Time
From the earliest periods man has used some form of time measurement, be it only the seasons of the year or phases of the moon. This was all that was needed in simple nomadic or agricultural communities and precise enough for their daily needs. As people began to congregate in villages, and forms of religious ceremonies began, more refined methods of time measurement were needed. Civilisation in early times was concentrated around the Mediterranean, where there was lots of sunshine and water aplenty for the then relatively small populations.
Here time keeping was developed along two main lines - from the shadow stick, probably the earlier, and then the water clock. Although crude by modern day standards, sundials and water clocks were eventually developed to give surprising accuracy, they were of course very different to the much more mobile and precise instruments that are available today, especially form Luxury 2 Watch Ltd.
The first pocket watch was created in Germany by Peter Henlein in 1524. Others appears in 1548 and more were produced in Switzerland and England after 1575. At this time the main problem was the driving mechanism. Typically, weights were used, which made portable watches impractical, but it was a period of great advancement and innovation. The first movements were made of steel, then later brass. They had no balance springs and were notoriously inaccurate. The watches had only an hour hand and had to be wound twice daily. Soon the spiral leaf mainspring appeared, the greatest innovation at the time as it allowed long-term power without weights. Because of a difference in timing between the long arcs and the short arcs, accuracy could only be improved by using a limited portion of the mainspring. Germany produced a watch with a cam at the end of a barrel arbor to compensate for variations in spring tension, but it was the English and French solution to use the fusee. This stopped the watch during winding to prevent over oscillation of the balance wheel. Additional stops were included as regulators.
Form watches became popular in the 1600s, with cases shaped like animals and objects. Religious themes were especially popular. Although there were few technical improvements, watches became more like pieces of jewelry. It wasn't until 1704 that the first rubies were used in watch movements to create more accurate time pieces. By 1750, enamel was used on watch dials making them more visible in low light. The first self-winding movement was invented in 1780, by Abraham Perrelet, and in 1820 Thomas Prest registered a patent for a self-winding watch. In America, in 1809, the first watch manufacturer was Luther Goddard of Shrewsbuy, Massachussetts. In 1848, Louis Brandt opened a workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds which was to later become the Omega Watch company. It was the Americans, around 1850, who were first to go into mass production, with mixed results, the main companies being Waltham, Elgin and Hamilton.
In 1884, Greenwich, England was named the zero meridian, a worldwide acceptance of a starting point for global time zones. After 1900, advances in metallurgy improved the mechanisms, primarily because the balance spring was sensitive to temperature and position. Self-compensating balances were made with bi-metallic properties to compensate for high and low tempartures, and eventually a balance was created that could compensate for middle temperature errors. In 1905 the Rolex Watch Company was started by Hans Wilsdorf. 1914 saw the first wristwatch with an alarm. Seiko was started in Tokyo in 1924.
In 1884, Greenwich, England was named the zero meridian, a worldwide acceptance of a starting point for global time zones. After 1900, advances in metallurgy improved the mechanisms, primarily because the balance spring was sensitive to temperature and position. Self-compensating balances were made with bi-metallic properties to compensate for high and low tempartures, and eventually a balance was created that could compensate for middle temperature errors. In 1905 the Rolex Watch Company was started by Hans Wilsdorf. 1914 saw the first wristwatch with an alarm. Seiko was started in Tokyo in 1924.
Types of watch
Collectible and jewelry watches
Wristwatches are often treated as jewelry or as collectible works of art rather than as timepieces. This has created several different markets for wristwatches, ranging from very inexpensive but accurate watches intended for no other purpose than telling the correct time, to extremely expensive watches that serve mainly as personal adornment or as examples of high achievement in miniaturization and precision mechanical engineering. Still another market is that of “geek watches”—watches that not only tell the time, but incorporate computers, satellite navigation, complications of various orders, and many other features that may be quite removed from the basic concept of timekeeping.
Most companies that produce watches specialize in one of these markets. Companies such as Breitling, Patek Phillipe, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Omega and Rolex specialize in watches as jewelry or fine mechanical devices, while companies such as Casio specialize in watches as timepieces or multifunctional computers. Since watches are considered by many to be both functional and attractive, there are many types and manufacturers to choose from.
