DeuxMonkey is the Name

First and foremost I would like to take the time to thank so many wonderful fans and friends who have sent such loving words and gifts. You all are truly so wonderful. It feels great to have such a wonderful outpouring of love.  Thank you all for caring and the concern.  I’m doing a lot better now and have some fantastic new news.

I’ve launched the beta version of my first project’s web sites DeuxMonkey and DeuxMonkey Myspace . We will be entering the studio shortly. We are in beta at the moment so be patient.

I hope you all enjoy the music that we are creating. I do not plan to stop playing ever again. So far the input has been simply overwhealming and the entire band is very excited to play live.

Welcome

Glad to have you aboard the most unique luxury watch Internet presence available. We will be focusing on in depth and private interviews with Actors, Famous Rock Stars, Managers, Producers of the Arts and successful people in the public eye from many walks of life who have a passion for fine watches.

The interviews will be conducted by Swiss Certified Master Watchmaker of Complications Specialist and three time Grammy nominated multiple platinum recording artist, Dan Spitz .

Interested parties please feel free to contact us for your interview.

Double Barrel / Perpetual Calendar Retrograde / Reserve DeMarche / Complicated Watch Repair

A double barrel timepiece with retrograde functions and perpetual calendar on the retrogrades is quite a complication. In mechanical terms this complication combination on a timepiece only 40 years ago would have taken the finest Master Watchmakers all trapped in a little room separate from the normal factory years to accomplish, by hand. Each piece cut by hand on the micro Watchmaking lathes we use on a “per piece” basis. Today thanks to computer aided design and computer aided spark erosion techniques for cutting parts not visible to the human eye we can all enjoy pieces of this kind and execution. Of course this is still at a high price tag due to the Watchmakers still having to put together the entire movement by hand. Tweaking and testing each and every part as it’s built up to work in symbiotic harmony. I present you a repair on another of the worlds most complicated timepieces. The Leviev Double Barille’.

As you all know that follow me I have most of my expertise from yesteryear in Chronographs. I always had a passion for pre 1970’s Chrono’s. Probably due to opening one certain old Vacheron Constantin as a child. This is my favorite brand by the way. I used to sit and file the flyback hammers, polish the faces of them and tweak them for just the right amount play on the minute wheel for days to get one running super accurate on return. The meshing of the intermediate wheel, the driving wheels depth with its sister wheel, the epicycloidal shaping of certain manufacturers execution of teeth… .  . sorry I got carried away there reminiscing when Chrono’s were almost all made by hand and the parts were made to last centuries.  My second passion in Watchmaking is Retrogrades of all kinds. I love to work on these complicated intricate micro miniature mechanisms.

A Retrograde date feature has two basic mechanical executions. In the past all of them were made by hand and the flyback functions tied to an actual piece of a balance wheel hairspring. This was a labor of love to make by Watchmakers. If any of you knew the time it takes for a Watchmaker to try and get one of these mechanisms to flyback and “zero” consecutively time after time without a hiccup you would probably understand the cost of an older Swiss mechanism. It takes a seriously qualified Master Watchmaker who is adept at working with hairsprings (this is a certain love hate relationship of patience) to sit and tweak these. Never mind make a system from parts on the bench. For clarity I will explain that a hairspring is that little coil of metal in the center of your balance wheel that expands and contracts thousands of times, hundreds of millions over the lifetime of the piece, it is the heart of the watch. Usually it is 1/1,00,000th the thickness of One human hair. We as Watchmakers spend a year or two of our lives in school just playing with these things to get the feel of manipulating them. Freaky huh?

The more recent designs of these Retrograde mechanisms are all gears, heart cams and have no hairsprings. This of course gives us a more stable platform and less mechanical returns to the bench. The wonders of computer design come into play once again. In addition to the Retrograde flyback of the date on this piece we have it tied to a Perpetual Calendar mechanism. This keeps the Perpetual flying at February 28th and / or the 30th or 31st of any month right on time. Don’t think a Perpetual Calendar is a small feat to accomplish either. Most Perpetual’s take a special Watchmaker in Switzerland that learns each mechanism over perhaps a years time to work on them for repairs. You can’t just open any brand and have a go at it !

At this level of Watchmaking this is how most of our complications do in fact get proper service. Each brand trains a few select Master Watchmakers on one particular complicated timepieces complications, over one or two years time, to learn all its idiosyncrasies in his/her sleep. All of these timepieces from the entire planet earth that are in need of repair must go back to Switzerland to this one watchmaker for repair. No parts or specialized tools needed for the particular piece are allowed outside of this Watchmakers bench and the safe in the complicated room. This ensures proper repair at this insane level of micro mechanics.

This Double Barrel watch also has a Reserve De Marche indicator for the rundown of the mainspring. It’s a fuel gauge for the watch. If it gets low wear it or wind it.

