Kortela Valta, a New Independent Watchmaking Discovery From Finland

Finland has birthed some of the most fascinating watchmakers outside of Switzerland and has long left its mark on the watchmaking industry. Think of names like Kari Voutilainen and Stepan Sarpaneva, to name just two. Perhaps lesser known, but not to be overlooked, is Reima Koivukoski, whom we introduced to you about a year ago. Now, though, we have the next discovery from the “Land of the Thousand Lakes” lined up for you: Kortela Valta. This duo of watchmakers, Roope Kortela and Rene Valta, found a mutual passion for watchmaking when studying at the Finnish School of Watchmaking and have joined forces to create something very cool called the Eka. More than enough reason to sit down and talk to the pair!

Robin, MONOCHROME Watches – Roope, Rene, you’re a young two-man brand from Finland. Can you introduce yourselves briefly?

The brand might be young, but the founders are not so much.

Well, my name is Roope, I just turned 40 and have a background in a Finnish premium-branded consumer goods company called Fiskars. I worked in different roles ranging from business control to account manager in b2b sales. However, it was only after attending the Finnish School of Watchmaking that I felt that I was finally in the right place. In Kortela Valta, I am responsible for the artistic direction, design lead, and 3D modelling, and most of the machining that’s done in-house plus working with the fibre laser. Hand-finishing of the movement and individual watch components is something that both Rene and I work on.

Roope Kortela

Rene Valta

Rene is a 27-year-old multi-talent capable of filing superb inner angled bevels as well as restoring a wrecked W124 Mercedes-Benz. Basically, anything mechanical goes. Rene seems to be immune to the fear of failure which is why he naturally takes the lead when we do prototyping at Kortela Valta. He is also the one currently restoring the old Omega movements as well as doing the final assembly of all our watches.

How do you know each other and what made you decide to launch a watchmaking brand together?

We met at the Finnish School of Watchmaking and attended the same class. During the first year, we didn’t spend that much time together, but during the second year, something just clicked and we started working together on projects such as the pair of brass precision miniature vices. Often I would have an idea about something I would like to make but felt unable to do it by myself. And that’s where Rene would fit in perfectly as he was easily able to overcome the feeling of not knowing where to start and just start trying things out.

When we got to know each other better, we noticed that we had similar ideas of what we wanted to do after we graduated – watchmaking instead of just doing service and repairs which is what the school prepares you the best for. This heavily influenced our choices of where to apply for training. I was very lucky to be accepted for three weeks in the workshop of Christian Lass in Denmark and Rene did four weeks at Torsti Laine in Switzerland.

For a very long time, we thought we would have to move to Switzerland after we graduated and gather three to five years of watchmaking experience before we could even dream of making our own watches, but we were able to pursue our dream straight out of school with the support of our wonderful mentor. We met him when he was filling in for a teacher for six months at school during our third year. It is a blessing to be mentored by someone who has worked for ten years at Kari Voutilainen and is currently working for Petermann Bedat!

Where does your passion for watchmaking come from?

Roope: I applied to the Finnish School of Watchmaking most of all because I understood in 2019 that I wanted to work with my hands. Naturally, the fact that I have been interested in watches for as long as I can remember helped with the choice. My watch enthusiasm went into overdrive in 2016-2019 and the fever ended only when I purchased my (at the time) grail watch, a white gold Lange 1, in 2019. That watch served its purpose under a microscope at school and became our Schaublin 102N lathe when we needed to finance the start of our business. The years leading to buying the Lange were filled with countless hours of learning and trying to understand different movement finishing techniques. It’s safe to say that my passion for watchmaking lies within the pursuit of perfection and hand finishing of the highest order.

Polishing jewel sinks

The finishing of the minute hand in progress.

Rene: For as long as I can remember metalworking and mechanical tinkering have been a dear hobby and an escape for me. From making tiny trebuchets as a kid to engine work and knifemaking later on, and all the way into watchmaking today. Handmade and visually pleasing mechanical work has always been a way for me to wind down and forget everything else for a moment. My interest in watchmaking really started at the Finnish School of Watchmaking, as I had no info about watchmaking as a profession beforehand. But the moment we got to work filing away in the first year of school, I knew that this was what I wanted to dedicate myself to, and from that moment onwards, my aim has been to learn as much as I can and to share that knowledge going forward.

You call yourselves “ The Livestreaming Watchmakers”; what is that all about?

Simply put, we livestream (currently on Twitch) the creation of our watches. It fits perfectly with one of the core values of the Kortela Valta brand, which is transparency, and it’s a nice way to up the stakes from the content marketing that everyone does and that we have to do as well. The live stream is still very small in terms of live viewers, but we have already planned changes on what we stream live and what’s best for YouTube videos. Understandably, looking at the same piece of metal being polished with a wooden stick for three hours straight (without being able to fast forward) is a tough pill to swallow for even the most fanatic watch enthusiasts. Live streaming our prototyping instead lets us be more relaxed on camera and interact with the viewers while the content shown on camera offers much more variety compared to showing hand finishing week after week.

Your debut watch, the Eka made quite an impression on social media. Can you explain a bit more about this watch?

From the beginning, our aim was to create the finest hand-finished timepiece (at least currently) made in Finland. Some great Finnish watchmakers are working in Finland, but we feel that no one has the same kind of focus and ambition in hand finishing as we do. We knew that we wanted to make a smaller than 40mm case which excluded using ETA/Unitas 6497/6498 as the base caliber. For the watch dial, we drew heavy inspiration from a picture found in one of the classrooms at the Finnish School of Watchmaking. The movement shapes were drawn using geometric lines found in the mainplate, and we knew that we wanted to fit a few, but not too many, sharp inner and outer angles in the movement to showcase our abilities. The design of Eka might not bring anything revolutionary into the world of independent watchmaking, but it has brought us this far, and for that, we are grateful.

