sometimes when I come in, they're like, "Oh no … "

If I come with a special metal and ask, "can you just drill a hole here and see what's happening?" Then they look at me like I'm crazy, but at the same time, you see a light in them. They're also tempted. It's like alchemy, it's this dream that you create out of different materials to create something. Of course with the alchemists they wanted to find the material that gives you eternal life.  I'm not going that far. I stop shortly before that.

Tantalum is quite hard and heavy. It kind of wraps itself around the drill and somehow tires the drill bit. It's literally eating the drills.

I think they use three times as many drills to create one watch. They have to exchange the drills and every time they do, they have to start the process anew, and the problem is that the chance of imprecision becomes greater.

Tantalum is kind of like a signature Urwerk material. I hope that our team gains experience working with it and in the future there will be possibility for a new piece.

The main purpose of it is to protect what's inside. The shape is shield-like and we drew inspiration from medieval armor.

With this last and final version of the 105, we have a stronger shield that's more – and some people actually refer to it as – a cyberpunk shield.

This has become kind of a tradition now with Urwerk. We started it with the 110 actually, where we did this watch where we used wood. It was a smaller edition of five pieces or something.

We don't have the older parts anymore, so we would have to restart production in a way. We decided not to do that because we wanted to come up with something new. We have to stop production of a model in order to bring in a new one, because we have this way of doing things where we want to grow in quality – to be able to sustain what we are.

It's like using energy to stay small in a sense. The last watch for the 105 is this limited edition. And of course with the material, maybe they said, "You know, you can bring out the tantalum one more time because you're only going to make a few." I guess that's the reason I was allowed to do it.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Photos, Tiffany Wade