Montblanc

The tools for the artist-designer ...


the swatches for the clients to choose their colours ...


Anais Hamel
One of the talented designers of the Institut Minerva de Recherche en Haute Horlogerie





One of the designs for the Grand Tourbillon Heures Mysterieuses ... with a Dragon


Another of her creative work for the ExoTourbillon ...


Sweet !




Next, the function  ....


the precision tools ...


Julien Miribel, a trained watchmaker and restorer, and worked for Museé International de l’Horlogerie,
mainly restoring pocket watches with “repetition minutes” from the 18th century.
He joined Minerva S.A in 2001 responsible for prototyping and assembly.

After the acquisition and forming of the Institut Minerva de Recherche en Haute Horlogerie in 2007,
Julien heads the Prototyping Department and responsible for all prototyping activities of new complications and
the total assembly of unique, high complicated movements.














Showing me the large Ø 14.5 mm balance wheel of the ExoTourbillon Chronographe





For another dial variation and initial prototype pics,
please click here.

For the specifications, please click here. 






Now, a semi-finished ExoTourbillon Chronographe, so the finishing and aesthetic may change.

This piece here is for display during the official opening of the flagship boutique and at the same
time, its a proof to prospects, the mechanism works!

So this piece could be considered as a pre-production piece ....












The Hours for the first and second time zone are shown at 6H (apologies, both hands coincided in pics),
The Minute is obviously the hand from the centre of the dial,
small-second indicated by subdial at 9H,
Day/Night indicator with 24-hour display between 4H and the 5H, which is quite challenging to read,


For the mono-pusher chronograph,  the 30-minute counter is by the subdial at 3H,
whereas the chronograph second-hand is slender hand with the Montblanc siglet.

Pusher at 8H is the quickset for the local timezone.





















The semi-finished movement, actually it looks good.

Believed the column wheel has already black-polished.













Please take note the finishing of the  tourbillon bridge is not complete!




The word Greek prefix exo, meaning outside, the above view, clearly illustrate the balance wheel is
outside of the tourbillon cage.

As the balance wheel is outside, the tourbillon cage is extremely light, thus required 30% lesser energy to turn, and would increase the
power reserve too. 
In addition, accuracy should be improved too, since the balance wheel is outside of the cage, it is not
affected by the inertia of the cage thus it oscillates with higher precision.

An interesting point which was shared, as the balance wheel could be separated from the cage, the size of the
balance wheel could be increased and could be use to implement
unexplore aesthetic design with this crtical functional component.









A picture of Julien with one of his favourites 




We all look forward to see various finished pieces soon!


Thanks Montblanc Singapore for arranging the meetup.


Kong

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