Category Archives: Cheap Watches Replica

5 Things to Know About the Montblanc Timewalker Chronograph 100

Montblanc unveiled the Montblanc cheap replica watches uk Timewalker Chronograph 100, a chronograph watch capable of measuring elapsed times to 1/100 second, at the 2014 SIHH watch fair in Geneva. Here are five pertinent things you should know about this innovative timepiece from Montblanc.Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph 100 - front

1. It comes from a manufacture with an impressive chronograph pedigree.
The historic Minerva Manufacture in Villeret, which would later become part of Montblanc, was renowned for its expertise in making chronograph timepieces. In 1916, it launched one of the first mechanical stopwatches able to measure times to 1/100th of a second. Later versions of this timepiece also included a chronograph hand that completed an entire 360° sweep of the dial in just one second. The Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph 100, a modern iteration of these groundbreaking timepieces, applies and updates this technology with its newly developed manufacture Caliber MB M66.25.

2. The watch has one movement but two balances.
Montblanc’s first big challenge in making a watch that measures intervals with 100th-of-a-second precision was that its movement required a balance that vibrates at a frequency of 360,000 vph (50 hertz). In traditional chronograph watches, one balance drives both the time display and the chronograph mechanism. Activating the “start” function creates a connection between the going train and the chronograph, which is severed when the “stop” function is triggered. Conventional chronograph calibers have a frequency of only 2.5 to 4 hertz.

The solution developed by the watchmakers in Villeret was to incorporate two balances into the movement — a large, heavy screw balance, beating at a traditional 18,000 vph (2.5 Hz) to ensure the precise rate of the going train, and a smaller balance, with the much higher frequency of 360,000 vph (50 Hz) to regulate the chronograph function.Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph 100 - angle

Instead of being in constant motion, the separate balance for the chronograph starts to vibrate only when the “start” function is activated by a flexible, steel plate mounted behind the arrowhead of the chronograph rocker. When the “stop” function is triggered, the plate stops the smaller balance and holds it in place until the next elapsed-time measurement begins.

The chronograph function has its own barrel, which stores enough energy to measure intervals up to 45 minutes long. However, this limit can be extended indefinitely by turning the crown counterclockwise while the chronograph is running, thus adding fresh energy to its devoted barrel. The going train for the time display draws its energy from a second barrel, which stores a 100-hour power reserve.

3. It has a patented control system with a two-level column wheel and two return-to-zero mechanisms.
Montblanc devised a patented mechanism with an innovative column-wheel control and a new zero-return solution for the central 100ths-of-a-second hand. A two-level column-wheel separates the functional level for starting and stopping the chronograph from the zero-return level for the elapsed-time counters. The column-wheel has four narrow pillars and four broad ones, with alternately higher and lower switching levels positioned between them. The higher level controls the chronograph rocker: its arrowhead carries the slender steel lamella that starts and stops the finely toothed 50-Hz balance.When the chronograph is switched on, the column wheel sends an impulse to the chronograph rocker, which moves away from the high-frequency balance and transfers the impulse, via the steel lamella at its tip, to the balance, which immediately starts vibrating at 360,000 vph. When a time measurement stops, the column wheel moves the chronograph rocker toward the chronograph’s balance so that the steel lamella presses against the balance’s rim, stopping both the balance’s vibrations and the progress of the chronograph’s elapsed-time hands. The lower level of the column wheel is the switching plane for the beak of the heart-lever. This lever returns to zero the 60-elapsed-seconds hand, which is connected to the heart-lever of the 15 elapsed-minutes counter. Heart-levers and heart-cams act in the usual way to return these two counters to their zero positions.The zero-return of the 1/100-second hand occurs in a different, more innovative manner. The 1/100-second wheel has a disk with a catch. While the chronograph is running, the heart-lever of the seconds-counter wheel presses a small, arrowhead-shaped lever with a barb away from this catch. When the chronograph hands are returned to zero, the heart-lever releases the smaller lever and a spring then presses the lever against the wheel with the catch. The 1/100th-second hand is free to complete its sweep until it reaches its zero position, where it stops because the catch of its zero-return disk engages with the barb of the zero-return lever.

