"We produce every single component, even hairsprings," Mr. Meylan said.
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The Empa team use a form of electroplating to "grow" mainsprings and hairsprings.
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An openwork dial showcases two balance wheels and two hairsprings sharing the same axis.
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Despite producing only 1,200 watches a year, the brand develops and produces its own hairsprings, the spiral that sits at the heart of a watch mechanism.
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Part of the reason for the price: He invented a movement that increases a watch's accuracy — one that, ironically, eliminates the hairsprings that his mother worked on for all those years.
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Mainsprings and hairsprings have to be made of special alloys that retain their physical characteristics as much as possible in different temperatures, so that the watch maintains its accuracy wherever its wearer ventures.
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The Petrodvorets Watch Factory Raketa is one of only five watch brands in the world producing their movements in-house from start to finish, including hairsprings and escapements. Most watch brands globally do not produce their own hairsprings, they generally order them from Nivarox, a subsidiary of Swatch Group. This enables the Russian military industry to be independent of western suppliers, especially for producing hairsprings needed in the military aviation industry.
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It is often supposed that hairsprings having exactly even coils are correct for close position and isochronal rating.
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Parallel coil is a method of obtaining non-uniform coil in ratiometer systems in which the hairsprings are wounded parallelly in order to allow the signal to pass through it.
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Moving magnet ammeters operate on essentially the same principle as moving coil, except that the coil is mounted in the meter case, and a permanent magnet moves the needle. Moving magnet Ammeters are able to carry larger currents than moving coil instruments, often several tens of Amperes, because the coil can be made of thicker wire and the current does not have to be carried by the hairsprings. Indeed, some Ammeters of this type do not have hairsprings at all, instead using a fixed permanent magnet to provide the restoring force.
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In 2009, H. Moser & Cie introduced their tonneau-shaped watch, the Henry. It featured a "Straumann Double Hairspring," which had two hairsprings that counter rotates as opposed to only one hairspring. The Henry was later discontinued in favor of the Swiss Alps line.
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Nivarox is most famous for producing hairsprings that are attached to the balance wheel inside a mechanical watch movement, as well as mainsprings which provide the motive power for the watch. The Nivarox story began in 1933 when Dr. Straumann perfected the process of hairspring manufacturing in his Waldenbourg laboratory. FAR was the corporate name chosen in 1932 for the entity comprising several companies and subsidiaries located in Le Locle, Switzerland, manufacturing various watch components.
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The plates for the Pitkins pocket watches were punched out with stamping dies but many times had to be finished to close tolerances by hand. The movements were three-quarter plate, slow train, and about the diameter of the modern 16-size pocket watch. The watchcases they made themselves from gold and silver. They imported from Europe many of the dials, hands, hairsprings and balance jewels needed for their watches, even though they tried to avoid using foreign-made parts.
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The dials, jewels, and hairsprings for the mechanisms were purchased from European watch manufacturers, but all other parts aside from the outside case were produced at the Manistee Watch factory. Most of the jewels for the watches were from heliotrope garnet and manufactured specifically to the correct dimensions for the Manistee watches in Switzerland. The first watches made sold for five dollars each. Joseph M. Bachner (1853–1929), an inventor born in Alsace, France, designed the movements for low cost production to compete with the other inexpensive watches on the market.
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This leaves pinning point and terminal curve. Both of these add a lot of variation to the regulation of a watch: assembly, regulation adjustments by the watchmaker, positioning in the watch, and later position changes by the owner. As the balance wheel goes from one extreme position to the other in its swing back and forth, the hairspring's coils extend and contract a great deal, leading to problems that are extremely hard to counteract. Some have tried using hairsprings that are cylindrical or even spherical instead of flat as is prominent today.
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ETA designs and manufactures mechanical and automatic watches, watch movements and watch ébauches. Although the company produces finished watches and movements, ETA specializes in the production of ébauche movements used both in watches of sister Swatch Group subsidiary brands and in the watches of competitors, including brands owned by Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A. and others. With the exception of hairsprings manufactured by sister company Nivarox, ETA maintains vertical control over the manufacturing of all of the components required to create a watch movement and therefore is considered a true manufacture d'horlogerie.
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