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This page is a glossary of terms associated with horology, watches and watchmaking, please click one of the links above. If you would like us to list any other words that you think may be helpful, please contact me direct chris@christopherward.co.uk  

N - WATCH WORDS

Nivarox
Trade name (from the producer's name) of a steel alloy, resisting magnetization, used for modern self-compensating balance springs. The level of this material is indicated by the numeral following the name in decreasing value from 1 to 5. back to top

O - WATCH WORDS

Observatory Chronometer
An observatory-tested precision watch that obtained the relevant rating chronometer certificate. back to top

Oscillation
Complete oscillation or rotation movement of the balance, formed by two vibrations. back to top

P - WATCH WORDS

Pallets
Device of the escapement transmitting part of the motive force to the balance, in order to maintain the amplitude of oscillations unchanged by freeing a tooth of the escape wheel at one time. back to top

Pillar-Plate or Main Plate
A metal platform having several tiers for the gear train. The base plate of a movement usually incorporates the dial and carries the bearings for the primary pinions of the “first floor” of a gear train. back to top

Pinion
Combines with a wheel and an arbor to form a gear. A pinion has less teeth than a wheel and transmits motive force to a wheel. Pinion teeth (normally 6 to 14) are highly polished to reduce friction to a minimum. back to top

Pivot
End of an arbor turning on a jewel support. As their shape and size can influence friction, the pivots of the balance-staff are particularly thin and, hence, fragile, so they are protected by a shockproof system. back to top

Polished Finish
Brilliant metal surface obtained on the watch case with fine abrasive. Compare with brushed finish. back to top

Power Reserve
Duration, in hours, of the residual functioning autonomy of a movement after it has reached the winding peak. The duration value is displayed by an instantaneous indicator: analogue (hand on a sector) or digital (through a window). The related mechanism is made up of a series of gears linking the winding barrel and hand. Recently, specific modules were introduced which may be combined with the most popular movements. back to top

Precision
Accuracy rate of a watch, a term difficult to define exactly. Usually, a precision watch is a chronometer of which accuracy-standard is certified by an official watch-rating bureau. back to top

Pusher, Push-Piece or Push Button
Mechanical element mounted on a case for the control of specific functions. Generally, pushers are used in chronographs, but also with other functions. back to top

PVD
Abbreviation of Physical Vapour Deposition, a plating process consisting of the physical transfer of substance by bombardment of electrons. back to top

Q - WATCH WORDS

Quartz
Timekeeping’s technical revolution found its way to the world’s wrists in the late 1960’s. This was principally a Swiss invention (the first working quartz watches were made by Girard-Perregaux and Piaget in a Swiss joint venture) but it was the Japanese firms, primarily Seiko, who were the first to see the advantages of the new technology and came to dominate the market. The quartz movement uses the famously stable vibration frequency of a quartz crystal subjected to the electronic tension (usually 32,868Hz) as its norm. The Malvern Chronograph has the renowned Ronda Calibre 5040D, as its quartz movement. back to top

Quartz Movement
A movement powered by a quartz crystal. Quartz crystals are very accurate. They can be mass produced which makes them less expensive than most mechanical movements which require a higher degree craftsmanship. back to top

R - WATCH WORDS

Ratchet Wheel
Toothed wheel prevented from moving by a click pressed down by a spring. back to top

Regulating Unit
Made up by balance and balance spring, governing the division of time within the mechanical movement, assuring its regular running and accuracy. As the balance works like a pendulum, the balance spring's function consists of its elastic return and start of a new oscillation. This combined action determines the frequency, i.e. the number of vibrations per hour, and affects the rotation speed of the different wheels. In fact the balance, by its oscillations, at every vibration (through the action of the pallets), frees a tooth of the escape wheel (see escapement). From this, motion is transmitted to the fourth wheel, which makes a revolution in one minute, to the third and then the centre wheel, the latter making a full rotation in one hour. However, everything is determined by the correct time interval of the oscillations of the balance. back to top

Regulator
Regulating the functioning of a movement by lengthening and shortening the active section of the balance spring. It is positioned on the balance-bridge and encompasses the balance spring with its two pins near its fixing point on the bridge itself. By shifting the index, the pins also are moved and, by consequence, the portion of the balance spring capable of bringing the balance back is lengthened or shortened by its elastic force.

