Horological Meandering

Last week, MTF and I met up with Sky Sit, Marketing Manager of Linde Werdelin for lunch. 
The meal got to be one of the signature Singapore dishes - you guessed it...chicken rice!
Two types of cooking style for Sky since she's here on vacation.



In return she showed us two prototype models of this year Linde Werdelin's collection ,
The 3-timer and the SpidoLite.

This is our first time seeing the pieces in metal.  Will be great if Sky has the instruments around.

Marcus did a fine work covering most of the 2009 collection pieces in  this post.


Some quick shots, before the chicken meat ran out.....




Linde Werdelin watches are designed and constructed to have
a special action sports instrument to clip onto it.




The land instrument, The Rock is mainly for hardcore skiers and mountaineers. Both the founders, Morton Linde and
Jorn Werdelin are serious mountaineers.  It was due to the existing bulky and unstylish strapped-on instruments
that inspired both the founders to create these alternative sleek instruments.
Some of the features of the in the robust digital Rock are the altimeter, barometer,compass,
frost-bite warning and ski-guides, heart sensor, event logging and etc.

The sea instrument, the Reef, is a dive computer tested to survive -20 deg Celsius, comes with a logbook feature which 
has the capacity to store  up to 5 days of continuously logs with a sample rate of one log per second.



The Rock & the Reef




Back to the The 3-timer and the SpidoLite.

Initial impression of the watch is big, industrial and edgy.
After running my fingers over the edges, strangely the edges are well-smoothened except for the both sides which
the straps connected to the casing.
As for the size, though the lug to lug is at deceiving huge 49mm, the cleverly tapered down lug-design would enable
the watch to suit more wrist sizes.



The size of the both the cases is the same at 46 mm (w) by 49 mm (l) by 12 mm (h).
The 3-Timer (on the left) is anti-reflective coated on the second surface of the crystal while the Spidolite seems
to be non-AR coated.





The 3-Timer



The 3-Timer comes in 7 versions, by mix & match the case material and the dial colour.
This piece is a stainless steel case with black dial.



The rhodium plated minute,hour and GMT hands and the hour indexes are SuperLuminova-coated.
The bi-directional bezel ( 24 clicks) is for the third timezone.



The two side-protrusions are for the instrument to secure itself onto the watch.  One side also double up as a crown
guard protecting the screw-down crown.

One concern is, for those who uses the instrument, we wonder will scratches be eventually occurred around the four
latches on the protrusion-blocks.  This will need to verify later.



Probably this is a prototype, the sharp edges are at where the straps meet the casing.

For aesthetic, Linde Werdelin adopts the minimalist approach, using plain glossy surface with brush-finished to create contrast.
All undercuts surround the watch is gloss-polished.



A view of the tapered lug design. 
The tapered lugs effectively shrank the 49mm length to about 42 to 44mm on the wrist.
Thus for Linde Werdelin watch, it is a must to try on before being turned away by the specifications.

However to ensure smaller wrists could wear, the insert in the strap should be shortened
so that the straps bending radii is reduced.
If a candilever joint could be developed, it would be great as the lugs could
dynamically suit a wide range of wrist size.

The alligator straps are beefy giving the whole watch a masculine feel.



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To view more discussions on the strap-end construction, please click :
home.watchprosite.com




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Nice metallic red caseback.  This case has a water-resistance up to 300m.

Have anyone wondered why Linde Werdeline pieces are limited to quantity which has to do with the number  of '22'?
The limited production quantity is typically at 22, 44, 88 and  222.

It symbolizes the co-founders, 2 of them, and the power of 2.  I hope they reconsider if 44 should be used though.


The back is interesting if you observe it carefully ....



Did you see the circumference of the caseback at both the lug-sides, there are gaps?


The design is similar to a curvex. This ensures the watch embraces the wrist.



Similar to the case, the deployant buckle, the chamfers are polished and the remaining surfaces are brushed.









The SpidoLite

Understand this model was created after feedback from extreme climber, Leo Houlding who has been doing
field-testing for Linde Winderlin watches.   He wore a LW watch and Land Instrument on his Altitude Everest
Expedition in June 2007, led by renowned American climber and mountaineer Conrad Anker.

He commented he was pleased with overall performance except the weight of the watch to both the founders.

Work started, to reduce the weight by milling away excess materials and using lighter titanium instead of steel.
And the creation of the new SpidoLite which is approximately 60 % lighter than the normal Linde Werdelin steel
watch case (excluding movement, dial, hands and crystal).




This piece full titanium Grade-5 casing piece is of limited production quantity to 222 pieces.
The more interesting piece with a skeletonised dial and vintage A Schild Caliber 1876 finished by
Danish-born watchmaker and founding member of the AHCI, Svend Andersen would be out by September.
Understand it will fitted with a blue gold rotor, likely by Vacuum Diffusion Bonding.



Many cavities were being cut out to remove the material thus reducing the weight.
After which the case is microblasted to removed the burrs and provide a textured finishing.



Have shot from various angles to show the amount of cut-outs done ...



Signed crown with Linde Werdeline logo.




To screw back  the crown, needs a bit of effort.  Perhaps the relief at the back could be enlarged slight wider for the
index finger to have a bigger gripping area onto the crown.



Likewise as the steel case, both straight edges on the lug-sides may need to lightly beveled to reduce the sharpness.

Will be interesting to see how does the straps fit onto the casing...



The dial, I guessed could be of titanium too, is printed on with SuperLuminova.  The hands are coated too.




Crown unscrewed.




Note the overall thickness of the bezel ring at 6'o clock position versus at 9'o clock...






Some parts of the cavities are not clean, with a step of material not removed.  Wonder if it is on purpose.






How does the Shuriken pattern on caseback come about ?



The buckle










Wristshots






Linde Werdelin with PPro ABR







Kong

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