What’s the idea of using vintage Omega movements as opposed to modern alternatives?

Quality and availability, basically. To quote one of our teachers: “Omega cal. 266 is the greatest mass-produced mechanical watch movement ever made.” It’s the right size so that it fits and fills watch cases between 35 and 39 millimetres. The materials used when making the movement in the 1950’s are of great quality and there is enough material to polish the pivots to a new-like shine and to make bevels in the spokes of the wheels if we so choose. The balance has a Breguet spiral and balance screws and the movement is originally chronometer graded. Need we say more about the quality?

As for the availability, we felt that there were not many (if any) good options available to be purchased in small quantities if we had chosen a modern movement for the base of our watch. When using Omega cal. 266 as the base we can leverage our own time and skills to restore the movement to its original glory. We make sure to purchase leftover movements in working order so no Rancheros or Railmasters are being destroyed to make our watches.

The movement looks rather impressive, what’s been done to it?

Well, thank you. The bridges are designed by us and machined for us in Finland by our good friend, Kupias Watches. Afterwards, everything is done at our workshop. We use German silver for the bridges as it’s a nice material to work on with hand tools and produces an amazing polish with the right abrasives. The bevels are hand-filed and polished, while the sides get a nice straight-grain finish. The final polish for the bevels, as well as the countersinks, is done by hand with hard pegwood or boxwood and abrasive. We are especially proud of our Geneva stripes, which are ground with wood and abrasive, leaving a very nice finish, while the correct angles are a result of many late evenings trying out the smallest of changes time and time again.

As part of the restoration of the original movement, the pivots and balance staffs are carefully examined under a microscope and basically always given proper polish using the Jacot tool. The original screws that we still use and other steel parts are black polished to their former glory. For the ratchet and crown wheels, we currently do a simple snailing at our workshop.

The one mechanical improvement done in Eka for the movement is the movable balance spring stud holder. This is part of the balance bridge in the original calibre, but to make the fine adjustment of the timekeeping a less tedious task, we wanted to modernize that by making it movable. The part is made completely in-house including drilling a 0.29mm hole and making a 0.35mm thread. It is hardened and tempered and is less than 0.20mm thick at its narrowest point. Yet it includes tiny handmade and polished bevels and a black polished top surface.

Bridge screws in various stages of finishing.

Pivot polishing.

What else do you do in-house for the Eka?

Quite a lot, in fact. The dial, watch hands, stud holder, bridge screws, movement holding screws and the crown are made from start to finish at our workshop. As for our watch case, the shape of the middle case is being electrical discharge machined for us by a local machine shop, but the rest of the machining is done completely at our workshop. Naturally, the case is also polished and hand-finished in-house.

You told me you’re working on a follow-up watch. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

The follow-up watch will offer the same quality of hand finishing found in the Eka, but with a few design choices that make it possible for us to drive the starting price lower than what we’ve been asking for Eka. The watch will be named Oma, which in Finnish means (your) own, which points towards the big difference between Eka and Oma – customizability. The dial might be the highlight this time around as we’re offering two to three different types of enamel dial choices made completely in-house. The starting price includes black polished screws and mirror-polished hands, but no decorative heat treatments. We can do all the different shades ranging from plum to blue steel, but that comes with a price. The same goes for the Geneva stripes – they are still available, but for the starting price, the movement gets a matte frosted finish. We will also be bringing a new case size available next to the 38.5mm case found in Eka. The new case is sized 37mm with a 45.5mm lug to lug and it is 8mm thick.

The first series of the Eka is almost sold out, when can we expect the second series to be finalized and ready to order?

We are very close to having a prototype of Oma ready, but as it is more than just a single design, we want to have different styles of dials, hands and movement finishes to show before we release the Oma. We are confident that we will have everything finalized in the next two to four weeks, and Oma will be ready to order right after its release.

Lead time for new orders right now is relatively quick, 2-3 months. At this time (and as long as we’re not overbooked), we will gladly take on custom projects for anything between 5-10 timepieces, where we can go even further with the movement finishing or even make a new design based on customer wishes when it comes to the parts we make in-house. i.e. dial, hands, watch case and the crown.

Where do you see your brand evolving in the future? What can we expect in, say, the coming three or four years?

We are steadily working towards our goal of building a superbly hand-finished timepiece with a complication or two, designed from scratch and completely made in Finland. The steps along the way include perfecting the remaining movement finishing techniques not yet in our arsenal, such as polished bevels in the ratchet and crown wheel teeth. In the shorter term, plans also include designing a new mainplate to be used along with the Omega cal. 266 gear train. This would include a free-sprung balance with a Breguet spiral that will be bent in-house.

Generally speaking, in the coming three to four years, you can expect watches with complications and more unique designs, both dial and movement-wise, compared to what we currently do, supported by increased in-house machining and finishing capabilities.

How can people get in touch or stay up to date with your work on future projects?

Currently, Instagram would be the best way to stay up to date on what we do. We highly recommend tuning in for the live stream and hitting us with questions as every bit of interaction during the stream is very welcome. We’re also on YouTube under the name @KortelaValta. A small revamp of our website is also in the plans with an option to subscribe to a newsletter.

For more information, please visit KortelaValta.com.