April 5, 2023

Start of the 3D Tourbillon build.

What is a “Tourbillon”? It is a way of counteracting the effect of gravity on a watch escapement. Here’s a good example of one:

Every time I look at a Jaeger-LeCoultre Duomètre Sphérotourbillon, Bill makes that odd “Budget” noise. This is about a $900,000 watch, but the important thing is that its tourbillon is too small and buried to really see how it works.

Amazing enough, Mechanistic managed to print a 3D working model of one and after some work, the Printed Kits people came up with this model https://www.etsy.com/listing/1261773241/triple-axis-toubillion-clock-kit. It is truly an amazing accomplishment, pushing 3D printing technology to the absolute limit. Hmmm… not really where you want to be, so it took a while to get it built.