Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Quantieme Complet Phase de Lune: price, specs, availability

You possibly can be forgiven for assuming that relating to mechanical watches, making the actions is the troublesome half, and the whole lot else simply slots into place. Generally that may nicely be true—and Swiss manufacturers definitely place an infinite quantity of emphasis on the whirring ensemble of wheels and is derived that tells the time.

However whenever you want the remainder of the watch to match as much as the identical degree of high quality, even probably the most superficially unassuming parts will be surprisingly sophisticated to get proper, as Blancpain discovered when it set about growing a ceramic bracelet for its Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe.

Years within the making, the bracelet makes its first look immediately on a model new assortment of Bathyscaphe dive watches, the Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Quantieme Complet Part de Lune—a whole calendar with moon section, which means a watch that shows the day, date, month and lunar cycle, however nonetheless requires handbook adjustment on the finish of every month.

It’s an achieved watch in its personal proper, with a silicon escapement, three-day energy reserve, and that attribute dive bezel with a “liquidmetal” inlay for the textual content.

However what Blancpain is absolutely enthusiastic about is that, for the primary time, the Bathyscaphe—which has been obtainable with a ceramic case since 2015—can now come on a bracelet to match.

It may have occurred years in the past; Blancpain’s mother or father firm Swatch Group owns a specialist firm, Comadur SA, which produces ceramic bracelets for sister manufacturers Omega and Rado. However Blancpain’s guidelines, as one of many group’s most prestigious names, was very explicit, and led to the event of a totally bespoke bracelet, together with two new patents.

Prime of the record was a bracelet that will be as sturdy and resilient as a high-end dive watch would demand. The zirconium oxide used is thought for its floor hardness (scoring 7.5 on the Mohs scale, beneath diamond, at 10, and above titanium, a 6), and its superior strength-to-weight ratio—however it may be brittle.

The ceramic bracelet is constructed with a number of hyperlinks joined collectively by pins. The pins of the Blancpain bracelet have a patented form to each improve flexibility and stopping over flexing.

{Photograph}: Blancpain

The bracelet hyperlinks are lined up for the heating course of, referred to as “sintering”, throughout which the items can shrink by roughly 25 %.

{Photograph}: Blancpain

Multi-link bracelet designs, the Blancpain group defined, are vulnerable to failure if the spacing between hyperlinks is simply too slim and elements are allowed to rub in opposition to one another. However make them too unfastened, and never solely will the bracelet really feel cheaper and fewer safe, its hyperlinks will collide in different methods.

The reply was a fancy system of hyperlinks held collectively by titanium bars, every one hand-screwed into place. Throughout the bracelet, every bar has a patented cam-shaped part that sits inside a flared recess within the facet of the middle hyperlink. Because the bracelet flexes, the titanium cam is ready to transfer inside its recess, however no additional, which means the bracelet is supple inside a managed vary.