Frodsham Double Impulse Chronometer

[d11n]

I had the opportunity to see with and without ciphers in person as I visited with Richard at Frodsham. I loved the ciphers, so I went with them.

[Watchflair]

Originally Posted by kunlun

I'm sure if you ask 10 people, you'll get 10 opinions. All of these are very, very fine watches.

I'll give my take.

A Voutilainen vingt-8 is lovely, and you get a lot of customization options, these options affect the price, of course. The width can go from 38mm to 42mm and about 12mm thick. Kari's own company can do great enameled guilloché work. He was very open to most things when I asked him about some ideas. The only idea he hated was a deployant clasp!

So, I think that's the best option if customization is the most important.
Also, his watches have nice Swiss style finishing with anglage, etc. There are a lot options with movement finishing as well, you could have the mainplates frosted or given Geneva waves, for example.

In terms of something a lot of people don't care so much about, horology, Kari uses a double wheel escapement, which is a rare and very cool thing. This is a modern version of A.L. Breguet's natural escapement. That's awesome and it's hard to overstate how much more horologically interesting a KV is than, say, a Philippe Dufour, which obviously has its own extraordinary and marvelous beauty, but is horologically dull.

However, in the context of this comparison, and really only in this sort of comparison, then there is a caveat. In the late 18th century, A.L. Breguet abandoned his natural escapement due to issues with the play and proper meshing of the gears. Modern technology and methods allows for much finer precision. So. Kari's escapement works well...but it still has the issues Breguet's did in theory. It's an advance in materials and production tolerances, but not in design. I talked to Kari in person about this in the before times when people met in person.
Anyway, a great watchmaker and he had a 10 month wait at that time.


Roger W Smith's watches are fantastic, their price point is higher than other watches, if that matters.
There is also some customization possible, although less than with Kari. I should be frank, I think Roger's watches are the most beautiful watches. The GREAT Britain is super lovely in person. They are 13.5mm thick, which is at the point where it's not going under a shirt cuff as easily. Has a co-axial escapement ever been put in a production watch under 10mm thick? I know it's possible, but it seems to never happen, if only someone would *cough*Omega*cough*.

Anyway, the finish is in the English style, very little anglage, frosted plates, black polish, but Roger's been doing engraving on the plates more to make them more fancy. It's lovely, but still very far from the showiness of the Swiss style (which George Daniels criticized). The English style is understated to avoid a showing off that they found tacky and distracting from the horology. That's why you see a lot of black polish as a hand-work intensive accent that doesn't draw too much attention to itself. The idea is that quality speaks for itself.

The escapement is co-axial, the second of George Daniels' escapements, only possible with the help of Derek Pratt, whom Daniels could never bring himself to credit fully. It's a compromise escapement, made to fulfill Daniels' desire to see one of his escapements bought and used by a major Swiss brand. It has one direct and one indirect impulse and requires lubrication in the escapement (Roger is looking to a future use of ADLC coating on the movement to eliminate this). Roger also doesn't use a Breguet terminal curve on the hairspring, which is ridiculous. It's nice but isn't the peak, from the point of view of horology which nobody cares about. He had a 3+ year wait when I asked a while back...


Finally, there is the Frodsham. Designed over a 15 year period to be a no-compromise daily wearing chronometre, it has as close to an ideal escapement for a watch as can be found within traditional watchmaking. The Daniels double escapement brillantly perfects A.L. Breguet's natural escapement and solves the issue inherent in the original design. It's a completely oil-free escapement and gives only direct impluses and has a much, much higher degree of detachment. For a very rate stable chronometer, you want a very high detachment, this is the degree to which the balance is disturbed by the detent--the greater the disturbance, the less detachment. So, the horology that many people don't care about is a main event here with the first ever use of Daniels double impulse escapement in a wristwatch. For those who aren't as into the horology, they still have a very well crafted, very high quality, true chronometer of a timepiece.

I've spoken enough about the other qualities of the watch in previous posts in this thread, but it really is made to let the quality speak for itself in the truest English style. In steel or white gold, this is the real daily wearer of the three, hands down. One member of the Frodsham design team wore a prototype on long bike rides and bike commutes to work for months, the other mowed his lawn and did everything else while wearing it. I spoke to the first person to buy one and he confirmed his keeps excellent time.
The customization options here are much less than the other choices. This is the most understated movement in terms of finishing, but there's some very nice black polish. Althpugh this is the thinnest watch of the three at 10.5mm, 42mm may not fit every wrist.
It's a 3 year wait currently.

I went with the Frodsham, but any of these are amazing watches made by fantastic watchmakers.

Thank you for this! Very informative - appreciate it

[Sinanamus]

Originally Posted by kunlun

I'm sure if you ask 10 people, you'll get 10 opinions. All of these are very, very fine watches.

