Speaking of a proper introduction, Grand Seiko attended “Watches and Wonders” for the first time this year and surprised everyone with the launch of the Grand Seiko Kodo Constant-Force Tourbillon.
In addition to their first participation in this event, this masterpiece of a watch included several accomplishments not previously seen.
It starts with the choice of the name “Kodo” which stands for heartbeat.
The designer of the mechanism, Takuma Kawauchiya, is an avid guitarist and after his music career decided to focus on watchmaking. Because of his love of music, the sound that the mechanism makes was also of great importance to him. The sound of the Grand Seiko Kodo, with its 8 beats and the extra tick for the constant force, corresponds to the sound of a 1/16 the note in music.
Grand Seiko started developing the mechanism in 2012 which proves that they did not rushed things in development. This mechanism was codenamed project T0 and was showcased to the public in 2020 as a concept mechanism with now in 2022 a first timepiece with this beautiful piece of craftsmanship as its inner workings. In Grand Seiko’s sixty-two year history, it is also the brand’s first mechanical complication watch.
The mechanism consists of 2 different techniques: constant force and tourbillon.
Constant Force
When you fully wind a “manual wind” watch it works optimally at first because the spring is fully wound. As the spring is unwound the watch loses accuracy. The contant force mechanism ensures that over the full cycle the watch maintains its same accuracy.
Tourbillon
A tourbillon is an invention of watchmaker Breguet and was initially developed for pocket watches. Since these pocket watches are always suspended in a vertical position they are subject to gravity which pulls everything from the mechanism down and thus negatively affects accuracy. By creating a mechanism that constantly rotates around its own axis, the effect of gravity is eliminated.
The combination of a tourbillon and constant force mechanism in a watch is not unique but the 2 mechanisms together on 1 axis is a first.
This combination avoids the presence of an additional transmission with a higher accuracy achieving a time deviation of only 0.5 seconds per day !
In addition, the mechanism is an 8 vibrations per second movement or 28800 vibrations per hour also the first time this has been implemented in a constant force mechanism. This high “beat rate” additionally contributes to the accuracy of the timepiece.
This kind of complex timepiece is usually quite fragile but Grand Seiko has provided a solution here as well. By using not 1 but 2 types of metal, platinum 950 and Grand Seiko’s own Brilliant Hard Titanium, a robust mechanism is created with a case that is also 100m waterproof.
Towards finishing, this timepiece is made in line with Grand Seiko’s reputation for refined hand-finishings, exhibits the case mirror-polished (Zaratsu) areas and hairline finish.
The only downside to this watch is that it will only be produced in a limited edition run of 20 pieces and it comes with a rather hefty price tag of 350.000 euros.