Earlier than trying on the Montres KF Spirograph Sport, let’s dive deeper into marine chronometers. Two distinguished options contribute to protecting marine chronometers so extremely exact. Before everything is their use of huge stability wheels. These stability wheels are each heavier and bigger, in comparison with what we’re usually see in wristwatches. Massive adjustable weights on the stability wheel rim additional improve the second of inertia. The bigger the second of inertia of a stability wheel, the extra steady its oscillations. Small shocks or bumps will not disturb it as a lot as they might if the second of inertia had been much less. Second, the stability wheels we see on marine chronometers are often break up, as in not full and strong circles. The sort of stability is known as a compensation stability. The compensation stability is a sandwich of metal and brass, and it modifications its diameter as temperature modifications, to compensate for the temperature-induced modifications within the elasticity of the metal stability springs then in use. As temperature will increase, a watch with a plain metal stability spring will are inclined to lose time; a compensation stability’s outer arms transfer inward as temperature will increase, which tends to trigger a achieve in time, “compensating” for the change in elasticity of the stability. Such balances had been present in marine chronometers but additionally in excessive grade pocket watches as properly, till the invention of contemporary Nivarox-type alloys within the 1920s.