The shorter it is, the more reactive it tends to be and the more rapidly it brings the balance back and makes the movement run faster. The contrary happens when the active portion of the balance spring is lengthened. Given today's high frequencies of functioning, even slight index shifts entail daily variations of minutes. Recently, even more refined index-regulation systems were adopted (from eccentric to micrometer screws) to limit error margins to very few seconds per day. back to top

Retrograde
Said of a hand that, instead of making a revolution of 360º before starting a new measurement, moves on an arc scale (generally of 90º to 180º and at the end of its trip comes back instantaneously. Normally, retrograde hands are used to indicate date, day or month in perpetual calendars, but there are also cases of retrograde hours, minutes or seconds. Unlike the case of the classical indication over 360º the retrograde system requires a special mechanism to be inserted into the basic movement. back to top

Rotating Bezel
A bezel that can be turned. Different types of rotating bezels perform different time keeping and mathematical functions. back to top

Rotor
The rotor is the component that keeps an automatic watch wound. The kinetic motion of this part, which contains a heavy metal weight around its outer edge, winds the mainspring. back to top

S - WATCH WORDS

Sapphire Crystal
Synthetic sapphire crystal is a virtually scratchproof material with a hardness of 9 on the Mohs scale which means only a diamond is harder. The material is known to gemmologists as aluminium oxide or corundum, can be colourless (corundum), red (ruby), blue (sapphire) or green (green sapphire). It is “grown” using a method invented by Auguste Victor Louis Verneuil in 1902 whereby a process that usually takes a thousand years to complete is accelerated to just a few hours, hence the use of the term synthetic. Unsurprisingly, sapphire crystal has become the material of choice to protect the dials of all high end modern wristwatches including all Christopher Ward timepieces. back to top

Scale
Graduation on a measuring instrument, showing the divisions of a whole of values, especially on a dial, bezel. The scales mostly used in horology are related to the following measuring devices: tachometer (indicating the average speed), telemeter (indicating the distance of a simultaneously luminous and acoustic source, e.g. a cannon-shot or a thunder and related lightning), pulsometer (to calculate the total number of heartbeats per minute by counting only a certain quantity of them). For all of these scales, measuring starts at the beginning of the event concerned and stops at its end; the reading refers directly to the chronograph second hand, without requiring further calculations. back to top

Screw Balance
Before the invention of the perfectly weighted balance by use of a smooth ring, balances were fitted with weighted screws to get the exact impetus desired. Today a screw balance is a subtle sign of quality in a movement due to its costly construction. back to top

Second Time-Zone Indicator
An additional dial that can be set to the time in another time zone. It lets the wearer keep track of local time and the time in another country simultaneously. See also GMT and world time. back to top

Sector
A circular sector, also known as a "pie piece" ,is the portion of a circle (or dial) enclosed by two radii. back to top

Self-Winding
A watch whose mechanical movement is wound automatically. A rotor makes short oscillations due to the movements of the wrist. Through a series of gears, oscillations transmit motion to the barrel, thus winding the mainspring progressively. back to top

Shockproof or Shock-Resistant
Watches provided with shock-absorber systems (e.g. Incabloc) help prevent damage from shocks to the balance pivots. Thanks to a retaining spring system, it assures an elastic play of both jewels, thus absorbing the movements of the balance-staff pivots when the watch receives strong shocks. The return to the previous position is due to the return effect of the spring. If such a system is lacking, the shock forces exert an impact on the balance-staff pivots, often causing bending or even breakage. back to top

Slide
Part of a mechanism moving with friction on a slide-bar or guide. back to top

Small Second
Time display in which the second hand is placed in a small subdial. back to top

Solar Time
The time standard referred to the relative motion of the Earth and the Sun governing the length of day and night. The true solar day is the period measured after the Sun appears again in the same position from our point of observation. Due to the non-uniform rotation of the Earth around the Sun, this measure is not regular. As an invariable measure unit, the mean solar day corresponds to the average duration of all the days of the year. back to top

Solstice
The time when the sun is farthest from the equator, i.e. or the Northern Hemisphere on June 21st (Summer solstice) and December 21st (Winter solstice). back to top

Split-Second Chronograph
Also known in the watch industry by its French name, the rattrapante. A watch with two second hands, one of which can be blocked with a special dial train lever to indicate an intermediate time while the other continues to run. When released, the split-seconds hand jumps ahead to the position of the other second hand. Both the C3 Malvern and C4 Peregrine have this useful function. back to top

