Independents

Armin Strom presents their first in-house movement

 

The day of the big event has finally arrived.  Armin Strom will be presenting their newest achievement, their first in-house movement today.  The shop in Biel is full of journalists taking guided tours.



Having been to Armin Strom before (you remember click here   and click here   ) I see some familiar faces.  Here in the watchmakers shop Juliane is busy assembling the next piece of the new movements.


A new Finnish collegue is assembling pinions on wheels.





A little correction needs to be made on this barrel axle from the first production run to be sure that it catches and holds the mainspring correctly.  The corrections are already made in the production drawings so that the parts will be produced correctly for the next run.


The barrel is made of a special kind of brass that allows the direct gearing of brass to brass between the two barrels of the new movement.  As you know, I am sure, it is generally not allowed that the pinion and wheel of a gear pair are of the same material as same materials have higher friction and faster wear.  This special brass alloy, however, allows brass to brass gearing.


I sure am wondering what a finished movement will look like after seeing the main plate here.


A rachet wheel.  Note how the wheels are not flat, but are thicker in the middle running out to thinner edges.  This is an esthetic matter with no technical advantages, but is one of the means used to increase the feeling of depth in the movement.





Here we see the differential used for the power reserve display. (Ha!.. so the movement will have a power reserve display too!)


Leaving the watchmakers shop for the engraving and decorating shop here we see the other Juliane again engraving balance cocks.





Not wanting to worry what she will do next, here is a small stock of pieces ready to be engraved.  That is several days work Juliane says.


Here the machines for making côtes de Genève ….


...and perlage.


These bridges have had their flanks cleaned up and brushed along with the top corners beveled by hand.


Here the flank is being given a straight graining.


The next workshop is Armin Strom’s shop.  Here he is explaining his work to a group of journalists….


and demonstrating how he works.






In this small collection of needle files he can always find the right one.


A finished movement as skeletonized by Armon Strom.


Now we are all waiting for the big event of the day, the lifting of the veil that has been hiding the new movement from us for so long now.  For that we take a short trip by bus to the Museum Gertsch in the town of Burgdorf near Bern where the presentation will be held.


After our arrival in Burgdorf we have a short presentation of the interesting characteristics of this new movement.  The vital statistics:
- Three hand with small seconds, power reserve display
- 8 day autonomy
- Manual wound from the dial side
- Double barrel, total mainspring length 1.8 meters
- Slow speed 2.5 Hz oscillator, 18’000 A/h, Breguet end curve
- Screwed balance with gold inertia screws, the timing screws are in steel.
- 34 jewels
- Movement size 36.60mm x 6.20mm

And now the veil is lifted….


………


….  Ahhhh……


Now we can take a first look.  This is the dial side.
You have guessed it; building on the Armin Strom skeleton watch aesthetic, this watch will have a very minimal dial to allow this “machinery” all to be seen.


Note the depth and the nice decoration.


From the back the movement has the look of an old pocket watch and no winding mechanism can be seen.  The balance is not large, but turning at a leisurely 18’000 A/h.








Here we can see many of the pieces making up the movement individually.








Serge Michel the CEO of Armin Strom watches.





After the presentation we are ready for a good meal, also taken here in the Museum Gertsch.  Mr. Gertsch is a Swiss painter in the photo-realist school.  As opposed to photo-realism in the US which occupied itself mostly with the urban scene, Gertsch in Switzerland occupied himself with nature and portraits.  In this hall we see three monumental paintings all depicting the same scene over three seasons and a period of 12 years.








The « forest » of flowers decorating our table.


Our menu.  As you can see it is in three languages, German, English and the local Swiss dialect from the Emmental where we are.  I was sort of able to figure out what the dialect could (note that I am not really sure) mean.  But I am 100% certain that I will never be able to pronounce it correctly.


The first course, little trout fillet.  It smelled so good I just couldn’t restrain myself to take the picture first.  I had to take a bite.


The main course, geschnitzeltes with mushrooms, garden vegetables and a delicious potato preparation that I have never eaten before on the right  (Dürsrüttihärdöpfu .. jeh!).


Unfortunately I had to leave before the desert came to catch my train home.

So I leave you here with two more pictures of the new Armin Strom movement to enjoy.  I am very much looking forward to how this will look finished in a case with “dial” and hands.  But the good people from Armin Strom are being just as close mouthed about that as they have been about the movement up ‘til this evening.  But they did promise relief of our expectations for the Basel Fair next spring.

I hope you have enjoyed this presentation with the people from Armin Strom.  I wish to thank our hosts for their hospitality and the enjoyable evening.

Don

Site Info.

Privacy Policy Cookie Policy