I'll give my take.

A Voutilainen vingt-8 is lovely, and you get a lot of customization options, these options affect the price, of course. The width can go from 38mm to 42mm and about 12mm thick. Kari's own company can do great enameled guilloché work. He was very open to most things when I asked him about some ideas. The only idea he hated was a deployant clasp!

So, I think that's the best option if customization is the most important.
Also, his watches have nice Swiss style finishing with anglage, etc. There are a lot options with movement finishing as well, you could have the mainplates frosted or given Geneva waves, for example.

In terms of something a lot of people don't care so much about, horology, Kari uses a double wheel escapement, which is a rare and very cool thing. This is a modern version of A.L. Breguet's natural escapement. That's awesome and it's hard to overstate how much more horologically interesting a KV is than, say, a Philippe Dufour, which obviously has its own extraordinary and marvelous beauty, but is horologically dull.

However, in the context of this comparison, and really only in this sort of comparison, then there is a caveat. In the late 18th century, A.L. Breguet abandoned his natural escapement due to issues with the play and proper meshing of the gears. Modern technology and methods allows for much finer precision. So. Kari's escapement works well...but it still has the issues Breguet's did in theory. It's an advance in materials and production tolerances, but not in design. I talked to Kari in person about this in the before times when people met in person.
Anyway, a great watchmaker and he had a 10 month wait at that time.


Roger W Smith's watches are fantastic, their price point is higher than other watches, if that matters.
There is also some customization possible, although less than with Kari. I should be frank, I think Roger's watches are the most beautiful watches. The GREAT Britain is super lovely in person. They are 13.5mm thick, which is at the point where it's not going under a shirt cuff as easily. Has a co-axial escapement ever been put in a production watch under 10mm thick? I know it's possible, but it seems to never happen, if only someone would *cough*Omega*cough*.

Anyway, the finish is in the English style, very little anglage, frosted plates, black polish, but Roger's been doing engraving on the plates more to make them more fancy. It's lovely, but still very far from the showiness of the Swiss style (which George Daniels criticized). The English style is understated to avoid a showing off that they found tacky and distracting from the horology. That's why you see a lot of black polish as a hand-work intensive accent that doesn't draw too much attention to itself. The idea is that quality speaks for itself.

The escapement is co-axial, the second of George Daniels' escapements, only possible with the help of Derek Pratt, whom Daniels could never bring himself to credit fully. It's a compromise escapement, made to fulfill Daniels' desire to see one of his escapements bought and used by a major Swiss brand. It has one direct and one indirect impulse and requires lubrication in the escapement (Roger is looking to a future use of ADLC coating on the movement to eliminate this). Roger also doesn't use a Breguet terminal curve on the hairspring, which is ridiculous. It's nice but isn't the peak, from the point of view of horology which nobody cares about. He had a 3+ year wait when I asked a while back...


Finally, there is the Frodsham. Designed over a 15 year period to be a no-compromise daily wearing chronometre, it has as close to an ideal escapement for a watch as can be found within traditional watchmaking. The Daniels double escapement brillantly perfects A.L. Breguet's natural escapement and solves the issue inherent in the original design. It's a completely oil-free escapement and gives only direct impluses and has a much, much higher degree of detachment. For a very rate stable chronometer, you want a very high detachment, this is the degree to which the balance is disturbed by the detent--the greater the disturbance, the less detachment. So, the horology that many people don't care about is a main event here with the first ever use of Daniels double impulse escapement in a wristwatch. For those who aren't as into the horology, they still have a very well crafted, very high quality, true chronometer of a timepiece.

I've spoken enough about the other qualities of the watch in previous posts in this thread, but it really is made to let the quality speak for itself in the truest English style. In steel or white gold, this is the real daily wearer of the three, hands down. One member of the Frodsham design team wore a prototype on long bike rides and bike commutes to work for months, the other mowed his lawn and did everything else while wearing it. I spoke to the first person to buy one and he confirmed his keeps excellent time.
The customization options here are much less than the other choices. This is the most understated movement in terms of finishing, but there's some very nice black polish. Althpugh this is the thinnest watch of the three at 10.5mm, 42mm may not fit every wrist.
It's a 3 year wait currently.

I went with the Frodsham, but any of these are amazing watches made by fantastic watchmakers.

Thank you for taking the time to write this informative and entertaining post. Amazing.

Sent from my SM-A515U1 using Tapatalk

[GreenLantern]

A great write-up. Thank you.

[mongrelnomoad]

Absolutely incredible, and very much up there with a short group of the world's finest watchmakers.

Is there anywhere one could see and try the watches? As noted, the 42.2mm size sounds on the large side...

[sgwatchguy]

Subscribed. Some amazing insights here, Thanks to Kunlun.

Amazing watches and congrats to both of you.

