In Depth - Tourbillon 2

The response to Tourbillon 2 after just a few days has been nothing short of amazing. Thank you!

There have been some great comments and direct inquiries on Tourbillon 2, a watch that has already been a few years in the making. With just a week to go before pre-order, I will bring you up to speed on additional details of the watch development.

Inspiration

There were some big shoes to fill after Tourbillon 1, however, you, our community helped get the ball rolling on Tourbillon 2. During and after our Touribllon 1 campaign many enthusiasts were asking for a more traditional touribllon dial.

We love a challenge so we naturally looked for one of the most difficult and traditional dials to produce; the Grand Feu enamel dial. Over 75% end up being discarded, however, each one is individually unique with small inclusions from the production processes, not to mention how labour-intensive they are.

Additionally, we understood that the upgrade to Grand Feu would be significant as the cost of production is very high due to the natural processes to produce these dials. As a tech-driven watchmaker, we looked to technology to create a dial with a unique character that played on the papyrus paper used to create the original codex of the Livre de Durrow - The Book of Durrow.

Papyrus

Livre de Durrow

Grand Feu

How Grand Feu is made

- Start with a blank

- Apply dial feet

- Heat to fix feet on the dial and remove impurities

- Silica mixture dusted on the dial

- Heat dial to between 800-1000 Celcius

- Mix print ink by hand

- Tampography or pad printing to apply the print to dial

- Heat the dial again to set print-in dial

- Flatten dial with carbon cube

- Secretive process of doing cutouts for tourbillon cage, hands and power reserve indicator

- Final quality control

If you missed it be sure to watch the video on the dial production process for Grand Feu.

Livre de Durrow

For the Livre de Durrow dials it was a completely different process that used modern Femto laser technology.

What is a Femto laser?

Essentially it's a powerful laser that operates at one million pulses per second. It enables very complex structures to be created in three dimensions and creates unique diffractions of light, thus the reason many commented that the blue dial for Tourbillon 2 looked almost like silicon. The power density of the laser results in extremely precise details down to .001 microns for comparison a human hair is 70 microns. This technology allows for nanometric dimensions to be created and although very costly in production it afforded us the opportunity to create a consistent papyrus-inspired dial with an incredible feel of depth and texture. The blue Livre de Durrow dials smallest three-dimensional structures are just 4 microns.

How Livre de Durrow dials are made?

I asked Silvan to share some rough mobile phone photos of the process as I was not able to photograph this.

As will the enamel dials all Livre de Durrow dials are manufactured in Switzerland

Raw copper dial is cut and polished

Femto laser papyrus pattern on dial

Cutout tourbillon cage and power reserve indicator with above tool

Send dial to Swiss partner for finish colour and printing

Numerals, Power Reserve & Indicators

When it comes to modern design many think everything is done on screen, however, that's not always the case and at Horage we still rely on handmade drawings as a starting point. We start with a lot of pencil to paper to draft initial concepts. The Arabic numerals for Tourbillon 2 were the starting point to ensure we could bridge tradition with modernity across both the Grand Feu and Livre de Durrow dial options.

The first sketches of these numerals started over three years ago on June 16th, 2020 to be exact. You will see below just a few of the variations needed to get to where we are today.

A first sketch of 1-0 to get the feel, reduce and rework.

Digitizing and looking round out number 9 at the top.

Fine-tuning 8 and 3

Variations of the number 12 made for a challenging decision. The bottom right was chosen.

Looking to trim a little off the ends.

Reviewing alignment

Power Reserve Indicator

With Tourbillon 1 the main barrel and spring were exposed due to no dial and the semi-skeletonized bridge work that created windows to the inner workings of the movement. This exposure to the mechanics of the movement enabled one to visually reference the compression of the main spring to gauge whether their watch needed winding. With Tourbillon 2 we now have a closed dial with just the tourbillon cage cutout at 6 o'clock. We found with Tourbillon 1 despite the visual reference to the main barrel many were still under winding their watches and we felt that with the addition of a dial for Tourbillon 2 we should include a power reserve indicator.

Adding a power reserve indicator might seem like an easy thing to do however it resulted in a complete rework of the K-TOU calibre, moving it from 19 jewels to 26 jewels. A new main plate configuration was required to apply the power reserve indicator between the centre point and between the hour markers of 2 & 3 o'clock.