The Double Barrels are the key to making a very stable timekeeper. I most prefer watches with at least two barrels. Common consumers of fine luxury watches don’t understand the real reason behind more than one barrel. They  think that it is strictly so they do not have to wind the piece if they don’t wear it over the weekend and pick up their “beater” for boating or racquetball. Yes, two or more barrels will give you  considerably more time between winds or wear. The real reason is that it creates an imaginary long mainspring. If you envision one veeeeerrrry long mainspring now in your minds eye you begin to understand the mechanical aspects it can have. It gives us constant power at a more constant force for longer periods of time. This makes the timing of the entire piece rock solid for longer periods and at a “more stable length of time” at the “same” timing numbers. More accuracy over time, basically. Like a tank. Gotta’ love it. There is a differential between the barrels, for all you car repair people to get a grasp on the mechanical interaction between barrels. Not a simple mechanical accomplishment to implement two or more barrels in a watch. Four barrels  like the Chopard Quattro is extremely complicated to repair just the barrels.

This watch had some automatic problems. Some broken pivots, wig wag pinion offsets, jewel adjustments and more. If you have a look at some of the pictures I have snapped a few of just the automatic system for you to see. Also have a look at the wonderful automatic rotor execution. It’s jeweled in a very pleasing way.

This timepiece was dropped, so the balance pivots had to be placed on the Jacot Lathe for hand polishing and reforming of pivot straightness. I have this killer Jacot that is over 100 years old and just simply beautiful to look at. It’s actually German in manufacture. A Jacot Lathe is not electric and is used with a violin type bow for movement. If you were always wondering why we don’t turn on the electricity and join the revolution, I’ll explain. The thickness of a balance wheel pivot is barely visible to humans. If we as Watchmakers have to polish it because it was scored by a broken or dry jewel, watch dropped mushrooming the pivot, or a thousand other reasons, it must be done slowly. If it’s “turned” to fast as we polish and reshape the pivot it will BURN the metal. Meaning, it will harden the metal to a strength we do not want. Annealing is the proper term. So back to the freakin’ stone ages we go with bow with a horse hair in hand and some burnishing sticks with Diamontine paste of all degrees. A Watchmaker must have patience … A Watchmaker must have …  A Watchmaker  must .. .

The escapement needed some work as well. It seems the pallet fork jewels had moved when the movement jammed. Under fiber optic microscope inspection the jewels were repaired and adjusted using a special pallet fork jewel micrometer adjusting depthing tool that heats the shellac as well to proper temperature per manufacturers requirements.

There were also many other problems in this piece like bent wheels we won’t get into.

I had to execute all repairs while carefully not destroying any of the wonderfully polished dial pieces, diamonds inset around perimeters and of course all the plates and bridges that are adorned with high grade finishing. It is basically a “Skeleton” watch you know. As you can see from the computerized timing machine picture is came in loosing a considerable amount of time per position. I love this timing machine by the way. A review will be coming.

I hope you all enjoyed another look inside a crazy expensive and complicated mechanical watch from the Dan Spitz Watchmaker bench, both here in the USA and in Switzerland, that is normally not available. Thrash Metal!

Tourbillon Repair / Christophe Claret / Leviev

Not sure many of you get to see one the World’s most incredible Tourbillons outside of it’s case, especially inside the U.S.A. boarders. Special tools are needed just to get inside this baby. Once inside you need special tooling designed for the movement to do anything. So, if you are a Watchmaker and considering having a dabble inside please consider a second option. This movement is art that needs a no time limit work approach and many years of repetitive knowledge. Repetitive knowledge. Repetitive knowledge in micro mechanics and Tourbillon experience to open and tweak away.

This is a Tourbillon made by Christophe Claret and sold to a number of high end Swiss companies in different configurations for implementation into that Brand’s piece. This particular piece is for Leviev (I am the North American Repair Center). Just an incredible movement through and through. Rock solid engineering at its finest level of expertise, execution and construction. We are talking the best of the best people. A Ferrari for the wrist.

The Tourbillon cage turns once every 60 seconds and it’s hand polishing finish is simply stunning. The weight of the cage is so critical in a REAL Swiss Tourbillon. Fakes and copies work, but they are a joke in actual mechanical execution. The bridges on this Leviev have inset diamonds all over them and a highly polished first level plate that really does resemble a real mirror. Once inside a Watchmaker must take extreme care as “one” slip of his tweezers and the mirror is completely ruined. The entire watch must then be disassembled and some extremely expensive parts replaced. More than likely the cost of a nice car just for the parts bill to me. In addition, the parts are not waiting on a shelf for replacement anywhere. At thousands, if not tens of thousands of $$$ per part you will simply need to wait months for manufacture replacement. Sometimes we actually butcher a brand new movement for parts because of this. Patience …. patience… a Watchmaker must have …

In these pictures you can see the dial side of the movement as I pull the center wheel.

