kṣaṇa — Sanskrit for an instant
Look inside
a minute.
A mechanical watch has no battery and no chip. Just a spring, a few gears and a tiny wheel that swings back and forth, eight times a second. Take the tour. It takes about three minutes.
Live · --:--:--
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What you read
Three hands, twelve markers, one piece of sapphire. Everything on the front is there to be read in a glance.
Look closely at the seconds hand. It doesn't tick once a second. It glides in eight tiny steps. That small stutter is how you spot a mechanical watch.
It's showing your time right now · --:--:--
Switch the lights off to see the lume.
- Hour hand · Faceted, so it catches light
- Minute hand
- Seconds hand · 8 small steps a second
- Sapphire crystal · Only diamond is harder
- Applied markers · Polished steel, filled with lume
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Where the energy comes in
There is no battery. Every morning you turn the crown, about thirty times. Each turn winds a spring hidden inside.
Try it. Turn the knob below and watch the power reserve fill.
- Crown · Turn to wind, pull to set the time
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Energy, stored in a coil
Inside the barrel is a ribbon of hardened steel, about forty centimetres long, rolled into a spiral.
Winding pulls the coils tight around the centre. As they slowly let go, the barrel turns and drives everything else, for about forty-two hours.
Watch the coils: tight round the centre when full, loose against the wall when nearly empty.
- Barrel · Holds the spring, drives the gears
- Mainspring
- Ratchet wheel · Turns when you wind
- Click · Stops it unwinding backwards. It's the clicking you hear
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Turning a spring into seconds
The barrel turns slowly but with real force. Four wheels trade that force for speed, one step at a time.
One wheel turns once an hour and carries the minute hand. Another turns once a minute and carries the seconds. Speed up time to see it.
Watch reads · --:--:--
The glow shows energy moving from the spring, wheel to wheel, to the escapement.
- Centre wheel · 1 turn an hour → minute hand
- Third wheel
- Fourth wheel · 1 turn a minute → seconds hand
- Escape wheel · 15 teeth, let out one by one
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Eight beats a second
Left alone, the spring would empty itself in a second. The escapement is a brake that lets the energy out one tooth at a time.
The balance wheel keeps the rhythm, swinging back and forth on a hairspring finer than a hair. Slow it down and step through a single tick.
- UnlockThe balance swings through centre and flicks the fork. A ruby releases the escape wheel.
- ImpulseThe wheel jumps forward and gives the balance a tiny push through the fork.
- LockThe other ruby catches the next tooth. Everything stops: that's the tick you hear.
- Free swingThe balance swings out on its own, slows, and comes back. Then it all happens again.
- Balance wheel · Swings 4 times a second
- Hairspring
- Pallet fork · Two ruby tips lock and release
- Escape wheel
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Every part, laid out
Around a hundred and ten parts, most smaller than a grain of rice, assembled by one pair of hands.
Drag the slider to take the watch apart, layer by layer.
- Crystal
- Hands
- Dial
- Case
- Main plate
- Bridges
- Sapphire caseback
The collection
One movement.
Three dials.
The first one we made. Blue like Jaipur dusk.
₹ 1,48,000 incl. GST · strap included
- Movement
- K-01, hand-wound
- Beat
- 28,800 per hour
- Power reserve
- 42 hours
- Jewels
- 21 rubies
- Case
- 39 mm steel, 10.4 mm thick
- Crystal
- Sapphire, front and back
- Water
- 50 m
- Strap
- Hand-stitched leather
The atelier
Six watchmakers. One bench each.
Every Kshana is assembled, regulated and cased by one person, from first screw to last. It takes about three weeks. We make fewer than three hundred a year.
- ~110
- parts per watch
- 3 weeks
- to build one
- 6
- watchmakers
- 5 years
- warranty
Every watch is regulated for a week in five positions before it leaves the bench, and comes back to the same watchmaker for service.
Visit
Hold one
before you decide.
Come to the atelier in the old city. Try all three dials, wind one yourself, meet the person who would build yours.
Atelier & boutique, 14 Haldiyon ka Rasta, Johari Bazaar, Jaipur 302003Tue – Sun, 11:00 – 19:00 · by appointment