Mainspring Barrel of the Ultra-Thin ThinKing Wristwatch

The graphic artwork of the mainspring barrel for the ‘ThinKing’ ultra-thin watch captures one of the key moments in Konstantin Chaykin's engineering search. In developing the thinnest mechanical watch in the world, the master radically rethought a component that had remained unchanged for centuries. In classical watchmaking, this component preserved an almost unchanging architecture for centuries, one tracing back to the earliest portable movements of the Renaissance. In this blueprint, the artist captured four variants of the friction coupling, or ratchet, along with every stage of his reflection, giving the viewer a chance to follow his train of thought and, with it, the fundamental principles behind the component's construction.

The artistic execution of the blueprint reflects the new watch movement: it dispenses with the traditional upper and lower covers, their function taken over instead by the movement's main plate and the barrel bridge. The toothed rim itself serves as the barrel wheel. Chaykin picks out the key components and, through pencil hatching and blending, recreates on paper, with remarkable precision, the metallic surfaces of the parts.