With the lug for the band finished, I had hoped the most challenging part of my design gauntlet had passed but it turned out that the worst was still to come.

Apple had announced that their Apple Edition Watches would come in 18K rose gold. Since I had access to a number of 18K rose gold settings and jewelry pieces through my parents’ store, I thought it would be a straightforward process to find a color match. I was very wrong.

Apple had created proprietary 18K gold alloys and a number of rumors were spread ahead of the Apple Watch release that the gold alloys even contained non-standard components like high-tech ceramic. These rumors dissuaded most metallurgists and refineries from helping me. Of the companies I approached that were interested in helping, only one had a 18K gold color that was close to the Apple Watch. It was called 18K Russian Red and although it was close it still was not a perfect match.

The refinery was able to supply the master alloy but tried for weeks to produce the matching gold solder and flux for assembly. Ultimately they were unable to create the required wire for final assembly citing that the components in the alloy needed to produce the intense red color also released poison gas when heated for assembly.

The entire process would have been much simpler if I had been able to purchase and ship the Apple Watch Edition to a refinery for color matching, but at the time the watch was prohibitively expensive for me. Instead, I had to carry out additional “covert ops” and try to match Apple’s gold color via store visits and creative photo angles.

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