materials
Soft-Close Drawer
A handle would have been the easy answer.
We spent 4 months building a better one — a drawer that eases itself shut, engineered to vanish into a space with millimetres to spare.
We spent 4 months building a better one — a drawer that eases itself shut, engineered to vanish into a space with millimetres to spare.
Soft-Close Drawer
Why we didn't just fit a handle
A watch box has almost no room to give.
A conventional soft-close runner needs depth we simply don't have beneath the watches. So instead of dropping in off-the-shelf hardware — or settling for a drawer you yank open and knock shut — we took the best European soft-close hardware as a starting point and, with our industrial designer, engineered our own mechanism around it.
4 months, a wall of drawings and a run of 3D-printed prototypes later, the drawer closes in one quiet, even motion. You feel the difference the first time you use it.
A conventional soft-close runner needs depth we simply don't have beneath the watches. So instead of dropping in off-the-shelf hardware — or settling for a drawer you yank open and knock shut — we took the best European soft-close hardware as a starting point and, with our industrial designer, engineered our own mechanism around it.
4 months, a wall of drawings and a run of 3D-printed prototypes later, the drawer closes in one quiet, even motion. You feel the difference the first time you use it.
A tray you lay out yourself
The drawer isn't a fixed grid.
Tell us what lives in yours and we build the layout around it — channels for spare straps, a slot for a spring-bar tool and a loupe, beds for cufflinks or rings, a lined tray for glasses or a folding knife.
Most owners use it for straps and tools; we've drawn it for stranger collections than that. If you can describe the layout, we can make it.
Tell us what lives in yours and we build the layout around it — channels for spare straps, a slot for a spring-bar tool and a loupe, beds for cufflinks or rings, a lined tray for glasses or a folding knife.
Most owners use it for straps and tools; we've drawn it for stranger collections than that. If you can describe the layout, we can make it.
Option #1
Straps and tools
Option #2
Cufflinks and rings
Option #3
A glasses tray
A hand lifting the whole tray cleanly out of the box, straps laid flat inside — removable by design, in one frame.
It lifts right out
Pull the drawer all the way and it comes free in your hand — by design.
Carry the tray to your desk, or lift it up to the watch instead of the other way round; there's no fiddly catch to fight. Keep it level and everything stays exactly where you laid it.
The drawer is made for things that lie flat: straps, tools and slim accessories up to about 3.5 cm (1.4 in) tall. Taller pieces won't clear the watches above, so those are better kept elsewhere.
Pull the drawer all the way and it comes free in your hand — by design.
Carry the tray to your desk, or lift it up to the watch instead of the other way round; there's no fiddly catch to fight. Keep it level and everything stays exactly where you laid it.
The drawer is made for things that lie flat: straps, tools and slim accessories up to about 3.5 cm (1.4 in) tall. Taller pieces won't clear the watches above, so those are better kept elsewhere.
One storey or two?
There are 2 ways to keep your accessories with the box:
- Every box includes 2 side compartments at no cost — room for a few straps and a tool, alongside the watches, on a single level.
- Add the drawer, $300, and the box becomes two storeys — your collection on show up top, every accessory — straps, tools, cufflinks — laid out and hidden in the drawer below. Same footprint; twice the order.
Add the drawer when:
- you want the top deck to be watches and nothing else — clean, on display
- your straps, tools and accessories have outgrown a couple of compartments
- you like everything for the collection under one lid, tidy and out of sight
- you want the layout built precisely around your own kit
Two side compartments are enough when:
- a few spare straps and a tool is all you keep with the box
- you'd rather put the budget into the wood, the glass or an extra fitting
- a single level suits how you use it
Add a drawer, and lay it out your way,
as you build.
Instagram: @nnwatchcases
Watch Boxes