Important collectible American made watches from the early 20th Century were the best available at any price. Leading watchmakers included Elgin, Gruen, Hamilton, and Illinois. Hamilton is generally considered as having the finest early American movements, while the art deco styling of The Illinois Watch Company was unsurpassed worldwide. Early Gruen Curvex models remain very desired for how they entwined form and function, and Elgin made more watches than anyone else.
Dual time watches
A dual time watch is designed for travelers, allowing them to see what time it is at home when they are elsewhere.
Watch functions
All watches provide the time of day, giving at least the hour and minute, and usually the second. Most also provide the current date, and often the day of the week as well. However, many watches also provide a great deal of information beyond the basics of time and date. Some watches include alarms. Other elaborated and more expensive watches, both pocket and wrist models, also incorporate striking mechanisms or repeater functions, so that the wearer could learn the time by the sound emanating from the watch. This announcement or striking feature is an essential characteristic of true clocks and distinguishes such watches from ordinary timepieces. This feature is available on most digital watches.
Complicated watches
A complicated watch has one or more functionalities beyond the basic function of displaying the time and the date; such a functionality is called a complication. Two popular complications are the chronograph complication, which is the ability of the watch movement to function as a stopwatch, and the moonphase complication, which is a display of the lunar phase. Other more expensive complications include, Tourbillion, Perpetual calendar, Minute repeater and Equation of time. A truly complicated watch has many of these complications at once(see Calibre 89 from Patek Phillipe for instance)
Among watch enthusiasts, complicated watches are especially collectible.
Chronographs and chronometers
The Rolex Submariner is an officially certified chronometer. The similar-sounding terms chronograph and chronometer are often confused, although they mean altogether different things. A chronograph is a type of complication, as explained above. A chronometer watch is an all-mechanical watch or clock whose movement has been tested and certified to operate within a certain standard of accuracy by the COSC (Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres). The concepts are different but not mutually exclusive; a watch can be a chronograph, a chronometer, both, or neither. However, since COSC only deals with watches manufactured/assembled in Switzerland, it is a norm of less importance. Some German and Japanese movements surpass these requirements, but are not allowed to enter the COSC race.
Second display
Some watches includes a second 12-hour display for UTC (as Pontos Grand Guichet GMT).
Water resistance
Watches may be crafted to become water resistant. These watches are sometimes called diving watches. The International Organization for Standardization issued a standard for water resistant watches which also prohibits the term "waterproof" to be used with watches, which many countries have adopted.
The watches are tested in still water, thus a watch with a 50 meter rating will be water resistant if it is stationary and under 50 meters of still water. For normal use, the ratings must then be translated from the pressure the watch can withstand to take into account the extra pressure generated by motion. Watches are classified by its degree of water resistance, which roughly translates to the following:
- Water resistant - Will tolerate splashes of water or rain
- 50 meter - Usable while showering, bathing, dishwashing, and swimming in shallow water
- 100 meter - Usable while swimming, and snorkeling
- 150 meter - Usable during general water sports
- 200 meter - Usable during general water sports, including free diving
- Diver's 150 meter - ISO standard for scuba diving
Some watches use bar instead of meters, which may then be multiplied by 10 to be approximately equal to the rating based on meters. Therefore, a 10 bar watch is equivalent to a 100 meter watch.
Watch movements
A movement in watchmaking is the mechanism that measures the passage of time and displays the current time (and possibly other information including date, month and day). Movements may be entirely mechanical, entirely electronic (potentially with no moving parts), or a blend of the two. Most watches intended mainly for timekeeping today have electronic movements, with mechanical hands on the face of the watch indicating the time.
Mechanical movements
Purely mechanical watches are still popular, although they are most commonly seen among medium priced watches such as Fortis, Mido and TAG Heuer, and expensive watches like Patek Phillipe, Omega, Vacheron Constantin, A. Lange & Söhne, Rolex, Ulysse Nardin and Audemars Piguet.
Tuning-fork movements
Tuning fork watches (introduced by Bulova in 1960) use a tuning fork at a precise frequency (most often 360 hertz) to drive a mechanical watch. Since the fork is used in place of a typical balance wheel, these watches naturally hum instead of tick.
