Over the past few years, Piaget and Bulgari (and later Richard Mill) have been competing for the "world's thinnest watch" in all aspects, manual, automatic, chronographic, minute repeater, etc., which is simply a "total war".
Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon
This year, Piaget won a new victory in the field of tourbillons, winning the title of "the thinnest tourbillon in the world". This is the Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon, 2 mm thick, priced at 600,000 Swiss francs (about 4.77 million yuan). So today, I'm going to show you how the Piaget Master Speedmaster Tourbillon is so thin at 2 mm.
Piaget Elite Tourbillon, only 2 mm thick, compared to Swiss franc coins.
Tourbillon detail.
Step 1: Cancel the independent movement.
The Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon is a development of the Extreme Ultra-Thin Tourbillon, which was born in 2018 by Piaget.
Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon, watch construction.
Whether it is Piaget's ultra-thin, Bulgari's Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, or Richardmill's RM UP-01, these top three ultra-thin watches in the world have eliminated independent movements, and directly used the case back of the watch as a bridge, and all movement components are directly attached to the case back of the watch. This design was first introduced by Audemars Piguet in 1986 with the introduction of the ultra-thin tourbillon. From the photo, we can see that the case back of Piaget's ultra-thin watch has been made with the gear shaft and perforation.
Piaget is ultra-thin, with gears and components mounted directly on the case back of the movement, without a separate movement.
Furthermore, when arranging the gears, all gears and components are all "spread out" to minimize the overlap of the gears up and down, and the gear parts are arranged on one layer to reduce the thickness. Because Piaget Ultra-Thin Watches and Ultra-Thin Tourbillons are too thin (both watches, both are 2 mm), it is not possible to use ordinary materials as cases, because like gold shells, it is too soft and not strong enough, and when it is broken, the watch will be deformed. That's why Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon is made of cobalt alloy (blue PVD, 41.5 mm). The hardness of cobalt alloy is twice that of steel, making 2 mm Piaget ultra-thin and strong.
Because 2 mm is too thin, a cobalt alloy case is used to enhance the strength of the watch.
Step 2: The tourbillon runs entirely on "ball bearings".
Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon, according to the figures given by Piaget, has 13 jewel bearings and 6 sets of ball bearings. The key to becoming the world's thinnest tourbillon is in these six sets of ball bearings.
Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon, and its tourbillon.
The general tourbillon, with its cage and balance shaft, is very difficult to be super thin, and it is not allowed in terms of structure. Piaget's ultra-thin tourbillon directly fixes the balance wheel and tourbillon on the ball bearing, and runs and rotates on the "ceramic bead" of the bearing, and the thickness is reduced at once. The reason is that the ball bearing, the gear shaft is canceled, the jewel shaft eye above and below the gear shaft is canceled, and the balance wheel does not need a shock absorber, and the thickness is immediately reduced. Piaget also opened a window on the caseback of the watch to see the back of the tourbillon.
In a tourbillon, the position of the ball bearing.
Tourbillon back
Of course, the focus of Piaget's Ultra-Thin Tourbillon is thinness, so the tourbillon structure is made with ball bearings. The tourbillons of other famous watch brands do not have the needs of Piaget's ultra-thinness, so they are still normal tourbillon structures, focusing on aesthetics.
Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon
The problem of the tourbillon is solved, and the next thicker part of the watch is the barrel. The solution, Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon, which holds the barrel running on ball bearings, eliminates the barrel's gear shaft and saves valuable thickness. Because the power consumption of the tourbillon is relatively large, and the watch is only 2 mm thin, Piaget thickened the mainspring, and hollowed out the barrel to try to reduce some weight (reduce energy consumption), which is really a fight. Eventually, the watch was kept powered for 40 hours.
The barrel is also fixed to the ball bearing, and the small beads in the bearing can be seen.
In addition to the tourbillon and barrel, in fact, the second and third wheels of the Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon are also run on ball bearings (jewel bearings for the four wheels, escape wheels and pallet forks). So we see that this watch, with artificial ruby bearings, is not much, and this is all for thinning.
In the center of the photo is the second wheel, which also runs on ball bearings.
Step 3: Detail and polishing, also can not be compromised.
After the "core problems" such as the tourbillon and the barrel are solved, the last thing that has an impact on the thickness of the watch is the crown. In the general watch, we wind it in the first gear, pull it out to the second gear to adjust the time, and there will be a clutch gear involved, which is "standing", which affects the thickness. The Earl replaced this "standing" clutch gear with a "lying" helical gear, and the thickness was reduced. At the same time, if you use a regular round crown, with a thickness of 2 mm, then the crown is too small to hold. That's why Piaget uses a square crown, which is usually pushed back into the case.
Crown detail of Piaget Ultra-Thin Tourbillon.
Piaget's Ultra-Thin Tourbillon, even the "independent movement" has been canceled, and there is nothing left to polish. But we can see that the watch has a large area of sandblasting on the exposed bridge; The outer ring of the hour and minute disc, the outer ring of the tourbillon, and the exposed gears are all brushed. There is very little space for polishing and decoration, but it is also necessary to decorate it, which is the attitude of a top watch.
Disc polishing details.
Why is Piaget the first to be the "top slim watch"?
Because, Piaget is still a "watch".
We can see that, like Richard Mill's RM UP-01, in pursuit of the thinnest, has changed from a watch to a "bank card" (similar to a card). Piaget, on the other hand, has never deviated from the overall construction and aesthetics of traditional watches.
Piaget Elite Tourbillon (top) and Richardmill RM UP-01 (bottom).
An ultra-thin watch is like a supercar. Supercar, 000 speed, to the 3 seconds, or even 2 seconds level, every 0.1 seconds of improvement, requires a huge effort, as well as a huge price increase. Similarly, the ultra-thin watch, to the 2 mm, or even 1 mm level, every 0.05 mm increase, is very, very difficult, so Piaget Ultra Thin Tourbillon, as the world's thinnest tourbillon, more than 4 million, close to 5 million price, is indeed very exaggerated, but this is the case with famous watches and sports cars. (Photo/text: Watch House, Yan Danping)