Martian tourbillon

It has been 226 years since Abraham-Louis Breguet’s invention of the tourbillon in 1795. During this time, on the basis of this great master’s concept, a huge variety of designs of this magically attractive device of complicated watch mechanics have been developed, from the poor-man’s dollar tourbillon, Bahne Bonniksen’s karussel, and the flying tourbillon regulator by Robert Benson North, to modern-era tourbillons, with a built-in constant force escapement, double and triple axis tourbillons, double and triple tourbillons, and finally resonance tourbillons and stop-seconds tourbillons operated either at the owner’s request or automatically under the action of a mechanical algorithmic device (the honour of inventing the latter belonging to Konstantin Chaykin himself, implemented in his Shabbat Clock).

Watchmakers include a tourbillon in their timepieces for a number of reasons – for the precise measurement of time (reflecting the original aim of its invention), for setting records for precision at chronology competitions, for demonstrating the skills of a watchmaker – since the tourbillon’s intricate, challenging design is by no means attainable for everyone, for the marketing of a watch brand, as a way to implement a mechanical kinematic wonder in a timepiece – a way to entertain its owner, for technical watches (for aviation or diving, for example), for jewellery and decorative watches… The only reason missing in our cosmic age is to create a tourbillon which could be used by conquerors of other planets. This has been resolved by Konstantin Chaykin with the first-ever Martian tourbillon in the history of watchmaking – the Martian Tourbillon Only Watch 2021 Piece Unique.

The trick is that the Martian calendar does not yet exist. To realize his idea, Konstantin Chaykin chose the Martian calendar proposed by the American engineer Thomas Gangale. His Martian calendar has an interesting aspect – each month consists of four weeks and must begin on a Sunday. This allowed Konstantin Chaykin to design a unique calendar display which shows both the date and the day of the week with just one hand on a scale. Life on Mars will certainly have its advantages! The scale for the date display consists of two rows, with the top row being used for the first and second week and the bottom row for the third and fourth week. Understanding the current monthly period is made easier by the two-week period display, which is located above the Martian calendar 'smile'. The upper and lower date scales are separated by the Martian weekday scale, which is marked with symbols imagined by Konstantin Chaykin.

The unique synchronous retrograde display of the date of Mars and the day of the week in the Martian Tourbillon watch is by no means as simple as it appears at first glance. The retrograde display method was chosen by Konstantin Chaykin for this watch for a simple reason – he decided to create his own Martian Wristmon by combining his Mars Time Program and the design elements of the incredibly successful Wristmons collection. The Wristmons trademark, the smile, had to be displayed in its designated place – no other option was possible – which made the task of designing the display module an incredible challenge. The dimensions of the snail cam for the calendar complication are limited by the space available in the movement. Therefore, to ensure that the calendar worked properly, extremely precise components for the cam, especially the snail cam and the push button lever, had to be designed and manufactured. In addition, Konstantin had to go to extraordinary lengths in the development of the calendar to eliminate the inevitable backlash that occurs in the gearing of a movement.