Using the staking set and a fiber optic microscope is a must in this procedure of assembly and disassembly. Careful attention to parallelism when you are staking wheels, pinions, gears and so forth comes only by experience. Even though these movements are built like a tank the tolerances of parts mating to the next are of such small instances that “almost good” just is not going to suffice in the end result.

Every part is designed in such a way that the entire movement works in harmony only if each step of building / rebuilding is done with zero tolerance of error. This is why a good Tourbillon (even in these days) starts in the $200,000 range and goes up. Like this one. Usually a waiting list as well. It could take a few weeks time just to do an overhaul on a piece like this.

The post of the minute wheel needed a bit of end polishing before the hand was reconfigured for placement and voila! … we are ready for diagnostic testing of the movement.

Here’s a picture of the same movement in different execution as used by Corum for their piece.

I really love the flying bridge aspect of this movement and how Leviev has done such an incredible job on the casing and all around perfection in all areas of manufacturing. I feel so blessed to have pieces of art like this one on my bench either here in the U.S.A. or in Switzerland in complication rooms of manufacturers.

I hope you enjoyed a rare look into one of the World’s most complicated and delicate timepieces from the Dan Spitz bench. Thrash Metal!

An Open Letter To My Fans

An open letter to all the wonderful fans, friends and family that has shown me so much love during this trying time.

I am home and live to riff another day. For those who know me closely are quite stunned that something such as this can happen so suddenly to a person who has worked out each and every day of their life, strict diets of no red meat for so many years I can’t count, no drinking, no smoking and just an all around healthy person. Lately I had been having a shortness of breath during the mixing of the new CD. During a family trip to the Bronx Zoo for Brendan and Jaden’s B-Day, I was pushing a double stroller and suddenly felt extreme shortness of breath, as well as a feeling of a couple of the gorillas jumping out of their cages and strangling my chest from behind. Thinking this was simply Asthma or something Cardiovascular we left the Zoo and I did not seek medical attention. A few days later, during the twins’ check up at our Pediatrician’s office, I asked him to give a listen to my chest and he then insisted I head to the ER. Upon arrival at the Hospital most people were looking at me as though I was an alien, due to my age and health. After being strung up like a pin cushion for a day they decided I should have a heart test that injects dye throughout your heart to check for malfunctions. They found my main artery to my heart was more than 90% closed and immediately operated to fix this.

If I had not gone to see the monkeys at the Bronx Zoo and the insistence of our Pediatrician (Dr. Marc Habert), my wife Candi and my brother “The Beast” FORCING me to head over to ER, I am told I would NOT be here today to thank all of you for all of your love and caring letters, emails and so much more. I was placed here to give beautiful music to all of you and this is what I will do full time from this point forward. I was given a second chance to breathe, from God, and I will use this newfound opportunity to hopefully bring joy to others’ daily life. PLEASE, if any of you feel a pain in your chest or have extreme shortness of breath out of the ordinary seek medical attention immediately. I am a prime example of the last person on earth this should happen to. If it can happen to me, it can certainly happen to you.

Personal thanks to my brother Dave Mustaine for the funniest prayer going… Charlie, Frank, Scott (my Anthrax brothers forever) for such caring heart felt emails… Peter Baltes my brother whom I will be spending countless future years with, all the fans who wrote anything online on Blabbermouth or any other Metal news portals online.

Candi won’t let me back on the computer for a bit so I’m on forced bed rest by my wife.  She is the best wife I could have dreamed to come home to. I Love You Sweetheart.

I Love You All.

Christophe Claret DualTow

Little known to most USA watch enthusiasts is the genius movement and watch manufacturing of Christophe Clare. If you have been interested in timepieces above the 50K mark you might actually be wearing one of his movements and not even know it. He has been making movements in a very secret fashion behind the scenes for 20 years. If you have a dream he can make it happen. Not many like him. A few of the Leviev watches are using Christophe Clare movements that I work on here.

We are talking about workshops that exude and permit not only dreams to happen, but sheer unstopable insane mechanisms that simply should not work on paper or inside CAD programs. In the luxury watchmaking world (that just like most other industries) computers do permit us to make dreams a reality as far as technological leaps and bounds, but the Watchmakers must assemble, troubleshoot and dream up these functions. It really still comes down to the abilities of the Watchmakers on staff, and a whole lottta’ money too!.

Just to show you how passionate Watchmakers and watch manufacturers are in obtaining perfection (we all have obsessive compulsive disorders at the highest level) I have an article regarding Clare manufacturing measuring instruments and workshops to warm you up for the technicals on the DualTow that follows.

Click to Open Clare manufacturing Article / Click to Close

Lets see some technoligical achievments and belt driven dreams come true now in the DualTow.

Click to Open Main DualTow Article / Click to Close