ZoneTecnico
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Baselworld 2016: A Great Complication from ArtyA
ArtyA is the brainchild of Yvan Arpa and is known for its radical design and usage of unconventional materials in their watches. And for Baselworld this year, ArtyA has created its most complicated piece yet. Meet the 3 Gongs Minute Repeater, Regulator & Double Axis Tourbillon. It is a mouthful but just look at it!
Yvan Arpa penned the watch’s design while MHC provided the movement and his factory produces the case. It is still a one-off project and Yvan’s motivation is to create something completely different and special, that the watch industry has never seen before.
Music has always been an inspiration for ArtyA, evident in the Son of Sound collection. This project is no different. The shape of the case is inspired by the famous Bo Diddley 1959 Gretsch guitar, a unique shape that amplifies sound well.
The case, which is made from ArtyOr alloy (18k gold) amd titanium, is also specially shaped to allow for the sound to be better projected. With sapphire crystals all round, the intricacies of the movement revealed to showcase the craftsmanship of MHC. ArtyA has integrated a bubble in the caseback to accommodate the double axis tourbillon and coincidentally give the sound more volume.
You might wonder the purpose of an additional gong. The third gong strikes at the start of the cycle to alert the user that the chiming mechanism is activated. More often than not, customers are cautious of damaging the minute repeater mechanism and do not use enough force. This is a first for minute repeaters. The remaining 2 gongs function the same way as any other minute repeaters, one strikes for the hours, one strikes for the minutes and both strike for the quarter hours. The gongs strike the timber
, which snakes through the movement and around the tourbillon cage. ArtyA will also throw in an added service to let the customers fine-tune the sound to their taste, with the help of a master watchmaker of course.
A single axis tourbillon is complex enough. To make it turn on two axes, the tourbillon cage is made up of 10 different materials and no less than 50 components. The first axis rotates in 60 seconds while the second axis rotates in 30 seconds. The tourbillon is powered by a big spring barrel as it requires a huge amount of energy to power it. And the minute repeater is powered by a smaller barrel.
We have talked about the 3-gong minute repeater and double axis tourbillon. The last complication on offer is the regulator. It is called the regulator as watchmakers used them as time reference instruments. Hence, the regulateur dial design is meant for a clock with the greatest accuracy. By adopting this layout, ArtyA was able to streamline the size of the watch, making it less bulky.
All these complications do not come together easily though. It takes MHC over 1000 hours to produce and assemble all 450 components. The movement beats at 3Hz with a power reserve of 64 hours and a total of 46 jewel bearings.
And all these efforts do not come cheap. A grand price of 480,000 Swiss francs. Oh lastly, you might notice “Piece Unique” engraved on the caseback. This means that future iterations will be slightly different and unique to itself.
This message has been edited by ZoneTecnico on 2016-04-08 20:36:08
