Maîtres du Temps - Chapter Three Reveal

0 0 Friday, 9 August 2013 Edit this post

Maîtres du Temps is not the typical watch brand. In fact, the founder Steven Holtzman started this project to bring groups of independent master watchmakers together to develop exclusive timepieces.

The latest creation of Maîtres du Temps is called Chapter Three Reveal and it is the result of the cooperation of the master watchmakers Kari Voutilainen and Andreas Strehler with Voutilainen more focused on the movement and Strehler on the mechanisms, including the one for operating the dial panels.

The Chapter Three Reveal features time, date, moon phase, a second time zone, and a day/night indicator. However, the second time zone and the day /night indicator are not visible until the lucky owner presses the pusher set into the crown. In fact, the pusher opens secret panels in the dial that reveal second time zone and day/night indications on rollers.

With the panels closed, the central hours and minutes are complemented on the dial by a small seconds sub-dial at 8 o’clock that is balanced by the date sub-dial at 2 o’clock. At 4 o’clock, we find the small moon phase indicator.

The day/night roller rotates in 24 hours and features engraved, polished, printed, and hand-painted icons: the sun to symbolize day and the night sky to represent night. The home time and day/night rollers are synchronized with the time indication. Pressing the pusher set into the caseband at 9 o’clock disengages the synchronization and enables the hours and minutes to be set to a second time zone while travelling.

To maximize legibility, the second time zone at the bottom of the dial is displayed on two separate rollers: hours 1–6 on one and 7–12 on the other. When transitioning from 6 to 7 or 12 to 1, the superseded roller slides horizontally out of the way, and the new roller moves into place. Using two rollers instead of one means that only six numbers must be displayed around the circumference of each roller, enabling them to be twice as large, so twice as easy to read.

The Chapter Three Reveal movement, developed by Kari Voutilainen with refinements and technical solutions by Andreas Strehler, is both Maîtres du Temps’ first completely in-house movement and the first movement Voutilainen has developed for a brand other than his own.

To ensure the highest precision, the movement is regulated by a Straumann escapement, which features a lightweight energy-efficient escape lever and balance spring with an isochronism-improving Breguet overcoil.

The round gold case has a diameter of 42 mm and offers water resistance to 30 mt. Several case and dial variations are available.