[kunlun]

The only other thing I should say about the Frodsham (there is a time limit on editing posts or I would edit my 3 watch comparison) is that the mainspring on the Frodsham is intentionally limited to 36 hours. The isochronic heart of the mainspring's power is used for best chronometry but also to make sure the dual gear trains receive the same power. There is an understated (of course) power reserve indicator on the back, and a stop-seconds when the crown is pulled.

So, the Frodsham is a daily winder, which it would be anyway if you have more than one watch and rotate through your collection. Plus, with a manual wind watch any brand, any watch, you should wind it every day at the same time of day for best chronometry.

[kunlun]

Something special finally arrived!

Sorry about the bad phone photos!





It's hard to capture the way the blue-purpled numerals and hands catch the light:

[BigAppleBill]

Originally Posted by kunlun

Something special finally arrived!

Sorry about the bad phone photos!





It's hard to capture the way the blue-purpled numerals and hands catch the light:

Lovely watch! Congrats on finally receiving it! I hope it brings much enjoyment!

[d11n]

Originally Posted by kunlun

Something special finally arrived!

WOW!! Congrats...I've been away from the forum for a while, so I missed the posting.

Enjoy it is great health!!! mine is still many moons away...I would love to see more live pics if you were inclined..

thank you.

[GreenLantern]

That is just lovely! Absolutely lovely!

Congrats, enjoy in the greatest of health. And thank you for sharing.

[Txkill]

Wow...amazing

[rockdrock]

I LOVE it! Congrats!. More pics.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Watchflair]

Wow congratulations! The detail and depth on that dial is stunning! Very nice.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ReturningSon]

Fun thread to read. Truly, some amazing high horological info to be found.

And those blue'd purple numerals. GASP!!! So nice

[fmc000]

Very special indeed. Congrats.

Inviato dal mio SM-T719 utilizzando Tapatalk

[kunlun]

Thanks, everyone!

For reference, I have a flat 7.25"ish wrist.

The watch winds very nicely.

[Pw92676]

This is pure beauty. Enjoy!

[Jay (Eire)]

Many congratulations. This was a long time in the works, I hope it’s everything you expected it to be (and more).

Whether one cares about horology or not if it doesn’t look right on ones wrist it’s all irrelevant. This looks great on your wrist (which I didn’t realize was that big btw, ~1 inch larger than mine).

[kunlun]

Originally Posted by Jay (Eire)

Many congratulations. This was a long time in the works, I hope it’s everything you expected it to be (and more).

Whether one cares about horology or not if it doesn’t look right on ones wrist it’s all irrelevant. This looks great on your wrist (which I didn’t realize was that big btw, ~1 inch larger than mine).

Many thanks, Jay! This one was meant to be.

The straps are punched to order, so I asked for extra holes measured so I could wear the watch pushed up under my sleeve--basically so it could be a hidden daily wearer to work. Looking forward to spending time with this watch.

[Avs Fan]

Simply Beautiful! Congratulations!

[sgwatchguy]

Congratulations Kunlun! What a beautiful and special timepiece. Enjoy in the best of health. I’m wowed by the dial and those lovely numerals.

[Cozmopak]

Absolutely gorgeous piece

[rockdrock]

I love this watch. I hear it is 8 year waitlist. Anyone have a YG, Arabic numbers with cyphers. Would love to see wristshots.

Congrats to all those that have received one.

[kunlun]

]

Originally Posted by rockdrock

I love this watch. I hear it is 8 year waitlist. Anyone have a YG, Arabic numbers with cyphers. Would love to see wristshots.

Congrats to all those that have received one.

SJX has pictures of one in with that configuration:








And here's mine:

[rockdrock]

Originally Posted by kunlun

]



SJX has pictures of one in with that configuration:








And here's mine:

Hi kunlun, thanks for the pictures. I adore the watch so much. How is the accuracy and the overall experience?

[kunlun]

Originally Posted by rockdrock

Hi kunlun, thanks for the pictures. I adore the watch so much. How is the accuracy and the overall experience?

It's my pleasure. The overall experience and the accuracy have both been superlative! I'm very happy with the watch and the great customer service which is one of the best parts of working with an independent watchmaker. I hope to go to see their workshop sometime as that seems like it would be delightful.

[gretch6364]

I am sure it is just the pictures...but their heat treated hands look a little purple. Is that on purpose? Just the picture?

[kunlun]

Originally Posted by gretch6364

I am sure it is just the pictures...but their heat treated hands look a little purple. Is that on purpose? Just the picture?

Hi, it's definitely on purpose! Heat treating steel can go through a range of colors and British high-end watchmaking (Roger W Smith as another example) likes to take it to a blue-purple rather than a straight blue. On the other hand, German watchmaker Moritz Grossman sometimes likes to have a more purple-brown shade, and you can google their watches to find an example).