A Patek Philippe Calibre

This post on social media

Once again, about a mechanical watch calibre.

In the comments on my post about Swiss watch movements, Erlan Ibrayev remarked: “From a mechanical point of view, hardly anything has changed in more than 2,000 years. Apart from perhaps some new materials. As far as I remember, R. Feynman said that it all comes down to a few simple principles and rules.”

That may well be true: there are only a few basic principles, with gears meshing with other gears and so on.

Still, I never cease to marvel at how people came up with this particular way of combining all those gears so that they work together as a single mechanism.

Let us enjoy this captivating visualisation of how a contemporary, more or less, mechanical watch calibre works.

The video shows a Patek Philippe GS 36-750 PS IRM calibre. It consists of 703 components and 95 jewels, has six complications and a striking mechanism with three classical gongs. Three patents were granted for this new calibre.

The striking mechanism uses three classical gongs: low, middle and high. This technical solution requires more energy than systems with two gongs.

The complications of this calibre are:

  • Grand sonnerie.
  • Petite sonnerie.
  • Minute repeater.
  • Power-reserve indicator for the timekeeping mechanism.
  • Power-reserve indicator for the striking mechanism.
  • Jumping seconds hand.

The patents granted for the new GS 36-750 PS IRM calibre are:

  • Grand sonnerie silencing in silent mode.
  • Striking mode selection.
  • Jumping-seconds indicator.

This calibre is remarkably compact for such a complex mechanism: it is 37 mm in diameter and 7.5 mm high.