David Rutten – DR-01 Streamline Meteorite Case Edition

David Rutten – Streamline DR-01 Meteorite Case Limited Edition

FORGED IN SPACE

Designed and developed by David Rutten, it was born out of his passion for watchmaking design and astronomy. Where art meets science. 

 
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The Streamline is a mechanical watch carved in a block of meteorite metal. It will be produced in a limited production run of 88 numbered copies.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL METAL

Just over 13.8 billion years ago, in the middle of an abyssal darkness of an infinite density and a deafening silence: BANG

The three following minutes witnessed the creation of the two basic atoms: hydrogen and helium. Then, within the star stove, the most common elements were charged by protons, neutrons and electrons, until iron. The other chemical elements were eventually formed during the explosion of the supermassive stars.

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Simultaneously, as the explosions went by, some particles spread out, agglomerated and ended up forming huge rocks, more commonly known as planets, gravitating around the stars. The cosmic game of musical chairs led the less fortunate atoms and residues of badly made planets to form asteroids and gravitate around planets, located between Mars and Jupiter in our Solar System.

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As for the planets, the cores of some asteroids are made of iron and nickel whereas, for instance, on our planet the core remains active, providing the magnetic field that protects us. The asteroids’ core went extinct veeeery slowly in the void. There is indeed no air in space, and therefore no thermal conduction, the molten iron of the meteoritic cores experienced a gradual solidification by entropy of 1C° every million year, which led to the fact that the most massive meteorites took more than a billion years to turn solid.

 
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This considerable delay combined with zero gravity brought forth a phenomenon that’s impossible to replicate on Earth in the current state of technology: the typical homogeneous alloy of iron and nickel organised according to an eight-sided crystal structure. Once we’ve cut the meteorite, the octahedron pattern will be recovered.

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This type of meteorites, the octahedrites, is precisely the one we’re interested in.

But before cutting the octahedrite and find out whether its pattern is exploitable, we need to get our hands on it. Our planet has been constantly bombarded with meteorites, most of which are reduced to dust in the atmosphere. Those with sufficient mass generally crash in the oceans, the deserts, the poles, which together represent over 85% of the Earth’s surface.

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Less than 1% of the meteorites found are octahedrites of exploitable size and pattern that we can use to produce our watches. This is approximately three tons a year, to be compared with the 3000 tons of gold currently mined every year. This should also be put in perspective with the present global stock of gold: we are talking about a metal that is 1000 times more seldom than gold…

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Our passion for this metal goes far beyond its market value or even its unique aesthetics. At a time when every corner of the world has already been explored, going at opposite ends of the world has become common practise in the 21th Century, and there is no longer any wonderland. Exotism and mystery died with the democratisation of air travel. But meteorite provides us an artifact of the final frontier, that of infinity, where all is still possible.

RETRO-FUTURISTIC DESIGN

We are here, at the heart of this project. How to bring out this extraterrestrial metal?
For this first piece, David Rutten designed an aperture watch, a design that has been forgotten by the general public since the 1930’s… Although it derives its origins from Art-Deco, this type of design leaves the spotlight on the meteorite metal, giving it pride of place.

To this end, the watch is equipped with flutes running from top to bottom of its surface, which perpetuates the streamline style, sub-genre of Art-Deco. This visual device was often used in science fiction publications, as a mean to make machines more aerodynamic.

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More pragmatically, the bottom of the plate and the crow are made of polished titanium, in order to prevent allergies and lighten the whole (the total weight being 120gr).

The front and back glasses are machined in sapphire and anti-reflective. The hardness of this scratch-resistant substance is about equal to that of diamond.

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In his quest for perfection, David cuts the blocks of meteorite himself before machining, in order to select the direction of the octahedron pattern. This important step determines the final appearance of the whole.

In parallel to this, he developed a technique known to him alone to obtain a polished finishing of the meteorite, whilst revealing the geometric network.

About raw material

Using a telescope, you will be able to guess the area of origin of most of the meteorites used in our watches: the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter, 320 millions km away from Earth. The ultra-slow cooling of iron (about 90%) and nickel (about 9%), composing the extraterrestrial metal, created a unique pattern. Indeed, each watch will feature its own Widmanstätten array. The latter will have a different structure depending on the Streamline series, or the rule, even the vintage or a same meteorite. But some pieces will also feature cobalt inclusions, which anthracite finish amazingly contrasts with the near-white colour of ferronickel.

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The cobalt is embedded within the substance in its liquid state but without merging with the rest, which is impossible to achieve in zero-gravity. Like bronze watches, bear in mind that the material will acquire a patina, making some patterns more visible, depending on the use of your watch, and continuing the life experience of the object.

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Every watch being unique, you will be given the opportunity to choose your own copy. For each vintage, the first subscribers will be granted priority on the choice of the case.

CALIBER DR-01

While it is quite costly in terms of time and money to machine the meteorite, the greatest challenge we had to face during the development of the Streamline was arguably to find an exclusive movement featuring the complication we wanted : jumping hour, minutes, dragging seconds, all in line.

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It would have been unthinkable for us that a precious metal such as meteorite could be powered by an ETA 2892, as it was proposed by many protagonists… Thus we tirelessly looked into the watchmaking galaxy, until we found the movement calibrated for the Streamine, on both counts of exclusiveness and dimensions, because we wanted the movement to take up the entire case, as in the vintage watches that fascinate us.

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So, what about this caliber? We noted a few years ago that mid-size calibers between the 7750 (30mm) and the Unitas (36.6mm) were nowhere to be found on the market. That was before the DR01 caliber with jumping-hours : round caliber, measuring 33.3mm, or 14 ¾ lines, about 8mm thick with its discs. The frequency is 28,800 bph (4hz), with a 120-hours power reserve, which is a working week without having to wind it up. We opted for a sober “octahedron” decoration and a “Ruttenium” treatment of the bridges to stick with the meteoritic theme.

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Our jumping-hour system, developed by our partner, if of recent design. The jump sharply takes place without preliminary clutch of the hour-disc. There’s no perceptible shaking or oscillations. And above all, you can hear it jumping, which is an additional sound complication.

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The DR01 “Streamline” model will be proposed by subscription for the launch of the brand. The presentation-case of the Streamline is the representation of a miniature space observatory resting on a marble base, with its designer’s initials written in cuneiform.

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The owners of a David Rutten DR01 Streamline will be asked to pay a 40% deposit at the time of order placement, and the balance at delivery, by the end of 2019. This is how the first customers will directly finance the production. In the course of this launch subscription, the 88 pieces will be available for €8.500, instead of €15.000.
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Technical Specifications 

Model: DR-01 Streamline

Case
Metal meteorite case, octahedrite (official name: Muonionalusta) found in Sweden in 1906
Polished titanium bottom and crown
Dimensions: width 37mm, length 53mm, thickness 12mm
Glasses: front and back in sapphire, anti-reflective coating.
Waterproof: 5 ATM
Movement
Ref: DR01
Dimensions: 33.3mm soit 14 ¾ lignes
Thickness: 8mm
Frequency: 28.800 a/h (4hz)
Power reserve: 120h (5 days) by two hand-wound barrels
Rubies: 31
Indications
Jumping hours, minutes, seconds
Digital by aperture
Strap
Black Python, handmade. Pin buckle in polished titanium

Guarantee  2 years

Edition
Limited series of 88 pieces

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David Rutten sprl
Joseph Stallaert street, 24
1050 Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: customercare@davidrutten.com
Phone: +32 485 32 52 27
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