Scratch resistant, transparent, manmade sapphire used for watch-glasses. It has a hardness of 9 on Mohs’ scale of hardness. Only a diamond (10 on Mohs’ scale) is harder.
One-86,400th of a day. Since 1967, the second has been defined as the time required for 9,192,631,770 electromagnetic vibrations in the electron shell of a cesium atom. The second is the basis for time measurement in Germany.
System to protect the delicate and very fragile pivots of the balance-staff against breakage. The bearing jewels and endstones for the pivots of the balance-staff are elastically affixed in the main plate and the balance-cock. In response to a severe shock, they “give” either laterally or axially. A watch with shock absorption ought to be able to survive a fall from a height of one meter onto an oak floor. Furthermore, after the fall, the watch’s performance must not suffer any significant deviations in rate.
A watch-movement whose plates, bridges, cocks, barrel (and sometimes also) rotor have been punched, sawn or milled to create fretwork, leaving behind only as much material as is absolutely necessary for the organ to perform its appointed task. This removal makes it possible to peer through the Skeleton movement. On fine watches, skeleton-work is done by hand or partly automatically with the aid of a pattern and a pantograph. A Skeleton movementis an embodiment of the high art of watchmaking.
The balance-spring (also “hairspring”) of a mechanical watch requires one-millionth of a horsepower to maintain the motion of the balance. This power is delivered to it through the gear-train by the mainspring. Depending upon the particular watch-movement, the mainspring can continue to supply this power for two days or more. The mainspring is attached to the barrel and barrel-arbor by means of hooks and eyes. The mainspring is usually made of an alloy containing iron, nickel and chrome with traces of cobalt, molybdenum and glucinium (beryllium). Springs of this type, of which the “Nivaflex” alloy is the most prominent example, embody a series of important advantages: they are nearly unbreakable, they do not rust, and they are resistant to deformation. Furthermore, they are nearly unaffected by magnetism.
An alloy of steel, nickel and chrome. It is resistant to rust, extremely tough and antimagnetic but difficult to work with.
A detached escapement for small timepieces in which the teeth of the escape-wheel widen like wedges as they progress outwards, thus distributing the lift on the escape-wheel and the lever with its two jeweled pallets.
Written on the dial or engraved into the watch-movement, it specifies the provenance of the timepiece as a “Swiss wristwatch.” Nowadays, some timepieces proudly and legally display the words “swiss made” on their dials, but do not actually deserve to be labeled as such. These watches benefit from a revision in the laws governing the use of the phrase “swiss made”, which now specifies that a watch may be described as “swiss made” if its movement is Swiss and its assembly, encasing and final monitoring were all performed in Switzerland. Genuinely Swiss movements are those in which at least 50% of the value of the components (not including the costs of assembly) is comprised by parts which were actually made in Switzerland. All Chronoswiss watches are marked with the phrase “swiss made” as a guarantor of their quality.
A scale on the dial of some chronographs which enables the wearer to calculate average speeds. To do so, a standardized distance of one kilometer or one mile must be traversed. At the start of the standard stretch (e.g. at a milepost beside a highway), the chronograph function is switched on. When the wearer reaches the end of the measured distance, he or she switches the chronograph off. The chronograph’s hand then points to the average speed (in km/h or mph) with which the standard distance has been traversed.