Spring Barrel
The spring barrel contains the mainspring. It turns freely on an arbor, pulled along by the toothed wheel generally doubling as its lid. This wheel interacts with the first pinion of the movement’s gear train. Some movements contain two or more spring barrels for added power reserve. back to top

Stopwatch
A watch with a seconds hand that measures intervals of time. When a stopwatch is incorporated into a standard watch, both the stopwatch function and the timepiece are referred to as a chronograph. back to top

Stopwork
Traditional device (now obsolete) provided with a finger piece fixed to the barrel arbor and a small wheel in the shape of a Maltese cross mounted on the barrel cover, limiting the extent to which the barrel can be wound. back to top

Super-Luminova
Christopher Ward watches use Super-LumiNova, a photo-luminescent non-radioactive material with a long period of phosphorescence. It reaches up to 100 times the brightness of Tritium. Tritium was the original, radioactive, substance used to coat hands, numerals and hour markers on watch dials to make reading the time in the dark possible. back to top

Sweep Second Hand
A centre second hand, i.e. a second hand mounted on the centre of the main dial. back to top

T - WATCH WORDS

Tachometer or Tachymeter
A scale on the dial, flange, or bezel (as in the case of our C4 Peregrine) of a chronograph that, in conjunction with the second hand, gives the speed of a moving object. A tachymeter takes a value determined in less than a minute and converts it into miles or kilometres per hour. For example, the wearer could measure the time it takes a car to pass between two mile markers on a road. When the car passes the second marker, the second hand will be pointing to the car’s speed in miles per hour on the tachometric scale. back to top

Thermo-compensation
Quartz watches split time by exploiting the electromechanical phenomenon known as Piezoelectricity. When a continuous electrical current runs through it, the quartz crystal starts resonating at a constant frequency. Crystal oscillators for watches are manufactured to vibrate at 215Hz (32,768 Hz), a frequency that will then be halved 16 consecutive times by a processor to obtain the second (unit of time). The problem with quartz crystals is that they are easily affected by temperature: they tend to vibrate faster in heat and slower in cold. As a consequence, quartz watch can have between -10 to +15 sec. variations per month. Bearing in mind that mechanical watches can variate by -10 to + 15 sec. per day, the quartz oscillator is still far more accurate than the anchor escapement found in mechanical watches. The solution ETA engineers found was to add a thermometer that constantly feeds information to the processor, allowing it to compensate for errors caused by temperature. As a consequence, movements using this technology can be accurate to -10 to +15 sec. per year. This move by Christopher Ward to use a super-accurate quartz movement and to get it certified shows their commitment to using the best movements available for their timepieces. back to top

Time Zones
The 24 equal zones into which the surface of the Earth is conventionally divided, each limited by two meridians. The distance between two adjacent zones is 15º or 1 hour. Each country adopts the time of its zone, except for countries with more than one zone. The universal standard time is that of the zero zone, the axis of which is the Greenwich meridian. back to top

Titanium
Titanium is an environmentally friendly, natural metal that is 40% stronger and 30% lighter than stainless steel. It is hypoallergenic because it is nickel-free. It is perfect for water sport enthusiasts as it is extremely resistant to salt water and other forms of corrosion and able to withstand extreme temperatures. Many titanium watches are further enhanced with a glass coating for increased scratch resistance. back to top

Tonneau
Particular shape of a watchcase, imitating the profile of a barrel, i.e. with straight, shorter, horizontal sides and curved, longer, vertical sides. back to top

Tourbillon
A technically demanding device invented by Abraham Louis Breguet in 1801 to compensate for the interference of gravity on the balance of a pocket watch, thus improving its rate. In a tourbillon (from the French word for whirlwind), the entire escapement is mounted on an epicyclic train in a “cage” and rotated completely on its axis over regular periods of time, usually once a minute. This superb horological highlight, whilst being completely unnecessary for a wristwatch, is seen as a sign of technological know-how in the modern era. One day we may decide to commission our own CW tourbillon and have had early conversations with a bespoke manufacture of haute horologie. Watch this space. back to top

Tritium
Slightly radioactive material that collects light energy and is used to coat hands, numerals, and hour markers on watch dials in order to make reading the time in the dark possible. Watches bearing tritium must be marked as such, with the letter T on the dial near 6 o'clock. It is gradually being replaced by nonradioactive materials such as Superluminova and Traser due to medical misgivings and expected governmental regulation of its use. back to top

Two-Tone
A term use to indicate that a watch has both "silver" and "gold" tone color which may or may not be genuine gold or silver. back to top