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Mainspring
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The mainspring, located in the spring barrel, stores energy when tensioned and passes
it on to the escapement via the gear train as the tension relaxes. Today, mainsprings
are generally made of Nivaflex, an alloy invented by Swiss engineer Max Straumann
at the beginning
of the 1950s.
This alloy basically comprises iron, nickel, chrome, cobalt, and beryllium.
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Manufacture
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Modern definitions of this word are not clear-cut, but most experts agree that the
term should be used for a company that manufactures at least one caliber, or extremely
important parts of it such as the base plate, on premises. While ten years ago this
constituted only a handful of companies in Switzerland and Germany, today's competitive
market has forced a number of other creative souls to invest in developing their
own movements. ETA, pictured, is without a doubt the largest manufacture in Switzerland.
The word itself is derived from Latin (though horologists prefer to use the French
variation) and means
«made by hand».
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Minute repeater
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A striking mechanism with hammers and gongs for acoustically signaling the hours,
quarter hours, and minutes elapsed since noon or midnight. The wearer pushes a slide,
which winds the spring. Normally a repeater uses two different gongs to signal hours
(low tone),
quarter hours (high and low tones in succession), and minutes
(high tone).
Some watches have three gongs, called a carillon. The Chronoswiss Répétition
à
Quarts
is a prominent repeating introduction of recent years.
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Perlage
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Surface decoration comprising an even pattern of partially overlapping dots, applied
with a quickly rotating plastic or wooden peg. Also called circular graining, this
embellishment had the original use of preventing dust and dirt from gathering on
the movement's plates. Today it is mainly a traditional type of decoration. Here
it is found on the plates of Frédérique Constant's manufacture
Caliber FC 910-1.
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Perpetual calendar
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The calendar module for this type of timepiece automatically makes allowances for
the different lengths of each month as well as leap years until the next secular
year
(in 2100).
A
perpetual
calendar also usually shows the date, month, and
four-year
cycle, and may show the day of the week and moon phase as well, as does this one
introduced by
George J
von Burg
at
Baselworld 2005.
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Plate
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A metal platform having several tiers for the gear train. The base plate of a movement
usually incorporates the dial and carries the bearings for the primary pinions of
the
«first floor»
of a gear train. The gear wheels are made complete by tightly fitting
screwed-in
bridges and bars on the back side of the plate. A specialty of the
so-called
Glashütte school, as opposed to the Swiss school, is the reverse completion
of a movement not via different bridges and bars, but rather with a
three-quarter
plate. Glashütte Original's Caliber 65 (shown) displays a beautifully
decorated
three-quarter
plate.
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Power reserve display
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A mechanical watch contains only a certain amount of power reserve. A fully
wound modern automatic watch usually possesses between 36 and 42 hours of energy
before it needs to be wound again. The power reserve display keeps the wearer informed
about how much energy his or her watch still has in reserve, a function that is
especially practical on manually wound watches with several days of possible reserve.
The Nomos Tangente Power Reserve pictured here represents an especially creative
way to illustrate the state of the mainspring's tension. On some German watches
the power reserve is also displayed with the words
«auf» and «ab».
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Pulsometer
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A scale on the dial, flange, or bezel that, in conjunction with the second hand,
may be used to measure a pulse rate. A pulsometer is always marked with a reference
number –
if it is marked with gradué pour 15 pulsations, for example, then the
wearer counts fifteen pulse beats. At the last beat, the second hand will show what
the pulse rate is in beats per minute on the pulsometer scale. The scale on Sinn's
World Time Chronograph (shown) is marked simply with the German world Puls (pulse),
but the function remains the same.
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Courtesy of Wristwatch Annual 2006
© Abbeville Press
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