Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner themselves realize that Urwerk is not only a company that focuses on "satellite" watches based off of the "star wheel" concept, they want to do other things too - other things that push traditional Swiss watchmaking into the future. Urwerk was also one of the earliest ultra-luxury small independent houses to do a hybrid watch - their EMC collection for instance pioneered a whole new accuracy concept - it was a mechanical watch with a tiny circuitboard that monitored the accuracy - AND if there was a problem with the accuracy, Urwerk custom fabricated their own balance wheel system that allowed the user to adjust the watch with conventional tools in their own home! Outside of a watchmakers bench!
On the right hand side of the movement under the slotted screen lies a tiny computer board. You can also see there is an optical eye at the balance spring area to check the rate of the balance spring and compare it to a reference. Oh, and to power the computer board? There is even a tiny generator built into this watch for that! It's truly amazing! When it came out, the press were so baffled, that we didn't do a good job of explaining it. Half of the press corps was intimidated by this very complex watch that was difficult to explain. I admit, I was baffled as well. So I turned my attention to Urwerk's beautiful mechanical watches.
The front of the EMC watch.
If that's still not enough, consider the gigantic Urwerk AMC or Atomic Master Control - a modern interpretation of a Breguet carriage clock! Below is a quick article that briefly explains the details of how it works.
The impressive Urwerk AMC Clock/Watch combination with a master atomic clock and a slave mechanical watch.
The watch docks into the clock and at a specific time, the master clock will manipulate the watch by adjusting the time and even regulating its balance wheel to make the watch even more accurate!
Here's the even more concise version... Breguet, 200 years ago, would make these clocks where you would insert your pocket watch into a docking area, and the clock would read the time displayed on the watch and manipulate the crown to resynchronize the time of the pocket watch to the clock's time, it would then regulate the rate of the watch to reduce running inaccuracies even further! Urwerk replicates this with a computer controlled atomic clock and a mechanical watch in a remarkable device that actually mechanically regulates the mechanical watch (only the box is controlled by computer, the watch is mechanical).
And you thought Urwerk only made satellite watches. Urwerk is a serious haute horlogerie brand that marches to the beat of its own drum. And they're not afraid to merge old world mechanicals with new world technology - although let's be clear, the vast majority of Urwerk watches are 100% mechanical with no computers of any sort. Very few "Borgs" in Urwerk's line up (fans of science fiction movies and TV shows will recognize "Borg" as a hybrid half man half machine species in Star Trek - a famous TV show).
Well, Urwerk continues that science fiction today with the new Spacetime Blade. An elegant weapon, the Spacetime Blade is limited to 33 pieces worldwide, and features an EIGHT DIGIT Nixie tube display made by Czech Nixie tube maestro, Dalibor Farny. The whole apparatus is over 20 kilograms in weight and about 170 cm high (nearly 50 pounds and about five feet seven inches) and stands proudly on a metal base that unintentionally resembles a - you guessed it - a science fiction sword out of Dune or Star Wars! The base is actually inspired by the crown of Urwerk's timepieces and not inspired by science fiction movies - although Star Wars fans like myself will appreciate the resemblance. The design is beautiful, and the effect is even more stunning - because unlike these static photos, the clock shows life!
The base is made of bronze. The design is first made in wax. Then a mold is made around the wax, the wax is then melted out of the mold. Then hot molten bronze is poured into the mold! To give it a dark color, it's rubbed to give it a patina effect that gives it a dark finish. Inside this very heavy base is the mechanism that drives the display of the bulbs.
The apparatus stands 170 cm tall and weighs over 20 kilograms. There are 1445 parts in this clock. Each of the eight Nixie tubes comprise of 88 components per tube.
While the base of the clock does look like a weapon from a Dune or Star Wars movie, the inspiration actually comes from Urwerk's watch crowns. But that's okay, my inner science-fiction fan is already heavily satisfied by this amazing futuristic watch brand.
The glass tube has a metal rail that looks like a metal spinal column for this vertebrae of a clock!
Starting from the top down, we have a nice little cap at the top of a metal and glass spine at the top of the clock.
The tubes are quality control tested. Here, the tube is being tested with an induction coil to charge the metal wires inside the tube. The neon gas close to the metal wires will then glow.
The beautiful tubes are handmade by a small team at the artisanal workshops of Dalibor Farny. I've had the pleasure of visiting his workshop and I was very impressed with the production of tubes. Here is a tube with standard font digits. The Urwerk tubes have a customized font below.
The Urwerk tubes have a customized font that is extra bold. This is unusual in the Nixie tube industry as most tubes have metal wires that are only 0.5mm in thickness that glow for the numerical display.
The font is incredibly difficult to craft and features a grid of wires.
When an electrical gas is applied through the wires, the neon gas in the tube glows. Again, the clock really shows life. The glow of light is an indicator of life.
The bulbs are not hot, barely lukewarm to the touch, and are striking both in the day and at night.
With EIGHT of these tubes, the display looks like this 12:34:56.78 or a HH:MM:SS.SS with 1/10th and 1/100th of a seconds being displayed. Because the display is going to be constantly moving (especially those bottom three digits) this will give a lot of life to the clock. It's ALIVE! Unfortunately, I don't have a video of the clock in action to show you the full glory of this clock! But it's going to be quite a thing in reality.
At a price of 55'000.00 CHF, it's a lot of money. But to get this amazing work of art - only 33 of which will be available - is just an incredible work of art. Bravo to the team at Urwerk and at Dalibor Farny Nixie Tube for creating this AMAZING work of art. With 41 authorized retailers, not every retailer will even get one allocation. It will go perfectly well in an empty corner of my home office. Hmmm....
