TAG HEUER CARRERA CALIBRE HEUER 02T TOURBILLON NANOGRAPH: EXCELLENT KNOW-HOW

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https://www.tagheuer.com/en-us/news...r-02t-tourbillon-nanograph-excellent-know-how


For the first time ever, TAG Heuer scientists have developed a carbon composite hairspring. Assembled atom by atom, from elemental carbon, it governs the oscillations of the balance wheel. This advanced component exhibits outstanding shock-resistance, is anti-magnetic, and offers optimum temperature performance.

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As the true heart of a mechanical watch, the carbon composite hairspring demonstrates unique know-how. Created and assembled exclusively at TAG Heuer, its supreme quality ensures optimum precision.

The carbon composite hairspring is paired with an aluminum balance wheel including white gold inserts. The elegant geometry and perfectly concentric oscillations are rooted in improved performance and give a unique signature to the watch’s heartbeat.

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An unprecedented innovation

In addition to being the first watch to be regulated by this carbon composite hairspring, the TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre Heuer 02T Tourbillon also presents two other complications, which are some of the most prestigious in traditional watchmaking: a tourbillon capable of almost hypnotic movements, which cancels out differences in rate, and a COSC-certified chronograph, which meets the official standards for chronometers.

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A groundbreaking design

The nanoscopic (million time smaller than a millimetre) hexagonal pattern of the hairspring’s carbon composite material is mirrored in the design of the Carrera HEUER 02T Tourbillon Nanograph, the newest member of the brand's iconic collection since 1963.

The multi-layered dial presents sand-blasted and finely brushed hexagons on the movement plate, which can be seen through the openworked dial. The motif can also be found on the black PVD-treated oscillating weight, revealed through a sapphire case back.

Once again, TAG Heuer demonstrates its avant-garde spirit by pushing the limits, drawing ever closer to perfect precision in mechanical watchmaking.

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https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/tag-heuer-carrera-calibre-heuer-02t-tourbillon-nanograph-hands-on



JACK FORSTER
JANUARY 30, 2019

The balance spring is arguably the single most critical component of a wristwatch. It's responsible for making sure that the oscillations of the balance are consistent, but to do so, it has to address – both metallurgically and in its configuration – a number of challenges. Magnetism, temperature changes, and the fact that the balance spring needs to be shaped so as to expand and contract as perfectly concentrically as possible, are all issues with which watchmakers have grappled over the centuries. Innovations such as overcoil outer terminal curves (Breguet and Phillips), and the use of materials like, in the past, glass and even bamboo, and in the modern era, silicon, are all intended in one way or another to reduce the degree to which external influences interfere with with the balance spring.

This is an area of watchmaking in which advances in materials science have overtaken more artisanal and craft-focused activities, and hand-pinning balance springs to the collet, and hand-forming inner and outer terminal curves, have given way in the last hundred or so years to increasingly sophisticated alloys such as Nivarox, and more recently, variations on the theme of silicon. The latest innovation from TAG Heuer uses a material which has long been considered a promising candidate for use in a balance spring, but which until now no one's quite managed to tame: carbon. The material is being used by TAG Heuer for the first time, in the Carrera Calibre Heuer 02T Tourbillon Nanograph.

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https://www.ablogtowatch.com/tag-he...-nanograph-watch-hands-on-new-carbon-spirals/

TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre Heuer-02T Tourbillon Nanograph Watch Hands-On & New Carbon Spirals

JAN 29, 2019 — BY ARIEL ADAMS

While silicon is still an important material for today’s modern watchmakers, it is not the “grail material” everyone hoped it would be, especially with regard to the production of hairsprings (the most difficult part of a watch’s movement to manufacture). Semon thus set his sights past silicon for other materials and techniques to produce hairsprings that could outperform and under-price the metal alternatives out there. It also needed to be as good as, or better than, silicon.

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Simply referred to as a “carbon hairspring” (which is true), the innovation in the Carrera Heuer-02T Nanograph is the hairspring which, to the naked eye, appears as ordinary gray in color. This hairspring is the outcome of Semon’s patient efforts to explore a hairspring material and production technique that might eventually replace both metal and silicon, and not just in expensive watches. What this particular carbon polymer has as an advantage over silicon is its simplicity for mass production (lower rejection rates due to broken parts) and more shock-resistance, because of its native elasticity.
 
For those folks who like the open heart, and Tourbillon, designs, this should be of extreme interest. Thanks Mike.
 
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