Bulova 1000.11

Description

The large family of 5½ x 6¾-ligne movements for ladies’ watches also includes the Bulova 1000.11 caliber; while it is of Swiss origin, no further details have been established to date.

In addition to its attractive red-gold appearance, the technical execution is also impressive.

Even the minute wheel is jeweled, meaning that the marketing-friendly “17 Jewels” count can be achieved without the need for cap jewels.

For a movement of this size, the gear train features wheels with an almost unusually large diameter; however, this also means that the third wheel with its long arbor and center of gravity positioned at the very top is extremely difficult to install.

The layout of the gear train itself is conventional: The mainspring barrel drives the central minute wheel, followed by the third wheel, the seconds wheel, and the escape wheel. As is typical for such small movements, the lower bearing for the seconds wheel is positioned above the escape wheel; effectively, we are dealing with a “one-and-a-half-level” configuration.

A Swiss pallet lever escapement is used here. The three-leg balance wheel operates at a modern, high frequency of 21,600 semi-oscillations per hour and is mounted in a pair of KIF Protechoc shock-protection bearings.

Unfortunately, regulation can only be performed directly at the regulator arm, a rather tricky undertaking in this instance, but once successfully adjusted, this tiny movement demonstrates excellent timing results on the timegrapher.

The design of the click mechanism, consisting of a single component, is highly characteristic of modern, cost-effectively engineered movements.

On the dial side, the familiar layout presents itself, featuring shock protection and a yoke winding mechanism.

In the lab

Timegrapher result

The movement is difficult to regulate, but once you got over it, it impresses with really good rates on the timegrapher relatively to its tiny size.

Technical data

Usage gallery