Horological Meandering

 

 

I’ve slowed down on buying watches; and I’ve stepped up increasing my acquisition of horological “lifestyle” items.  It’s not just about having more watches than you can wear and enjoy, it’s also about having enough horological and mechanicals objets d’art that aren’t on your wrist, but are in your home, office, and other places you frequent.  The past few years I’ve been more focused on surrounding myself with rare and unusual devices that satisfy my horological and mechanical passions.    

 

I recently found myself starting to fall in love with Nixie Clocks.  Many of you will recall my research and exploration in my post here (feel free to peruse this article quickly again, as a lot of things in this review pertain to it):

www.watchprosite.com

 

In my quest of learning more about Nixie Clocks, and after seeing the Nixie Machine II, a creation of Max Busser’s MB&F Gallery artist Frank Buchwald, I learned more about a Czech gentleman named Dalibor Farny who also discovered his love for Nixie tubes and subsequently Nixie Clocks.  Here is a man who fell in love with Nixie tubes, particularly the Z568 tube, one of the largest and most elegantly proportioned tubes.  Farny took his passion many times further than I did; Farny, driven by his passion and quest to resurrect Nixie tubes, decided in 2011 to take it upon himself to devote his life (and savings) into studying and recreating the Nixie tubes.  Keep in mind, these Nixie tubes haven’t been made for around 50 years!  Farny’s passion led him down a path; he had to painfully (and injuriously) learn glass blowing, electronic circuitry, and he ended up building a factory structure in his garden.  Like a tech company start up, less the funding, he bought second-hand industrial equipment, glass making equipment, and lots of testing and detecting scopes.  He’s since outgrown his factory and now rents professional office space where he keeps dozens of gigantic machines that are required in building and testing the Nixie Tubes to ensure they’re wired properly and that they don’t leak any gas. 

 

Farny makes two different Nixie Clocks; the ZEN Clock is his flagship; a six tube display that shows the hours, minutes, and seconds.  It resides in a glass case that is both aesthetically impressive as it is practical at keeping the dust from entering the clock. 

 

But the piece mentioned in this review is Farny’s latest masterpiece; the PURI Nixie Clock which is a simpler 5 tube design; two tubes display the hours; one tube of Farny’s own design displays the colon; and two tubes display the minutes.  I’ve been enjoying this clock for nearly a month now and the excitement has only grown. 

This is the wood crate you want to see on your door step.




Box within the box...




Custom made box for the PURI Nixie Clock. It's awesome!

 

The design is an architectural masterpiece that’s destined to become a classic.  It’s got a warm mid-century modern feeling – perfect, considering that’s the time Nixie tubes were the most popular – and yet a futuristic clean design that wouldn’t be out of place on the set of a Star Trek movie. 

 

The architecturally modern clock looks great within classical mahogany environs...




The clock is a blend of Cold War Era technology with 21st century technology.

Moreover, the piece not only embodies the elegance and display of the time using Nixie tubes, but the clock also communicates to a iOS Apple device or Android mobile device via WiFi with Dalibor Farny’s proprietary clock control app!  In the app, you can sync the time, customize display settings (12h or 24h; leading 0 in the hours), set the frequency of the slot machine scrolling effect (more about this really cool looking feature), and even set brightness to different levels.  This app makes the piece truly a 21^st century device.  All of this software is specially integrated into a proprietary circuit board designed by Dalibor Farny himself.  The “colon” tube in the middle is also Dalibor Farny’s personal creation.  Never done before.  The colon tube is perfectly integrated into the clock. 

The Dalibor Farny clock app allows numerous customizations so you can enjoy your clock to the fullest and on your own terms!

 

Perhaps the biggest question that one gets when guests see a Nixie clock for the first time is… 1, how often do you have to replace the Nixie Tubes?  2, How much do these Nixie Tubes cost?  The answers used to be quite alarming, but now, Farny has found a solution to the problem.  Nixie Tubes now last tens of thousands of hours.  Tubes currently cost less than half an alligator strap for a Patek Philippe (the cost combined with the cruelty that these alligators and crocodiles must endure is another great reason to consider avoiding alligator straps in the future).  Currently, Farny shows his appreciation to his clients, who buy his experimental clocks by offering them a ten-year warranty!  This is definitely appreciated by individuals like me, and I have my clock running all day and all night. 

 

In a world today where it’s hard to find something that is actually original…  Even tourbillons and minute repeaters seem to be en masse in major metropolitan areas (especially in China, Singapore, and Hong Kong), it’s hard to find something that separates a watch collector from a watch collector with a horological and mechanical lifestyle.  This PURI Nixie Clock is definitely something that is definitely for someone who likes watches and clocks in a cool and modern interpretation, yet is ironically from the Cold-War Era past. 

 

At a price typical of a Longines timepiece, this is an incredible value for something with such a high degree of hand-workmanship.  Wait times sometimes exceed six months due to a strong backlog of orders and such a small number of tubes can be made at a time.  Think about how many human labor hours is involved in making each batch of tubes!  It’s also not possible to contract out a lot of the glass manufacturing, as many of the wires within glass is only   Farny’s video shows the entire process from beginning to end; each tube is a cacophony of differing skills; from glass-blowing to circuitry, to materials science to make sure that all the metal and glass are slowly annealed and patiently hardened so there is no stress.  The glass, if stressed, could develop micro fractures allowing the neon gas within the tube to escape.  The highly edited video alone is over 37 minutes long, so you can imagine how long it takes to make a batch of tubes in reality.  As of this publication date, Farny has only made a little over 6000 tubes. 

 

It brings a tear to my eyes when I see someone follow their passions and makes it a success.  These success stories are rare, but Dalibor Farny defied all odds; he was mostly self taught, had humble beginnings, and was driven by passion and ingenuity.  But driven by passion, maybe even an obsession, he had a clear mission to reintroduce the romanticism and charm of Nixie Tubes to a new generation.  Well, I’m only too happy to write this report and tell you about Farny and his captivating clock.  And I’m only too happy to be able to enjoy this mixed-century masterpiece on my desk! 

Disclosures: Please enjoy some more photos below.  Photo credits for the top and bottom photo belong to Dalibor Farny; all other photos are those of the author.  As always, I read all of your comments, please comment and leave your thoughts. 

Close up of one of the tubes.




The clock comes with a ten year warranty! That's a lot of confidence. Each piece is hand signed by Dalibor Farny himself, as he quality-control checks each clock himself!




The packaging is definitely Apple-esque, but in black instead of white! Perfection, down to the packaging! 







Instructions are so simple that they don't need to be printed.  Like an Apple device, the user interface is very intuitive. 



Each piece is individually numbered and signed. I'm proud to own a Dalibor Farny Original Creation!

For the lover of clocks and tubes.  It could sit next to my conrad-johnson tube amp and pre-amp ;-)

Tube clock meet tube amp! There's a lot of tube to love! There are definitely a lot of Hi-Fi lovers here.

I relish the passion and the depth that you bring to all of your posts, Patrick. Thank you for giving us a full-frame portrait of these devices and Mr. Farny's extraordinary commitment. Your enthusiasm for the Nixies was clear from how you spoke of them last year in Geneva, and after reading though this, I can understand why!