Any advice stainless watch cases ?

As titled, I`ve had an enquiry about the possibilty of setting a few watch cases in the future..Cartier Santos ect so, I`m going to play dumb & ask advice about what to look out for, potential problems ect & are they generally similar in hardness including just generic brands (do they compare to a spyderco bug)? or tougher.

I know i`ll need hard metal burrs ect but other than that I`d be interested to hear any advice that might increase my knowledge here as to be honest i`ve not done a great deal of setting in steel.

Don't know about hardness but always remember the tolerances. Flex or change anything and parts won't go back together correctly. Not much room for error. Joanne Ryall reminded me about this recently. She could probably answer some of your questions.

Hi Chris. The accuracy that you will need regarding letting in the stones will need to be much higher than with precious metals. I have found in the past that if you try to move a grain too much it will crack off leaving you in trouble. I always ensure each stone is undercut into the grain with a 446 then clicked into place so the stone is already tight. By graining down onto it then the final securing is accomplished. Be careful of distortion of all parts particularly the innards like the one I posted a few months ago which I had engraved. Getting replacements is a nightmare. As for hardness with drilling and cutting the Busch carbide burrs will serve you well and I find standard HSS vallorbe gravers much more durable than carbide for setting. Be mind full of the different finishes on parts. Make sure you have a way of duplicating it if you need to do burr removal or dare I say repair a slip.

Thanks for that info..I have a cheapo case to test out, no idea if the steel will be similar, but I'll have a quick go at it anyway.