In the third and final part, we're going to tell about the revolutionary industrial technologies that have had a profound impact on modern watchmaking.
Cartier ID One and ID Two
The concept watches ID One and ID Two unveiled by the jeweler and watchmaker Cartier in 2008 and 2012 respectively blew the entire world away with their simply out-of-this-world precision. The main plate and bridges of the caliber have been made from Crystal Carbon — an extraordinarily strong, weightless and fully transparent material.
The movement's gear train has a nanocomposite ADLC coating, which ensures the parts "everlasting life", self-lubrication and perfect mechanical stability. The hairspring has been made from a Zerodur alloy using a manufacturing technique called deep reactive ion etching (DRIE). It's shock-resistant, insensitive to magnetic fields, and doesn't need to be adjusted or lubricated.
One final detail is that the concept watches have a case made of a titanium and niobium alloy. If the case is scratched, the damaged groove immediately oxidizes and becomes invisible. These advanced watches can be manufactured without any human input: almost everything is done by machines.
That's the scariest thing. And yes, it wouldn't actually be that hard to transfer the production of these watches onto a powerful conveyor belt and produce thousands of them every day if you wanted to and had enough raw materials.
Ceramic
This is the material that has been at the core of a whole range of simple technological operations with zirconium oxide powder (ZrO2) since the mid-1970s, which has become known as hi-tech ceramics. However, it was only truly mastered in the mid-2000s. Hi-tech ceramic is almost an ideal material for manufacturing watch cases, which have been made significantly lighter, and they’re is astonishingly hard and scratch-resistant. It's no wonder dental implants and synthetic joints are made of ceramic.
At the same time, ceramic cases are very comfortable, they quickly absorb and adapt to the temperature of the human body (or the watch wearer's wrist temperature in this specific application of ceramic). They're hypoallergenic, and pretty much insensitive to the effects of magnetic fields. The Nano Revolution has made it possible to develop technologies for producing various different types of ceramics on an industrial scale.
New varieties have emerged and been put to use in watchmaking, such as TZP ceramic, silicon-nitride (Si3N4) ceramic etc.
People have learned how to treat it to achieve different colors, they've found a way to make it less fragile (a high-tech ceramic case or bracelet can easily shatter if it's dropped onto a stone floor), and are continuing to experiment with it extensively on a molecular level.
New varieties have emerged and been put to use in watchmaking, such as TZP ceramic, silicon-nitride (Si3N4) ceramic, and even new varieties of gold, such as the alloys Magic Gold and King Gold which Hublot watch cases are made from, or Rado materials which have a completely different structure. The best is yet to come.
Carbon Fiber
Carbon fiber is another ideal material for use in modern watchmaking, offering the same advantages as hi-tech ceramics. Carbon is tremendously durable, hypoallergenic, insensitive to the effects of magnetic fields, and yet it’s also almost weightless and resistant to temperature changes.
The engineers at Zenith have even managed to create a carbon balance spring. For all its advantages, carbon fiber has the same drawback that titanium did in its heyday – it doesn't win on appearance. All that's left is to learn how to give carbon-fiber watch cases a presentable appearance, then it will continue to successfully overtake metal as the material of choice.
The Carbon-Fiber Hairspring
In 2017, Zenith created a remarkable mechanical chronograph — the Zenith Defy El Primero 21 — which can accurately measure time intervals to 1/100th of a second. Its movement is comprised of two parts. There's one half with an escapement just for timekeeping which runs at 36,000 vph, while a separate escapement for the chronograph runs at 360,000 vph.
This exact and stable clockwork at such a high speed is ensured by a sensational novelty — a balance spring made of the patented Carbon-Matrix Carbon Nanotube composite — which has almost perfect isochronism, and is shock-resistant and insensitive to magnetic interferences.
This is essentially because carbon has a atomic structure which isn't prone to any fatigue over time from constantly vibrating. People already know how to treat synthetic sapphire to achieve various different colors, now all that's left to do is to find a way to significantly lower the production cost, so that sapphire watches can become more affordable.
Sapphire
Sapphire is transparent in terms of its durability, second only to diamond by a narrow margin, and in terms of its hypoallergenic and anti-magnetic properties. And this is its main advantage. At the beginning of the 21st century, watch engineers began using synthetic sapphire to not only fashion stones for movements, but also to make caliber main plates and cases. People already know how to treat synthetic sapphire to achieve various different colors, now all that's left to do is to find a way to significantly lower the production cost, so that sapphire watches can become more affordable.
New Gold
Gold — civilization's most beloved and ancient metal — was fundamentally modernized at the turn of the third millennium. In 2005, Rolex became the first major watch manufacturer to patent a new trademark gold alloy called Everose. It has a distinctly bright pink hue owing to the large amount of copper in the alloy, but the abundance of copper and the threat of patina appearing over time was countered by adding platinum. Everose is ever so slightly harder than 18-carat gold, although no rules have been broken, and the alloy contains 75 percent hallmark 999 gold.
The alchemists at Panerai followed suit, who concocted Oro Rosso (copper - 24.1 percent, platinum-0.4 percent). The laboratories of the almighty Swatch Group was where orange gold was invented for the Omega brand, with 23.98 percent copper and 1.02% divided evenly between platinum and silver, who also created Sedna gold (gold + copper + palladium), an alloy which is almost as strong as steel.
The company A. Lange & Söhne created Honey Gold, which is an unusual shade of acacia honey. Its main advantage is that it's twice as hard as ordinary 18-carat gold. The watchmaking house Hublot has concocted two potions: Magic Gold and King Gold. This alloy uses ceramic as a basis.
The purest grade of 24-carat molten gold is injected into a pre-obtained porous ceramic material under extremely high pressure, and the watch cases are then formed at the highest temperature and under the enormous pressure of inert gas.
The resulting substance has very similar properties to gold. Hublot even managed to get it officially certified as 18-carat gold. But what's most remarkable is that Magic Gold has a amazing hardness rating of 1000 Vickers, which is three times harder than steel.