![]() ![]() But those last dozen or so micrometers were hard won in a long and arduous process,” says Yves Mathys, head of production for Richard Mille. bit.ly/3KrARMD RichardMille 0:52 1. It is in this spirit that the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport was imagined and dedicated to the brand's sports partners. “Like Ferrari, which continuously seeks to gain another few thousandths of a second while racing, we fought to shave off the last hundredths of a millimeter to achieve the flattest possible watch. Richard Mille has always endeavoured to adapt each of its models to the needs and feelings of its partners. The sapphire crystal over the hour dial and the regulator was reduced to a thickness of 2-tenths of a millimeter. The function selector, winding crown, time subdial and balance wheel/hairspring are all displayed on the same plane on the dial, with space left over for the Ferrari’s prancing pony logo. They also used an extra flat hairspring, which maintains a 45-hour power reserve. The newly developed movement was reconfigured to combine some functions together, thereby reducing the total number of components – including the winding stem. The stability of the escapement is another challenge, so Richard Mille developed a patented ultra-flat balance wheel for its new caliber RMUP-01 that is also made of titanium. “Extensive laboratory testing was necessary to ensure the components offered the needed strength despite this reduction in material at strategic points such as the caseband and caseback.”Ĭaseback of the Richard Mille RM UP-01 Ferrari, the world's thinnest watch. However, we are sometimes at 0.18 mm of material here,” says Julien Boillat, Richard Mille’s technical director of cases and exteriors. “In terms of casing, watchmaking standards stipulate a minimum section thickness of 0.35 mm in certain places. It was extensively tested to make sure the watch was strong enough to withstand accelerations of over 5,000 g’s. They solved this by making the baseplate and bridges out of grade 5 titanium, a particularly rigid alloy that includes aluminum and vanadium. The model was born of a friendly conversation between Richard Mille and the twice Formula 1 world champion and brand partner Fernando Alonso, a passionate enthusiast of Japanese traditional arts and the Samurai principles. But micro-thin watchmaking is a challenge because the thinner you make the components and baseplate, the less robust the watch becomes. The RM 47 Tourbillon is the fruit of intense reflection and nearly four years of design work. In order to make the watch thin, Richard Mille’s tactic was to distribute the components across a large surface area rather than stacking them, as in a traditional movement. The Richard Mille RM UP-01 Ferrari is a mere 1.75mm thick. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |