Watch features: Tourbillon

When it comes to watch features, the first thing that comes to mind is calendar. Someone may call to mind self-winding and only a sophisticated person will say “tourbillon”. “Whirlwind” or Tourbillon in French appeared in 1795 in the Abraham-Louis Bréguet’s workshop.

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The main task of this complex mechanism is to level the impact of Earth gravity on the balance unit to increase movement accuracy. The case is that the unit is not symmetrical in relation to the spiral axis, meaning its operation under the impact of external force is irregular. To solve this problem Bréguet located the balance-spiral unit together with release details inside the turning unit, which axis of rotation is the same as the spiral axis. Using the energy of watch mainspring, the structure makes a complete turn for one minute. As a result, the obtained rotation pattern has the centre of gravity precisely at the necessary point, which actually negates the error of movement brought by Earth’s gravity.


To this day the manufacturing of tourbillon is the lot of leading watch workshops. You can never find it in the watches of mass market. The open balance spiral, which sometimes can be found in the watches of mass market is only a pathetic imitation of true watch art.



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