Baselworld 2011:Nord Zeitmaschine introduces Variocurve

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Nord Zeitmaschine was born in 1997 at the initiative of Daniel Nebel, a watchmaker based in the north of the Swiss Jura. After studying the faces of many mechanical clocks, Daniel Nebel noticed that with clocks with central hands, peripheral counters, retrograde displays, rotating systems etc., the indicating element (hand, disc, cage, etc.) always rotates around a fixed axis. Looking for a new displaying system without any  fixed rotation center, Daniel Nebel gave birth to the model Variocurve, the 5th piece of his collection.

Due to this fact, the radius of the indicating element always remains constant. In most cases, this constant radius completes a full rotation or, in the case of retrograde displays, only a segment of e.g. 120°. Daniel Nebel was looking for another form of display that involved no fixed centre of rotation. At first he was looking at levers and lever systems to solve the problem, but he found no solution. Either the displayed area of the time was too small or the path of the hand intersected or, in another construction, the optical appearance of the path of the hand was unfavourable. Only after countless simulated constructions did he come up with the solution with the two counter-rotating eccentric cams. After determining the correct positions of the fulcrums and the lengths of the levers, the resulting path that the hands follow was perfect for him. Daniel Nebel chose the position of the eccentric cams so that the maximum displacement (maximum distance per minute) occurs on the hour. As a minor drawback it then turned out that in the range of ¼ before and ¼ past the full hour, the hand only travelled a small distance per minute as a result of the “dead point” of the eccentric cams. Actually, one could easily have lived with the fact that during this low-displacement period, visibility was not that great. But because he was not quite satisfied, he looked for a solution and constructed for this area two segment displays that “run counter” to the hands and thus improve visibility.

Result: During the 60 minutes, the minute hand moves at different speeds and travels along a path with varying curves, which is why he came up with the name VARIOCURVE and named the watch after it. An awesome creation to follow at Baselworld 2011.

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