Removing The Hairspring With Vincent Calabrese

65 years in a watch business.

We had the pleasure to visit independent watchmaker Vincent Calabrese a few days ago in his workshop near Lausanne. As always it was a great pleasure to speak with him and hear him talk about his last patented project the Calasys.

Even if he could be retired having sold his company to Blancpain fifteen years ago, a sale which included several very interesting patents, he never stopped working and maybe the Swatch Group could once again be interested in his latest patent. We are still at the proof of concept stage, but the innovation we uncover in today’s video report could potentially be a serious competitor to Nivarox, the famous hairspring producer.

Yes, with more than sixty years of experience, in his opinion, the major weak point of a mechanical watch is the hairspring and he tried to figure out how to replace an almost 400 years old invention and he found a very interesting and efficient way to do it. Contrary to some who would have tried to change the entire escapement he decided to keep the good old swiss lever escapement and isolated the hairspring with another mechanism called Calasys.

This system contains mainly three parts where only one unique part, a little pinion stays on the balance. All other components, mainly a rack and a double spring, are fixed independently near by the balance but not on the balance, thus having zero influence on the gravity of the balance-wheel.

He will soon start to work on his third prototype and we have the feeling that he is definitely heading in the right direction as his system is neutralizing many inconvenients of a traditional flat hairspring. The next big question is: will the Calasys be easier to produce than a hairspring?

Enjoy our video and Viva Watchmaking!