What can we say? We are glad it's completed, assembled, adjusted and ready to go on display.
One thing is certain: J20/25 was NOT a labour of love. It was purely
hard work, day after day, month after month. A project which squeezed
out all of our enthusiasm, the last micron of our machining
capabilities, and one which tested our ability to work together and not
to bite off each others heads. Trust me, we were close.
Why? Because we set our goals high: NH2.1 is our most complex mechanism
yet. It features a dozen newly 'manufactured in Australia' components in
timascus, titanium, bronze and steel. It features both watch parts and
machining processes which have not been made or developed in Australia
in the past. Most importantly, each and every component in J20/25 has
been finished to the absolute best of our ability; form hardening,
particle blasting, polishing, anodizing to 'black mirror finishes'.
As you may know the NH series movement architecture has been based on
the ETA oscillation unit and gear train. The NH1 kicked us off with the
development of our main plate and bridges, the fundamental building
blocks of the movement architecture. We then moved to the NH2, where we
started innovating with material choice for these main plates and
bridges, using Timascus, a 3- part titanium, patterned alloy. We also
innovated from a technical standpoint, with introducing slight
improvements to the escapement with the addition of banking pins, which
the watchmaker can adjust manually to set the beat error of the
oscillator.
The NH2.1 is a natural progression in the improvement of our calibre,
with the development of an updated winding gear train. A new crown
wheel, ratchet wheel, click and click spring, gave us the ability to
finely tune the winding feel of the movement. Furthermore, the new crown
wheel mounting design gave us the community to add some more Timascus
to the movement! From an aesthetic standpoint, a major innovation was
the development of titanium screws. These screws are completely made
in-house, using Grade 5 titanium, commonly used in the medical field.
Anodization allows us to experiment with different colours, outside of
the regular ferritic oxide layer colours (straw, maroon, blue)- we can
now develop extremely deep blues, yellows, greens and purples. To the
best of our knowledge, this is the first and only time anyone has ever
used titanium screws in watch movement architecture.
Beyond all this, developing the NH2.1 pushed us even further - we developed our own unique tooth profile for the crown wheel
to ensure smooth running of the winding system. We also focused heavily
on hand finishing extremely delicate components like the click and
click spring.
For that reason, NH2.1 is much more than a watch. It is a "one of a
kind" watch that a new owner can take to ANY watch boutique anywhere in
the world - from Lange to Patek, from JLC to IWC, and the boutique staff
will be impressed because the magic of timascus, the finishes, anodized
titanium and overall design, is something they have not seen before.
Yes, there are countless more complex, more expensive, more exciting
watches out there - yet NH2.1 is simply a special one: proudly and
unashamedly designed, manufactured, hand finished, assembled and
adjusted in Australia, by Australians.
Price $14,800 | |
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