4. The case materials come from the world of auto racing.
The tripartite case of the Montblanc Timewalker Chronograph 100 combines a titanium and steel bezel, coated with a layer of highly scratch-resistant DLC (diamond-like carbon); a screwed titanium caseback with a sapphire window; and a case middle incorporating titanium and carbon fiber. Instead of simply gluing a carbon fiber shell over the titanium piece, Montblanc designed the case middle as a seamless, complexly structured cocoon. In this process, several dozen layers of carbon fiber, cheap watches replica for men with the fibers in each layer oriented at 90° to those in the one below it, are fused together with artificial resin at high temperature and under 10 tons of pressure to produce a compact carbon-fiber block. The case’s round sheath is stamped perpendicularly to the carbon-fiber layers to form a seamless “monobloc” which is then tightly stretched over the titanium middle piece. The monobloc’s surface has an atypical (for carbon fiber) horizontally striped pattern rather than the material’s typically uniform texture. The resulting case is lightweight yet very robust. The middle piece of the case is clamped between two pierced longitudinal titanium brackets, which transition into the characteristic skeletonized lugs of the Montblanc TimeWalker collection.

The large, crosswise-fluted crown is also made of titanium and topped by an inset mother-of-pearl Montblanc emblem. The crown is employed for manual winding in both directions:  clockwise for winding the watch’s timekeeping functions, counterclockwise for the chronograph function. In a nod to the Minerva stopwatch from 1916, the chronograph pusher is located in an unconventional position, at 12 o’clock. Auto racing influence is also evident in the black alligator-leather strap with red contrast stitching and the titanium pronged buckle.

5. The clear sapphire dial allows you to see all this technology at work.
The dial of the Montblanc Timewalker Chronograph 100 is made of transparent sapphire crystal — surrounded by a horizontally satin-finished flange calibrated with a 1/100-scale and bearing a red “100” at 12 o’clock — and offers an unobstructed view of Montblanc Caliber MB M66.25. Among the details on display are the column wheel near 12 o’clock, which advances by one increment each time the chronograph pusher is triggered, and the components of the bidirectional winding mechanism at 3 o’clock.

The current time is displayed on an anthracite-gray hour scale framed in silver, which is interrupted by two sapphire subdials, one at at 9 o’clock for the running seconds and the other at 6 o’clock for the chronograph’s 60 elapsed seconds and 15 elapsed minutes. The “lanceolate” hour and minute hands are inlaid with Super-LumiNova. The large, central chrono counter hand, which is made of lightweight aluminum and coated with red lacquer, completes one rotation per second. The chronograph subdial has two concentric scales, each swept by its own hand: the longer black hand counts 60 elapsed seconds on the outer scale, which is marked with Arabic numerals, while the shorter red hand counts 15 elapsed minutes on the inner scale.

Harking back to classical Minerva movements of yesteryear, this one also boasts numerous hand-decorated finishes, which the watch’s owner can admire through the sapphire caseback window. Plates, bridges and steel parts are manually fabricated and decorated with circular graining and/or Geneva waves. Edges are manually bevelled, bevels are hand-polished and flanks are brush-finished. Each balance spring is individually hand-counted. The functional surfaces of the chronograph rockers and levers are abraded to match each other with tolerances in the 1/100th-millimeter range, and the ruby pallet-stones are finely adjusted. One can also watch the oscillations of both balances.

The Montblanc discount fake watches for men Timewalker Chronograph 100 is a limited edition of 100 pieces, priced at $63,900.

6 “Tribute to the Military” Watches

Watches have long been used cheap watches replica online store by soldiers, sailors, airmen, and other military operators in the line of duty. Here we showcase six watches made by various brands especially to honor certain branches of the armed forces and those that support them. Herewith, our six “Tribute to the Military” watches.

