Lillenberg WKND
The Story Behind the Watch
A Watch That Keeps Up With The Time
The idea behind WKND was to create an easy-going automatic watch. The days of the week always follow the same rhythm. Without a date display, the watch needs no calendar correction after shorter months; it only needs setting if it has been left unworn long enough to stop.
After assembling each watch, I check its rate and make fine adjustments where necessary. Every watch undergoes a 5 ATM water-resistance test. Each is numbered on both its movement and its case, and comes with a signed certificate of authenticity.
The presentation box is also finished by hand: I fill the engraved logo with gold paint using a brush. The watch comes with instructions and its certificate of authenticity.
WKND began with a simple wish: I wanted to make a watch with an Estonian weekday display at the bottom of the dial, at six o’clock. To me, that arrangement felt more balanced than the usual weekday window at twelve. This design had no need for a date display.
I could not find a suitable ready-made movement or dial, so I had to design the missing parts myself and arrange for them to be manufactured. I chose the Swiss ETA 2834-2 automatic movement as the foundation.
Five Iterations, took a year.
Creating the Estonian day disc required more than translating the weekdays. All seven names had to be positioned so that each would appear precisely in the window at the bottom of the dial. Simply turning the original lettering upside down was not enough: the layout had to be calculated afresh.
Getting it right took five iterations over a full year. The day disc and dial were screen-printed in Estonia. For the weekday window, I worked with a small Swiss watch company: after adapting the tooling, they punched the window into a 0.4 mm brass blank to match my design exactly.
These solutions resulted in the Lillenberg L34: a calibre adapted to my watch from the ETA 2834-2, with its own specially made day disc and dial.
Creating WKND was a two-year journey of calculations, experiments and careful consideration of every detail. The result is an Estonian watch that shows the weekday in Estonian, in a layout of my own design.
Jaanus Lillenberg