News · Baltic

Baltic's Scalegraph finally gets screw-down pushers and 100 metres

Baltic has rebuilt the Scalegraph case around screw-down pushers, doubling water resistance to 100 metres while leaving the hand-wound Sellita SW510-M exactly as it was.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 5 min read · 9 August 2026

• Baltic has rebuilt its hand-wound Scalegraph chronograph with screw-down pushers, lifting water resistance to 100 metres from the 50 metres its Classic version still carries.
• The reworked 316L case measures 39.5mm across, 14.1mm thick and 47mm lug to lug, with wider lugs and vertical brushing replacing the old circular finish.
• Three dials are offered, grey, blue and champagne, priced from 1,635 euros on rubber up to 1,700 euros on either steel bracelet, sold direct.

We have all been having roughly the same conversation about the Scalegraph since it first appeared, and it never got as far as the dial. Somebody would say how good it looked, somebody else would ask what it was rated to, and the thread would quietly die there. If you liked it enormously and still did not buy one because of that second question, your holding out has just been vindicated: Baltic has rebuilt the Scalegraph around screw-down pushers and 100 metres of water resistance.

What makes this more than a spec-sheet bump is that Baltic has not quietly retired the old design. The Scalegraph Classic is still on sale in panda and reverse panda, still rated to 50 metres, still 13.5mm thick, still 1,645 euros on a beads of rice bracelet. The new one asks 1,700 euros on the same bracelet. Fifty-five euros and six tenths of a millimetre is the whole bill for doubling the depth rating, which is about as plainly as a brand ever shows its working.

Six tenths of a millimetre, and twice the depth rating

The case is 316L stainless steel, 39.5mm across and 14.1mm thick, spanning 47mm lug tip to lug tip on 20mm lugs. That 47mm decides whether the watch suits you, because it is short for a 39.5mm chronograph and keeps the lugs inside the edge of a flatter wrist. Baltic has widened them, sharpened their angles and replaced the circular finish on top with vertical brushing, so light runs along the case rather than swirling on it.

Be honest about what 100 metres actually does. The industry has spent a decade selling depth ratings as a proxy for seriousness, and most watches carrying one will never go deeper than a kitchen sink. That criticism is fair, and it belongs to the category rather than to this watch. What screw-down pushers buy here is not depth, it is the end of a small negotiation with yourself about whether to take the thing off before the washing up. Now it just gets worn.

You have to unscrew something before you can time anything

Here is the part I went round and round on. Screw-down pushers mean unscrewing one before you can start the chronograph, which puts the headline function behind a door, and there is something faintly absurd about a stopwatch that needs unlocking. I first read that as a genuine cost, and I still think anyone who finds it irritating is being reasonable rather than precious.

Then I thought properly about how these get used. It is hand-wound, so you are already at the crown every couple of days, and unscrewing a pusher is less a new skill than an extra second on a gesture you were making anyway. The friction costs seconds and is reversible; the failure it prevents costs a movement and is not. I have landed on Baltic being right, though I would not argue with anyone keeping a Classic so they can time a parking meter without ceremony.

Workshop-manual beige, and the grey it sits best against

All three dials do the same thing: three light beige guilloché subdials, closer in colour to the paper in a workshop manual left in a glovebox than to cream or ivory, set against a cooler main dial. Baltic frames each in a polished ring, which picks up the concentric index line and gives every recess an edge to catch light. The hands are polished steel dauphines, with Super-LumiNova BGW9 on them and on the round index at the minute track.

The grey and champagne are both metallic, the blue glossy rather than sunburst, which changes how much work the beige has to do. Against the grey it does the most, because the two sit close enough in temperature that the subdials read as inset rather than applied. There is no date anywhere, which on a three-register layout is the difference between symmetry and an apology. The bezel is brushed aluminium with a tachymeter scale, the part of Baltic's motor racing pitch that genuinely earns it.

Hand-wound on purpose, and thinner because of it

The movement is the Sellita SW510-M, manually wound, with a stop seconds and 63 hours of reserve. Hand winding at this price reads like a cost saving until you look at the case again, because a rotor would have added height to a watch already at 14.1mm. Sixty-three hours is a bit over two and a half days, enough that winding becomes something you do when you pick the watch up rather than an appointment you keep.

Four ways to wear it, and one lug width

Baltic sells the Scalegraph on a Rubber Sport strap in vulcanised FKM, an Italian calf leather strap, a steel beads of rice bracelet or a steel flat link bracelet, and says every strap it makes fits. The lugs are 20mm, quietly the most useful number here, because nothing in your drawer is wasted and nothing you buy later needs an adaptor. The crown is engraved, a piece of finishing plenty of brands at this money leave off.

What Baltic chose to spend the money on

The reason this matters is not the 50 extra metres, which almost nobody will use. It is that a brand with people happily queuing for new colourways spent its budget on sealing and a redrawn case, then left the shallower version on sale rather than pretending it had been an error. That is water resistance treated as a real choice with a real price, rather than a figure to inflate for the next launch. Baltic keeps calling the Scalegraph a tribute to motor racing, and the thing about motor racing is that the unglamorous engineering is usually what finishes.

Baltic Scalegraph pricing and availability

Baltic sells the Scalegraph directly from its own website in three dials: grey, blue and champagne. It is 1,635 euros on the vulcanised FKM Rubber Sport strap, 1,640 euros on the Italian calf leather strap, and 1,700 euros on either the beads of rice or the flat link steel bracelet. Baltic takes payment in euros only, so there is no separate local figure for buyers here; its country selector converts an estimate and nothing more. Shipping is by DHL and free above 80 euros, and outside the European Union taxes and customs charges are not included.