American clockmaker Rick Hale’s new Wind & Water has a lot of nerdy mechanical and horological tidbits to geek out over, not to mention some fun woodworking details that add another level like a timber grasshopper escapement (with wooden pallets, naturally). But it’s the fluid design and immersible craftsmanship that is bound to take your the breath away.
Halloween, a word contracted from “All Hallow’s Eve,” is a predominately American celebration whose traditions come from late nineteenth-century Celtic origins. And along comes a modern mechanical time-telling spider in celebration, the MB&F Arachnophobia – a realistic-looking arachnid made of metal and other materials traditionally used in watchmaking. Look upon it if you dare!
The 850-year-old Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, one of the world’s most iconic buildings, was devastated by a fire on April 15, 2019 during renovations, which destroyed much of its roof and spires as well as the cathedral’s nineteenth-century clock. Unfortunately, there were no plans or digital files of the clock. Luckily, though, a nearly identical clock movement was recently discovered and a passionate team is working to use that as a template for (funds permitting) rebuilding a new clock for Notre-Dame.
Joshua Munchow feels a philosophical bond with John-Mikaël Flaux, an independent watchmaker and automaton designer, just from how Flaux describes himself and why he creates. Joshua loves the mechanical marvels he constructs, but it’s deeper than the result of his craftsmanship: Flaux is a mechanically curious person and his passion comes through in the objects he makes. Find out exactly what those are right here.
TriPod designer Maximilian Maertens says that for him MB&F is a love story. He also says that nobody else is as positively crazy as MB&F founder Maximilan Büsser. Maertens knows that most of his pieces are too extroverted and too crazy for most. Luckily for us the two Maxes work together. And now let’s welcome TriPod.
For Martin Green, the MB&F L’Épée 1839 Massena Lab T-Rex Bronze seems more raw and animalistic than its predecessors, as though you can smell the scent of this top predator moving through dense vegetation. He thinks that the true T-Rex variation has landed, and here he explains why.
One viewing of the Parmigiani Fleurier Hippologia in action is enough to confirm that its two horses’ gaits seem completely fluid and natural. The Hippologia displays two horses, a mare, and a foal taking a stroll around a Lalique glassware cabinet enclosing the highly complicated automaton and eight-day clock movement. This is an object that needs to be seen to be believed.
Clockmakers rarely get the credit they deserve, and Elizabeth Doerr believes that Rick Hale is deserving of at least a few minutes of your attention because this young autodidact clockmaker is doing something unique: handmaking self-designed clocks out of wood according to some of John Harrison’s principles.
There are clocks that deserve to be talked about, written about, bought, and enjoyed. And this goes double for any and all of the unique timepieces by independent horologist Miki Eleta. Elizabeth Doerr had the pleasure of seeing Eleta’s latest masterpiece, Natuhrzeit, at Baselworld 2019 and she has not been able to get it out of her mind since. Enjoy the show!
In Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, the great man introduced the concept of “spacetime: henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.” Which segues nicely into the discovery of a clock by Gustave Sandoz that doesn’t tell the time: it tells distance.