Why a flying tourbillon takes seven weeks to assemble

Seventy-two components, three full assemblies, and a cage lighter than a paperclip. Bertrand Reymond has built tourbillons for eighteen years, and he still loses a full week to a single hairspring that refuses to breathe evenly.

The cage is assembled, tested on the timing machine, disassembled, and rebuilt twice more before the dial is ever fitted. Nothing about a flying tourbillon is fast, and nothing about it is meant to be.

What the client sees is a watch that runs true to a second or two a day, suspended in a cage that seems to float. What the bench sees is seven weeks, most of them spent undoing work that was almost right.