Guitar Sound Hole

The sound hole of a fine handmade acoustic guitar, seen from straight above, is the dial. The abalone rosette round the hole is the hour ring, the hands turn from the middle of the dark hole, and six strings run across it all: three wound bronze strings for the bass, three plain steel ones for the treble.

Inlaid like a luthier would

Twelve mother-of-pearl dots are set into the rosette's abalone band like the markers on a fretboard, doubled at 12, 3, 6 and 9. The numerals are pearl too, inlaid in the spruce with a fine black edge, and so are the date and your readings.

Hardware for hands

Polished nickel hands with an ebony line down their middle, a slim wound bronze seconds hand with a ball end on its tail, and a tortoiseshell pick at the centre.

Tap to strum

Tap the watch face and the strings ring out one after another, from the low string to the high one: each string blurs as it vibrates, the thick ones wider and longer, and a soft ring of sound spreads from the hole.

Every hour, a stage light

As the hour turns, a warm stage light sweeps across the lacquered top and the abalone shimmers round the rosette.

Three tops

• Spruce: honey gold, as it was shot.
• Cedar: a darker reddish brown.
• Sunburst: amber in the middle, shading to black-brown at the edge.

Readings in pearl

Steps, unread notifications and battery, inlaid on the top round the rosette. Put another app's complication there and it shows that app's icon, or its title where it sends no icon.

Easy on the battery

The hands move once a second; the strum and the stage light play only on a tap and on the hour. Always-on shows the rosette as faint rings with its pearl dots, the strings as faint lines and the hands as dim outlines.

Make it yours

• Wood: spruce, cedar or sunburst.
• Three complications.

To customize, touch and hold the watch face, then tap Customize.

Works on watches with Wear OS 6 or later. Made in Watch Face Format: nothing to install on your phone, no permissions, no data collected.

Part of Tempus Arcanum, a collection of watch faces.