IWC Big Pilots Watch TOP GUN Miramar

IWC Schaffhausen, a watch brand with deep roots in making military-grade pilots’ watches, introduced its Big Pilot’s Watch Top Gun collection in 2007. Created in cooperation with the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, known widely as “Top Gun,” the collection was expanded in 2012 with the addition of the IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Top Gun Miramar, a distinctly military-styled watch named for, and paying tribute to, the area in California where the Navy’s elite Top Gun pilots receive their training. The Top Gun Miramar (also available in a chronograph version) has a big, 48-mm ceramic case and anthracite dial. The hands and chapter rings are in a camouflage beige color and the military-green textile strap is reminiscent of the fabric webbing belts in an aircraft cockpit. More on the watch.

Developed under a special trademark agreement with the United States Navy, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Diving Automatic Navy SEALs is a rough-and-tumble timepiece designed to be worthy of the elite combat unit for which it is named. The watch is engineered to withstand extremely harsh conditions and features on its dial a new form of Super-LumiNova that is particularly visible underwater or in the dark. It also contains an in-house Jaeger-LeCoultre automatic movement intended to provide a high degree of accuracy. Jaeger-LeCoultre solicited the input of actual Navy SEALs in its development of the watch; some of its features, including the matte black bezel that reduces glare, are a direct result of these consultations. The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Diving Automatic Navy SEALs is discount fake watches online limited to 1,500 pieces. You can download our test of the watch by clicking here.Jaeger-LeCoultre MC Diving Navy Seals

Released in 2013, the Breitling Navitimer 01 Honor Flight Limited Edition is a watch made in tribute to the Honor Flight Network, which flies World War II veterans to the memorial dedicated to their service in Washington, DC. This special version of the Navitimer — an iconic pilots’ watch from a brand with a rich history of producing watches for aviation — has a deep blue dial with the Honor Flight logo just beneath the 12 o’clock position, and a solid steel caseback with an engraved “wreath and bracket” from the World War II memorial in the nation’s capital and the inscription, “Honor Flight — One Last Mission.” The watch, which contains a Breitling chronograph movement, is limited to just 56 pieces, representing the 56 U.S. states and territories that participated in the Second World War. Click here for more details on the Honor Flight Limited Edition.

The striking skull-and-crossbones dial on the Bell & Ross BR01 Airborne is based on the patches worn by American paratroopers of World War II, who wore it on their uniforms as a defiant symbol of courage in the face of death. The skull on the dial is coated with Super-LumiNova so that it glows in the dark. On June 8, 2009, the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, Bell & Ross introduced the 500-piece limited edition of the BR01 Airborne at a boutique in Paris. The brand has since followed up the original model with a 999-piece limited edition, the Airborne II, with a “phantom black” dial and “rifle barrel” patina finish.

While not a military unit per se, the cryptologists at Britain’s Bletchley Park played a crucial role in the Allied war effort with their deciphering of the Enigma and Lorenz codes used by Nazi Germany (as those who’ve seen the Oscar-nominated film, The Imitation Game, may already be aware). The Bremont Codebreaker pays tribute to these often unsung heroes of WWII by incorporating actual historical materials from Bletchley Park and its codebreaking machines into the watch. Limited to only 240 pieces in stainless steel and 50 in rose gold, the Bremont Codebreaker features pieces of the actual German Enigma machine in the winding rotor of its automatic movement and fragments of the punch cards used in the decryption machines embedded in the case middle (to spell out the watch’s serial number). Additionally, a piece of the floorboard from the actual Bletchley Park building where the codes were broken (thus shortening the war by probably two years and saving countless lives) has been incorporated into the watch’s crown. Click here to read our full-length feature on the making of the Bremont Codebreaker watch.Breitling Honor Flight Navitimer - Side

U.S.-based Kobold takes pride in the fact that many of its watches are made in America, several with military usage in mind. The company worked with Navy SEALs to create the Kobold Phantom Black Ops Chronograph, whose black-DLC-coated, 41-mm steel case is made in the U.S.A. and contains a solid ETA 7750 chronograph movement. The rugged “stealth” timepiece also features a bidirectional rotating bezel, a domed, nonreflective sapphire crystal, a screw-locked crown, and green-tinted discount watches replica eta luminous hands and hour markers that would pair well with a set of night-vision goggles. The price is $4,150, but if you’re a SEAL or other armed service member, says Kobold, you will be offered a “healthy discount.”

