Description
The Kienzle 060a2 is one of the last classic Kienzle movements in the tradition of the caliber 51. With 17 jewels, a shock protection and a date indication, it belonged to the upper class of their inhouse movements.
It was made in the 1970ies, at max till 1979, with the caliber 52, a completely new construction, was launched and cut with all traditions.
On the base plate you can still see the typical Kienzle construction; at 6 o’clock there could be a decentral seconds indication.
The new thing on this movement is the second wheel at 9 o’clock, which, up-to-date at that time, drives the minute wheel on the dial side. So, on the movement side, there’s no minute wheel any more, only an indirectly driven center second.
The intermediate gear, which is between third and fourth wheel and simultaneously drives the center second pinion, is made with a double (two storey) gear ring, which takes care, that the center second indication doesn’t require a friction spring and nonetheless doesn’t jump.
The gear train construction is unusually modern for Kienzle means, since there’s no minute wheel any more, but a second wheel with a dial side friction coupling, driving the minute wheel there. Even though other manufacturers, especially ETA, obstructed that construction in series, it was a little revolution for Kienzle, especially, since the caliber 060 is still a direct relative of the historic caliber 51, which was like a synonym for Kienzle mens’s watches movements.
An important detail of this movement is the Kienzle pin lever escapement, of which the pins are made of rubies, which are even executed as half-circles. Because of that, the escpament functionally hardly differs from a pallet lever escapement, and the escpament wheel really looks very similar to that of a pallet lever escapement:
It’s unclear, why Kienzle didn’t go the whole hog here and used a true pallet lever escapement.
When the date indication mechanism is missing, you can see on the dia side at 3 o’clock the cannon pinion of the second wheel, which drives hour and minute wheel by an intermediate wheel. This intermediate wheel is neccessiary (in contrast to e.g. ETA constructions) because of the other intermediate wheel on the gear train used for driving the center seconds indication.
The date indication mechanism with semi fast change and correction by turning back and forth is construction-wise not very repair-friendly. The detent at 7 o’clock is really only stuck and hardly to re-insert and connect with its spring, which is fixed on the deck plate. To get the whole mechanism back into working order again is almost impossible!
The rest of this movement is typical Kienzle - of course there’s a rocking bar winding system and the safety catch is on the inner side of the base plate. Known and proven since ever.
Technical data
Manufacturer: | Kienzle |
Caliber: | 060a2 |
Size: | 12''' (measured: 26,2mm) |
A/h: | 21600 |
Number of jewels: | 17 |
Escapement: | Pin lever |
Balance types: |
Nickel anular balance |
Shock protection(s): |
KIF Trior |
Balance bearing / direction hairspring: | Clockwise |
Moveable stud: | yes |
Adjust mechanism: | Hairspring key |
Construction: |
|
Construction type: | pillar construction |
Winding mechanism: | rocking bar winding system |
Setting lever spring: | 2 hole(s) |
Features: |
|
Production period: | 197x |
References: |
Flume: K3N1 |