Again drawing came into play and our designers put pencil to paper to see how things could look.

Early fan-type power reserve concept. Due to the style of this, which would actually have the element slightly depressed into the dial, it presented challenges in production for the Grand Feu dial as layering can create great inconsistencies in enamel dial production.

Reducing the concept further we managed to find a design that would work with both dials. Refinements were made when digitized.

Hour Indicators

A few of you have asked what the indicators are directly beside the Arabic numerals. We looked to carry the energy from Tourbillon 1 into the design of Tourbillon 2 and to do so we played with different indicators that referenced the original Tourbillon 1 movement and watch design.

As with the Arabic numerals, the concept for the markers happened on paper and on screen.

Markus our engineer also pitched in with a crude drawing that turned out aesthetically perfect in the end. Do you know what it is?

Back to pencil and paper to get an idea of how they would look on the dial.

There are nine different indicators with three of them repeating at 12, 3, and 9 o'clock.

Can you guess what they all are?

Let us know in the comments and we will let you know in the next post 😉.

Case Options

The use of premium and precious metals was the focus of Tourbillon 2. We wanted to ensure as much access to the tourbillon and optionality at varying ends of the pricing spectrum.

904L Stainless Steel

18K 3N Yellow Gold

18K White Gold

With 904L Stainless Steel, 18K 3N Warm Yellow Gold or 18K White Gold there's a look and varying price points for each. Each case body measures in at 39mm on the wrist and this makes the tourbillon wear incredibly well on both smaller and larger wrists alike. The top ring/bezel measures 41mm and this provides a little more presence on the wrist without sacrificing wearing comfort. Additionally, the case of Tourbillon 2 measures 10mm, making it 1.8mm thinner than Tourbillon 1's case thickness of 11.8mm.

Both 18K 3N and White Gold come with a polished top ring/bezel and the 904L stainless steel option comes with a brushed top ring/bezel.

904L Stainless Steel

Our premium 904L stainless steel was a must to continue the legacy of Tourbillon 1 through to Tourbillon 2. The 904L stainless steel case option comes complete with a full 904L stainless steel bracelet with a butterfly clasp that integrates beautifully with the interplay of brushed and polished surfaces. One can choose to purchase the additional salmon skin strap with micro-adjustment buckle if you choose.

18K 3N Warm Yellow Gold & 18K White Gold

We love precious metals and there have been ongoing requests for us to offer precious metal tourbillon options. For Tourbillon 2 we opted for the warm yellow of 3N 18K gold as utilized in Tourbillon 1. This gold is rich and vibrant with subtle rose gold hues that invite one to take a second glance at the intricate details of the dial. This option ships with the salmon skin strap, micro-adjustment deployant clasp and gold buckle.

18K White Gold is a new addition to our precious metal offering. Many requested a stealth yet rich option to stainless steel. The 18K White Gold creates an incredible deep polished look and works seamlessly with both dial options. This option ships with the salmon skin strap, micro-adjustment deployant clasp and steel buckle.

There you have the overview of the Tourbillon 2, but before we go some initial information on the pre-order coming up next week.

Chronometer Certified

With Tourbillon 1 our team of engineers and watchmakers proved the accuracy of our proprietary K-TOU calibre. Many customers tested their accuracy at home and found that the accuracies were even better than that of COSC chronometer certification of -4/+6 seconds a day.

For Tourbillon 2 we will offer once again COSC Chronometer Certification. This means that each Tourbillon 2 K-TOU calibre will be tested by COSC over a 15-day period to ensure that the average daily deviation does not exceed -4/+6 seconds a day. The entire process including preparation for and receiving movements back from COSC takes approximately 4 weeks to complete.

Get ready for Pre-Order!

Mark it on your calendar 😉

With two pre-order rounds, there will be 2,000 CHF savings for taking part in round 1 starting next week.

Where: https://www.shop.horage.com

When: October 10th, 2023

Time: 14:00 CET

Duration: 7 Days

Ends: October 17th , 2023 @ 14:00CET

Orders Ship: Q1 2024

More details on the preparation for pre-orders in the next post.

What's your favourite configuration?

It would be great to hear from you in the comments.

Till next time...

Landon Stirling