IWC Calibres Go High Tech

With the announcement that IWC Schaffhausen and MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS team up, could it be that there is promise in the air of a new Limited Release watch to celebrate the link up.

The press release itself, sings the just praises of both companies technical prowess - and we look forward to new high tech innovations as a result.

But, IWC has almost always been at the forefront of this charge, and certainly has never shied away from being an early adopter of new, then often "High Tech" materials. Titanium cases, Ceramic cases etc. etc.

However, this high tech engineering has not only been confined to cases. So we see the picture posted of this fantastic looking movement;

To which, Roberto commented;

Quote:

[i]First of all, which material those pellaton's clicks are made of?

Second, our Oliver left a significant trace, I can tell which complication that picture illustrates.

A little hint, it's highly complicated, no, it's not a perpetual.

Any guess?[/i]

And indeed we see some "high tech" components there on those pawls. Some might think it's high tech (and others would believe it's low tech).

Roberto says it's part of a complication, but not a perpetual. Ben says he believes that if his memory serves him correctly, it's a 44 jewelled 5000 caliber from a Tourbillon Retrograde Date movement - well, nothing wrong with Ben's memory - that Cal.59100 does indeed have 44 Jewels. But, does that calibre have those high tech non metal pawls?

So now, Roberto over to you to explain to those of us that forgot, and for some of newbies who would like to learn, what constitutes " a COMPLICATION" and hopefully someone too will elaborate on the use of "High Tech Components" in IWC's calibres.

Best regards
Mark

Hi Mark,

I have a question for you: why me? LOL

To answer your question about the meaning of complication it's... complicated.

Briefly, in watchmaking, a complication is any additional function, added to the base movement, made by hour, minutes, seconds.

Recently, a friend of mine, watchmaker and cultivator, did the excercise to counting all the complications, he listed more than 60, from date to the remointoire d'egalitè for tourbillon.

To stay in topic, I don't know if that picture illustrates a new calibre, maybe hosted by a novelty made to celebrate the renewed partnership between IWC and AMG. In the other post, Shing says those pawls are made of ceramic. I think it's definitely possible, since ceramic has mechanical (especially, tribological - does this word exists? :) properties compatible to this purpose.

My guess it's a torubillon, because of the stones but mainly because the properties of the picture posted by the thread's opener reveals it has been named: "IWC_51900-calibre_movement.jpg".

So, as you can see, I'm not a magician, neither such a great expert, simply a curious guy :)

Edit: Sunbeach also, and actually first, wrote pawls were ceramic.

Roberto - your method of deducing the movement was much simpler and more reliable than the one I used - I wish I had thought of simply checking the name of the image! As the famous Dr Karl Kruszelnicki often states, memory is interpretive and subjective, we can often clearly remember something that is not factual / correct, your method leaves no room for interpretation, good detective work.

Cheers,

Ben