Rexhep Rexhepi takes AkriviA into new territory with the AK-06, the first timepiece from our workshop to venture beyond the tourbillon. The basis of this movement comes from the powerful Tourbillon Chiming Jump-Hour AK-03. The AK-06 is reworked to focus purely on time-telling without complication, and to highlight its impressive 100-hour power reserve.
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Another first for AkriviA is the dial-free design. Openworked dials are not new for AkriviA, but the AK-06 brings things to a new level by selectively showcasing all the components relating to the power reserve and its indication. As with all our creations, the philosophical core is positioned at twelve o’clock.
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In the AK-01, it was the column wheel; in the AK-03, it was the strike hammer. In the AK-06, the power reserve display takes this position, along with the counter-balanced racks that neutralise the marginal load of the power reserve display and optimise energy flow towards the balance. In this way, the mystery of high watchmaking is partially opened to the wearer as the mainspring is wound or unwinds, and the mechanism reveals itself.
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Compared to previous models, the tourbillon opening mounted at 6 o’clock has been slightly enlarged and is framed in highly polished, mirror-like steel, making all the parts of the tourbillon escapement and its cage sparkle every second during its rotation. The barrette styled tourbillon bridge is a virtuoso piece of watchmaking skill that has become a trademark of AkriviA’s models so far ; its open worked, filigreed arch is testament to the precision and surety of the watchmaker’s hand and eye, painstakingly crafting a perfect finish on every available surface.
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The inspirational motivation behind this new interpretation of a power reserve timepiece complication was guided by the emotional responses of clients who experience the most intimate moments with their timepiece during the act of winding their watch up. This connection between the human and the machine is showcased by a completely skeletonized power reserve and hand setting mechanism. It allows all the mechanical parts involved in these functions to be visually interactive for the user, acting as a kinetic ballet of time’s passing, adding an extra dimension to the regular motion of the hour and minute hands.
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The steel hands are manually blued on a bed of heated brass filings in a slow process designed to produce an even hue.
Until now, all the design and finishing aspects of the AkriviA Collection’s movements were only visible from the back. With the AK-06, all the many hours of attention given to miniscule details can now be experienced with every glance at the dial.
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The heart of the movement is designed with the same attention to details and also expresses Rexhep Rexhepi’s love of mechanical symmetry found on the dial side. The oversized center wheel is mounted in a special jewel on its own bridge at the epicenter of the AK-06’s baseplate. This epicentric location of the center wheel is a typical characteristic of all watches by the AkriviA atelier to date, and is equally complemented by the perfectly proportioned going train and balance wheel with its micro-adjusters, occupying separate bridges adorned with perfect, hand executed anglage.
The movement architecture layout, the curves of the bridges, their visual balance and placement, size and proportions, everything has to reveal a unified concept. This beauty of the movement itself was always a source of pride and a distinguishing feature in the tradition of Geneva watchmaking.
A stable and long power reserve is always an added benefit to promoting excellent chronometric results. However, setting the time is often overlooked as a source of inaccuracies. For this reason, the AK-06 movement has a combined stop seconds and seconds reset functionality. The combination of these two results in a very rare ‘mini-complication’ that is rarely found in wristwatches today.
A normal stop seconds function to promote setting the time accurately is well known in watchmaking; however the 0-seconds reset in the AK-06 is an expression of a love and deep respect for timekeeping accuracy.
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Through the use of a small heart piece, very similar to that found in the resetting mechanism of chronographs, the reset seconds hammer returns the seconds to ‘0’ simultaneously with the stop seconds function. That is to say, these two functions work in perfect harmony with the simple action of pulling out the crown. This makes extremely accurate time setting to the second a very simple affair for the user.
Although the fine finishing of a watch is an art form unto itself, it also fulfills practical functions. The visual effect of all the effort is of course beautiful to behold, but in fact, finishing changes the atomic structure of the outer layers of the metal itself, by simultaneously hardening the surface and sealing it off from the reception of microscopic amounts of moisture, dirt and possible oil from the interior of the movement. It is in fact an act of love with an eye to the longevity and protection of the watch to a time far into the future.
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This is also why extreme high-quality finishing is at the heart of the AkriviA atelier philosophy. Looking closely at the movement, you will see that the anglage created on the edges of all parts is rounded in what is called a bombé cross section, in opposition to the standard and fully or partially machine created anglage used today throughout Switzerland at large manufactures. This technique of rounded edges is much more time consuming to produce and cannot be prepared in advance by the use of machines.
Starting with the basic flat piece of material with 90∘ angled edges, one of the first steps is to create a rounded edge by filing the edges into shape in several steps, which perfectly follows the edge outline equidistantly into every curve and corner.
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From the raw parts to finally finished parts, here is a general overview of the steps required to create perfectly finished watch parts and movement:
- . Primary quality control of each machined piece
- . Preparation of upper and of lower sinks
- . Grinding of movement underside and sides followed by filing
- . Geneva stripes are executed
- . Anglage grinding of curved and straight parts
- . Anglage filing of curved and straight parts, including edges
- . Anglage polishing of all filed edges in several steps
- . Polishing of sinks
- . Black polish surface polishing where required
- . Final polishing using a stick of the Gentian plant for the highest gloss.
This plant grows freely in the mountainsides of the valley, and has been used for centuries in such work. The softer, inner layer of the wood is used together with diamond paste in order to achieve an extremely high gloss finish. Such finishing is absolutely impossible to achieve with the standard use of electric tools or via CNC machining.
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Technical Specifications
Collection: AK-06
Model AK-06 Chronometre
Movement
New manual-winding AK-06 movement – created,
developed, decorated and assembled in-house.
100 hours power reserve using a jeweled, single barrel.
(With stop seconds and 0-seconds reset function).
Movement dimensions: Ø 30.00 MM
Jewels: 28
Balance wheel: In-house developed variable inertia balance wheel (10.5 mm) using 4 adjustable weights combined with Breguet overcoil.
Frequency: 18,000 VPH (2.5 Hz)
Decoration:
The entire movement’s visible and non-visible parts have been hand-finished to the highest Genevan traditions usingseveral traditional techniques: black polish, Côtes de Genève, hand polished and brushed surfaces, Rhodium treatment, beading and hand engraving and entirely handmade anglage.
Case
Dimensions: 41mm x 9.9mm
Made of three parts with screwed case back and alternate polished and brushed finishing
Glare proofed front sapphire; see-through case back with sapphire
Water resistance: 3 ATM (30 meters)
Display
Hours, minute, seconds, power reserve indicator
Bracelet
Dark blue calf leather
Tang buckle
Lug width 21 mm
Chronometer certification
On client’s request and an additional cost the watch can be Chronometer certified by the Besançon Observatory. With this option the watch is being delivered with a “Bulletin de marche de chronométrie” after a thorough testing of the complete watch during 16 days consecutive days.
Warranty
3 years.
Any necessary work performed under guarantee extends the duration of it by one year.
Price:
Price of CHF 79,000 for the stainless steel version,
CHF 83,000 for a titanium case,
CHF 87,000 for 5N rose gold and CHF 92,000 for platinum.
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Press Release - 2019
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