Vostok watches

Transcription

Today Dimitri has a bad day you know, the kind of day when you drop everything Our friend has dropped his favorite watch and almost broke it Good thing that his watch is special they are the "Komandirskie" The "Komandirskie" watch was created specially for the military The watch has a solid waterproof case luminous hands and the watch's caseback was made of anti-magnetic metal in case of a nuclear explosion Dimitri is not wearing his "Komandirskie" because he is in the military but because he is a designer for the modern "Komandirskie" watch and Dimitri will explain to us why the legendary "Komandirskie" are not afraid of humidity, dust or shocks We also would like to know why the "Komandirskie" are so accurate Let's begin by visiting the watch factory and let's visit the workshop where the main plate is made The main plate is the base upon which the watch's mechanism is built It is cut out of brass plates Then over 100 holes are drilled into the main plate Then rubies are placed inside these holes These rubies are synthetic, but for a watch mechanism they are still a precious element Having the proper number of jewels ensures the watch will be more accurate and sturdy Why? Just watch... The wheels and axis which are in constant motion in a watch create friction To prevent the moving parts from wearing down, they are positioned on jewels like rubies, sapphires or garnets These jewels play the role of incredibly resistant bearings and they protect the various parts of the mechanism which don't wear down, so retain their accuracy Thus from a small brass plate We now have a ready base for the watch stuffed with artificial rubies Let's go further We are now in the "invisible details workshop" Let's watch As the machine-tolls are working even though the details are invisible Is this some kind of magic? But if we look carefully minute details the size of a grain of rice You are not going to believe this but this is the biggest part our camera could see Amazing no? There are 211 such microscopic details in this watch and all of them are cut by machine-tools But that is not all Dimitri has asked one of the engineers to give him a tiny wheel We will take a closer look at it now with the help of a special projector This machine will increase the size of the wheel several hundreds of times It turns out that our microscopic wheel also has small notches When all the details are ready they are sent to the assembly workshop But how are watches assembled in the first place? In the 16th century Galileo noticed that an attached weight regularly swings back and forth and Galileo proposed to use the pendulum for clocks The mechanical energy of a clock comes from either a pendulum or from a mainspring When we wind up our watch we tension this mainspring Then, when the mainspring unfolds a system of wheels transmits this energy to the heart of the clock: The balance wheel which, in turn, moves the hands across the dial Inside the balance there is a spring which is thinner than a human hair From one kilogram of this special alloy we could make 50 kilometers of such wire The balance wheel is the most important part of a watch and if it is not assembled properly the watch will either not run accurately or will stop altogether By the way, if you drop your watch and it stopped running you most likely have damaged your balance wheel Now we can answer our initial question why do the "Komandirskie" watches not fear shocks? because the balance wheel is protected by a shock absorber Let's watch During a shock the balance staff breaks down When the watch falls, the balance staff hits the jewel and bends out of shape But if we place a spring on top of the jewel it will absorb the shock and return the jewel to the correct position and the balance staff will not be damaged A 24 hours cycle is composed of 86,400 seconds and this is exactly the number of seconds an accurate watch should count to achieve this level of accuracy All 211 watch parts are assembled manually and at least fifty different pairs of hands work on each watch We still need to find the answer to another question Why do the "Komandirskie" not fear being exposed to humidity It is claimed that the "Komandirskie" can be submerged to a depth of 200 meters The secret of this is in the protective watch crystal made of organic glass When, for example, a demolition diver submerges himself under water the water pressure acts on the crystal which flattens and pushes against the watch case thus making the watch even more waterproof The final element of the watch production: the checking of every produced watch Watches are tested for water resistance and accuracy The new watches spend several hours in this special machine and are subsequently place in a safe In another 24 hours the watches are rotated and tested again this testing continues for two weeks If any watch is found to be inaccurate by more then 20 seconds they will be sent back for re-timing After visiting the workshops Dimitri became even more convinced of the invulnerability of his watch and he decided to try an incredible experiment You have already guessed what will happen next Dimitri will check to see whether his watch can resist the pressure of a 2 ton car Incredibly, this mechanical watch is still working This is technology!