Audemars Piguet

Marcus Hanke
[PuristSPro Moderator]
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Funny. Had the same discussion, seemingly centureis ago ....

... when I was still a very ambitioned amateur photographer, and camera manufacturers started to use plastic instead of metal on its camera bodies. Back then, the "pro" community met this move with almost unanimous rejection - until they felt the weight difference between two F1 and two Eos bodies on their shoulders, at least.

The problem is that "plastic" always has a negative aftertaste of cheapness, which, by the way, follows the common perception of "weight" meaning "solidity", and, as a consequence, "higher value". This perception explains the popularity of white gold and platinum luxury watches, vs. steel, and the difficulty to establish titanium as case material for high-end time pieces. I am convinced that the wearer of the "Alinghi" shown in the first post would have treated his watch much more careful, if it had been heavier, made from white gold, platinum. Thus, even if the brain said: "expensive", the feeling said: "cheap plastic", and the watch was treated like any G-Shock.

Back to the original question of plastic in technology: There are so many different kinds of "plastic", which all have their merits in specific situations and circumstances. Fact is, that many plastics are even more expensive than metal. I recall the discussion when the metal top covers of SLR pentaprisms received massive blows, causing deformation of the cover, and dislocation of the pentaprism. Here, high-tec plastic that is able to "swallow" the blow's energy, is definitely the better choice. On the other side, however, the plastic bayonet rings of modern consumer SLRs are simple cost-saving measures and much inferior to their metal counterparts.

Without being a material technicion, I suspect that the choice of AP, to use carbon fibre for the watch case, was not very good. Apparently, there are several kinds of wear that are worse compensated as would have been by metals (abrasions, for example), or even other plastic materials. On the other hand, long-time stability against UV radiation plays a vital role for watch cases, and I can imagine that cheaper plastics would have problems here, compared to the carbon fibre composite used by AP.

Finally, one should not forget that the material used by AP has a built-in "camouflage pattern" that might do a good job to hide many smaller damages from the naked eye.

Regards,
Marcus