 

Temptation Thursday by Escapement: Hands-On with the Chopard L.U.C. Regulator

In this week’s Temptation Thursday, Angus cheap watches replica uk Davies of online watch magazine Escapement gets up close and personal with the Chopard L.U.C. Regulator, a timepiece launched by the brand at this year’s Baselworld watch fair.

Conforming to standards

Throughout my early adult life, I sought to conform and be a “regular guy.” On reaching 40, I became resigned to the fact that, despite the influence of societal norms, I would always be a tad eccentric, exhibiting a notably extrovert character.

Today, aged 47, I celebrate my uniqueness. My personality frequently walks on virgin snow and my mind works at a different cadence from that of the “average person.” As my brain whirrs away at a dizzying rate, I experience racing thoughts. However, I no longer consider my obsessive traits as a weakness. Indeed, obsessive-compulsive disorder is no longer a stigma I try to hide; it is, in fact, a useful tool in carrying out my role as a watch journalist.Chopard Mille Miglia Chronograph - rose gold

I admire those who seek perfection with a near-religious zeal. Those professionals who expend a disproportionate amount of time obsessing over the minutest of details, some of which are barely noticeable to a “regular guy,” are my heroes. It is this attention to minutiae that I recognize in some of the finest examples of watchmaking, a quality that augments my affection for haute horlogerie still further.

One watch brand that always entices me to its discount fake watches uk door, courtesy of refined aesthetics and mechanical magnificence, is Chopard.

Chopard offers a variety of timepieces that appeal to me on various levels. Recently, I have had the pleasure of “hands-on” encounters with the Mille Miglia 2014 Race Edition, the G.P.M.H Chronograph, the Superfast, and, most recently, a Mille Miglia GTS Chrono in 18k rose gold.

These models proffer a plethora of attributes and yet, compared with many watches I come across, they remain remarkably affordable. There is no doubt about it: I am a self-confessed fan of Chopard L.U.C, the ultimate expression of Chopard’s watchmaking talent. It is these timepieces that make my palms become sweaty and my pupils dilate.

Remember, as I pointed out in my column last week, I am an addict, and few brands can usurp a Chopard L.U.C when it comes to tempting me to open my wallet and embrace the notion of acquisition.

The seduction process continued at Baselworld 2015…

At Baselworld 2015, the brand successfully ensnared my heart yet again, not merely with one L.U.C model, but three, all prompting words of undying love to leave my lips.

The Chopard L.U.C Quattro has been a staple of the brand’s collection for some time, but this year was released with a stunning blue dial, paired with a platinum case. This model, reference 161926-9001, is already destined for a life residing at Angus Towers, such is its profound beauty. I merely have to employ sufficient cunning to facilitate acquisition.Chopard LUC 1963

The Chopard L.U.C 1963 Tourbillon, which I came across at this year’s Baselworld, was yet another model that engendered horological lust on my part, coquettishly nuzzling my wrist with affectionate aplomb. I must stress now — take care near Chopard L.U.C timepieces, for they can seduce the unsuspecting bystander quicker than you can say, “Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson.” The Dauphine fusée hour and minute hands subscribe to the design language employed on many, but not all, L.U.C models. Positioned in the southerly portion of the white grand feu enamel dial is a freely disclosed tourbillon carriage, visible via an exquisitely polished tourbillon bridge. I will return to this beautiful timepiece later in the year after I have experienced a longer courtship.

Last year, Chopard presented two L.U.C 1963 models, both sporting very elegant dials equipped with crisp, black Roman numerals.

The L.U.C 1963 featured an hour and minutes display, together with small seconds, unusually positioned adjacent to 9 o’clock. The beautiful timepiece was offered in a limited series of 50 pieces in platinum and 50 pieces in 18k rose gold, produced to celebrate Chopard’s 50 years of ownership discount watches uk by the Scheufele family.