Independents

Greetings to all!  This is my second attempt to post this set of photos, as the site ate my homework the first time.  After some unusually colorful cursing, I have returned to the keyboard, but thankfully for you will not re-type the lengthy exposition on technique and features of the Observatoire movement that accompanied the first attempt -- those thoughts are now lost to history .  How about some photos?

Hell of a watch and stunning photos

 

The Finnish know how to finish!!!

 

Sorry to hear about your homework problems!  Did the site eat your dial pictures too? 

 

;-)

The site didn't eat the dial side photos -- there just weren't any I took this time that I liked we'll enough to post...

Gary,

I was looking just now at your fabulous photos on my big monitor and wonder is it just me, or are the crown wheel and ratchet wheel slightly different color in the first few photographs?  The crown wheel seems to have more of a brass or yellowish tinge to it?  Is that there in person or perhaps just left over from post processing?

Thanks,
Michael

Hi, Michael --

I'm on the road right now so don't have the ability to pull my watch out of the safe and look right now, but by studying the photos and drawing on my recollection, my best sense is that the wheels are in fact different colors.  As you note, the crown wheel seems a bit yellower/warmer in color while the ratchet wheel is "colder" and whiter. 

I'm fairly confident in this, as I didn't do any PP on individual parts of the movement (just the full interior of the watch with an oval mask).  Also, if you look at the small central plate in the crown wheel (I'm sure this has an actual name...) which is black polished, it also appears "colder" in color.   For this reason and others I don't think that the stacking software is somehow picking out the entire crown wheel and processing it differently.

Perhaps the wheels are of different alloy in order to maintain the practice of having wheels that mesh be of differering physical hardness?  A particular feature of the Peseux 260 competition movement?  Would be useful to get a technical watchmaking opinion on this.  We both know where we can get a verrrry informed opinion on the technical aspects of this watch, but perhaps another forum member will weigh in first...

Thanks for the inquiry!  By the way, the source images (pre-upload compression) are sharper and have more life to them than the way they appear on the site -- happy to share at some point if you are interested.

Best,

Gary

Michael --

Here's another photo of the watch, taken a few months ago in natural light:

Again in this shot, the wheels appear quite different to me.  Part of it may be the way that the ratchet wheel is finished (deeply grained) vs. the crown wheel, and may also be partially an optical illusion based on the center black polished element to the crown wheel.

Hope that helps!

Best,

Gary

nt

that he has a good sense of humour

Oliver

Again, these movement pics. are tops & demonstrates what can be achieved at the very high end.

I understand your frustration with lost text and wasted effort as I have experienced the same, resulting in the utmost profanity.    The solution: write lengthy text  somewhere else and save, then do a copy and paste.

Best

fernando

This isn't the first time I have inadvertently navigated away from a draft post or hit the backspace key on a photo -- both of which kill the entire post!

But I'm glad you didn't! Spectacular macro shots, I assume with stacked images and some sort of tilt lens. You get better by the week, Gary. And you seem to be enjoying yourself.

Hope you saved something for Macro Monday next week?

Andrew

Thanks, Andrew!  Practice, practice, practice, as they say.  Not entirely satisfied with this batch but thought that a few were "good enough" to share. 

painful to look at these pictures