Credits: Article and images by Cheryl Chia @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/watches-wonders-best-of-complications/
The 48-month cam is designed with four notches of equal depth for the month of February. Every four years, a feeler on the grand lever penetrates the notch and lands on a 400-year cam. This 400-year cam is designed with just three notches distributed successively every 90 degrees to take into account the century years that are common years. It either cooperates with the February notch on the 48-month cam or reduces its depth with its full circumference for the insertion of an additional day. This 400-year cam rotates on an eccentric circular path, meaning it moves in a circular path that is offset from the center of rotation. This offset creates a larger effective path enabling it to dictate the length of February every four years. This arrangement is facilitated through a Maltese cross reduction system. Apart from this, it breaks the record for the world’s most accurate moon phase, accumulating a day of error over an astonishing 45 million years and this was done with just three regular toothed wheels. What was less talked about is its beauty. The effect of having a box sapphire dial that’s lacquered on its underside and further topped by another box sapphire crystal is just so unusual and stunning in person that it almost makes you feel that a patent is warranted.
Tourbillons Everywhere
Tourbillons, while not strictly complications, but regulating devices, made up a significant number, with at least 10 showcased across the board. What’s interesting is the sheer variety, from ultra-thin to multi-axis to central tourbillons, which continues to demonstrate that employing the most basic concept of a tourbillon as a regulating device is no longer sufficient.
What is more keenly felt in these exotic tourbillons is that a tourbillon does not operate in a vacuum; at the very least, the rest of the movement has to be completely re-evaluated to accommodate it, and in some cases, entirely rearranged. Simultaneously, the design of the tourbillon is inseparable from the overarching purpose and design of the watch in addition to their basic function. As such, they are inarguably complicated and a far cry from the original character and construction of the tourbillon invented by A.-L. Breguet. Determining a clear winner is elusive, given the stark contrast in their intended purposes and the distinctly unique solutions they each offer.
For Piaget, the goal of the tourbillon was to demonstrate prowess in ultra-thin watchmaking. The Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon sets a new world record as the thinnest tourbillon ever created at an astonishing 2 mm high, the same thinness as the original record-setting time-only Altiplano Ultimate Concept from 2018, which is equivalent to two stacked credit cards. While the race to make wristwatches ever thinner has been on in earnest for several years now, Piaget is the only brand that has made the preservation of classical watchmaking part of the equation; the AUC Tourbillon looks and feels like a traditional watch which makes its accomplishments seem all the more remarkable.
Credits: Article and images by Cheryl Chia @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/watches-wonders-best-of-complications/