We are back with Part 3 of our new in-house tourbillon development.
With many of Tourbillon 1’s standard components coming from our K1 and K2 movements we had a major task to complete when it came to the Tourbillon cage.
This week Andi is double wristed and together with Florian they dive into the details of the cage and share with you this completely new construction.
Some stand out specs for the tourbillon cage are as followed.
Titanium construction
43 components
Bearing construction to increases stability and make the watch a truly everyday wear
20.3 Silicon Escapement of our own geometry
Extremely lightweight at 0.29 grams. The bearing is fixed to the main bridge and the cage then nestles over it. The bearing is also very light at 0.08 grams.
Seconds indicator on the tourbillon cage filled with Swiss SuperLuminova. You can use the bridge marking at the cages 3 o'clock mark to time and for chronometer certification.
I should point out that in the original design we were going to utilize the seconds wheel for chronometer certification. By taking the movement in-house we are happy that we were able to apply the indicator as we had always hoped for on the tourbillon cage.
With the tourbillon cage complete we have now been preparing the animation. We will have a very cool video to share with you next.
We are preparing for the next pre-order and will keep you posted on the exact dates.
As always, we look forward to connecting with you in the comments.
Till next time…
Landon Stirling
Thanks a lot to Andi and Florian for sharing all these detailed insights into the development of the watch. Really exciting to get to know all the details they have to deal with.
Tremendous work by all the team! 👏
Great to hear that you enjoyed it.
There are so many details to this project and definitely no easy task. We really wanted to show just how much goes into the development. The combination of modern production processes and a deep knowledge base are needed. The team is also a very special crew that cannot be replicated and all contribute their unique skill set to the project.
As Andi and Florian touched on, understanding geometry in both gear train and escapements is a very rare thing to have. Without that understanding it would be a much different story. However having this know-how allows us to run countless simulations to ensure we optimize before heading into production.
What other parts of the project are interesting to you or that you would like to see?
Thanks for the feedback Andrew.
@landonstirling Dear Landon. Thanks for the further explanations. Very interesting.
With the current video the challenges of the design of the cage is very comprehensive for me as non-expert while still being accessible.
Andi mentioned in a previous video that due to the skeleton design of the plate you cannot just attach the wheels and other parts at any place. Getting to know the challenges between engineering and design would be interesting.
@Andrew Ferrone That is a very good suggestion. The balance between design and engineering is a delicate one. If you could be a fly on the wall for the internal discussion we have on that very subject you would see why there is an ever increasing amount of grey hair at Horage 😂.
Sometimes what looks great on paper ends up needing some tweaking because components don't always align where one would hope. With this project we had the design and so we needed to modify as little of the aesthetic as possible. It may seem easy, but the entire internal workings are all completely different and such an endeavour can be more difficult at times than just starting from scratch.
It's a bit like swapping out a car engine with a more powerful engine that you have built yourself. The engine mounts, drive train, etc. all have to be changed to accommodate it.
Thank you again for the suggestion, I think we could do something on this topic in future videos. 👍
Wonderful. Glad you are adding a seconds function, albeit unusual. I keeping looking at the skeleton, realizing that many cross-pieces(for want of a better term) are necessary for mechanism connection, but would it be possible to eliminate some making the movement more exposed? I'm trying to seek ways to differentiate it from Angelus etc. More of a skeleton look might be just the trick given the tourbillon.
On a different topic - K2 micro-rotor? Next perhaps a new carbon element to compete with Code41?
Great to hear from you and thank you for the comment. The bridge design that Florian has is a little misleading as its not the finalized bridge design. But I can say there will be some more openings 😉. The reason being is the engineers only concern is ensuring the movement works and then after that the designers can update the bridge design. We will have an update on that very soon for you. The earlier movement we had was similar to the one used in Angelus watches. However now our movement is entirely new. Our cage is a different design, gear train, hand setting mechanism, etc. Technically there is nothing the same from the previous movement, but optically we needed to stay with our previous bridge design while working with a modified layout from our engineers. I think when you see the upcoming video it will help visualize things better. We will have more on K2 in autumn 😊. Some exciting things to share with you and everyone else. Thanks again.