Tuning fork movements are electromechanical. The task of converting electronically pulsed fork vibration into rotary movement is done via two tiny jeweled fingers, called pawls, one of which is connected to one of the tuning fork's tines. As the fork vibrates, the pawls precisely ratchet a tiny index wheel. This index wheel has over 300 barely visible teeth and spins more than 38 million times per year. The tiny electric coils that drive the tuning fork have 8000 turns of insulated copper wire with a diameter of 0.015 mm and a length of 90 meters.
Electronic movements
Electronic movements have few or no moving parts. Essentially, all modern electronic movements use the piezoelectric effect in a tiny quartz crystal to provide a stable time base for a mostly electronic movement: the crystal forms a quartz oscillator which resonates at a specific and highly stable frequency, and which can be used to accurately pace a timekeeping mechanism.
Quartz
Quartz mechanisms usually have a resonant frequency of 32768 Hz, chosen for ease of use (being 215). Using a simple 15 stage divide-by-two circuit, this is turned into a 1 pulse per second signal responsible for the watch's keeping of time.
Even the most basic of quartz movements may still be accurate to within 500 milliseconds per day – roughly ten times more accurate than a mechanical movement.
Power sources
Springs
Traditional, purely mechanical watch movements generally use a wound spring as a power source. The spring must be rewound by the user periodically (usually once a day, or once every few days).
Self-winding watches
Automatic watch: An eccentric weight called a rotor, swings with the movement of the wearer's body and winds the spring
A self-winding mechanism is one that rewinds the mainspring (power spring) of a mechanical movement through some means other than explicit winding by the user.
The first self-winding mechanism, for fob-watches, was invented in 1770 by Abraham-Louis Breguet;but the first "self-winding," or "automatic," wristwatch was the invention of a British watch repairer named John Harwood in 1923. This type of watch allows for a constant winding without special action from the wearer: it works by an eccentric weight, called a winding rotor, that rotates to the movement of the wearer's body. The back-and-forth motion of the winding rotor couples to a ratchet to automatically wind the watch. The spring drives an escapement, which consists of a lever that moves back and forth against a gear, keeping the gear moving at a specific number of times per second, usually four or five. That gear, in turn, drives all of the other gears of the watch that turn the hands on the dial.
Kinetic power
Some watches are powered by the movement of the wearer of the watch. Kinetic powered quartz watches make use of the motion of the wearer's arm turning a rotating weight, which in turn, turns a generator to supply power. The concept is similar to that of self-winding spring movements, except that electrical power is generated instead of mechanical spring tension.
Batteries
Electronic watches require electricity as a power source. Some mechanical movements and hybrid electronic-mechanical movements also require electricity. Usually the electricity is provided by a replaceable battery.
Light-powered watches
Some electronic watches are powered by light. A photovoltaic cell on the face (dial) of the watch converts light to electricity, which in turn is used to charge a rechargeable battery or capacitor.
Materials
Watchmaking industry uses materials traditionally applied in the field of horology, as well as most innovative materials borrowed from the automotive, aerospace and medical industries. The most common and widely used materials for the production of watch cases are the following: gold, steel, platinum, titanium, aluminum, and carbon fiber.
Some other materials, such as resin, rubber and plastic are often applied for producing cases of sports watch models. These materials are sturdy, light, water- and corrosion-resistant.
Watchmakers experiment with new types of materials and develop timepieces using innovative metallurgical combinations, silicon-improved movements and cases produced from high-tech ceramic, the material used as a heat shield for protection of U.S. space shuttles re-entering the earth's atmosphere. Experimenting with new materials, watchmaking brands produce their cases and movements using exotic metals, such as palladium, magnesium and arcane alloys.
Hublot is one of the brands actively involved in discovering and using new materials for watch production. The brand produced the first luxury gold watch on a natural rubber strap. In 2005, Hublot introduced its Big Bang, a sporty mechanical chronograph that incorporated gold, ceramic, Kevlar, tantalum, tungsten, carbon and rubber.
Patek Philippe, Ulysses Nardin and other brands experiment with silicon, the material that eliminates the need for oil, thus reducing the amount of friction and prolonging the life of a watch movement.
High-tech ceramic is one more widely-used material among watchmakers. It is light-weight, scratch-resistant, durable and smooth.
Disclaimer - The information on this page is designed to provide general information only and is taken from various internet sources. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is accurate, we cannot be held responsible for any decisions made based on its content.
