Beyond his career as an actor, Carlos Koo holds another title — watch engraver. Eleven years into the craft of watch engraving, he moved from engraving motorcycles to engraving watches, and the journey began with a watch of his own: an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean.
This Omega was the first brand-new watch Carlos ever owned, bought at a discount nearly 20 years ago. After years on his wrist, it had started to show wear. Rather than send it off for polishing or trade it in, he had a bold idea — why not try watch engraving himself? Quotes from overseas master engravers were expensive, and he worried about the risks of shipping the watch abroad, so with seven years of motorcycle-engraving experience behind him, he decided to take the plunge into watch engraving. It was during the pandemic, when filming work had ground to a halt; he spent nearly HK$100,000 on tools and started from scratch, not knowing how to assemble or calibrate a microscope, figuring it out step by step on his own. For the design, he chose a Japanese ukiyo-e style, which he felt complemented the Planet Ocean’s ocean theme. The whole process stretched on and off for close to two years, totaling nearly 400 hours, and his technique kept evolving along the way — from relying solely on a graver and black wax at first, to later teaching himself precious-metal inlay work, setting gold into the engraved patterns.
That “debut piece” went on to become both Carlos’s signature work and the starting point of his career in watch engraving. Asked about what self-teaching has taught him, he admits that watch engraving is almost 99% self-taught through trial and error, sustained by two convictions: humility — seeking advice with an open mind regardless of whether the other person is more skilled — and persistence — never giving up easily when faced with a difficult problem. It’s that determination that let him start from zero and carve out a place entirely his own.
