Parts production at the watch manufacture NOMOS Glashütte

NOMOS Glashütte manufactures most of the parts for its movements itself: pinions, wheels, and gears, as well as the sensitive balance wheels for the NOMOS swing system. Milling, wire erosion, jewel setting, and fine machining are also carried out in-house. As a watchmaking company, NOMOS stands for independence down to the last detail.

Turning shop

Brass, steel, and declafor (a copper alloy used for the balance wheel) are our starting materials. Up to two dozen different tools are used to process the rotating rods into tiny caliber parts—with a precision that is rarely needed elsewhere.

Accurate to a thousandth of a millimeter

The manufacturing tolerances used here are in the micrometer range. In some cases, the variance must not exceed two thousandths of a millimeter—two microns, which is hardly more than a touch of gold leaf. Five computer-controlled lathes and continuous quality controls ensure the precision of the results.

Production of the balance wheel

Making a balance wheel is a craft in itself. Only very few watch manufacturers in the world can produce this wheel in large quantities. The shape is complex and must be perfectly balanced to ensure that the heart of the mechanical watch beats with precision.

Lathe machine processing a balance wheel.

Cutting gear teeth

The performance of a gear wheel is determined by the shape and angle of the teeth. NOMOS has invested in research into the optimum tooth profiles for efficient power transmission—with success: neomatik gears achieve an efficiency of around 95 percent. This is what makes their exceptional slenderness possible.

The gear-cutting machine in action: The workpiece is positioned between the spindles.

Crown wheel and intermediate wheels in the automatic caliber DUW 3001.

Quality assurance

Each gear is inserted into the machine for gear cutting by hand. And every fiftieth gear is checked. Quality assurance is one of the cornerstones of NOMOS parts production. Depending on the component, random samples are taken, or checks of up to 100 percent are carried out. Precision is not a matter of luck.

Milling shop

NOMOS movements are made from scratch in our own facilities. Of course, the plates and bridges are also milled in-house. Every track and every hole is precisely calculated beforehand. Once one side has been machined, the parts are deburred and polished by hand. The machine works for up to eight hours on a magazine with 20 blanks.

Three-quarter plate

The three-quarter plate is a traditional Glashütte feature. Instead of several bridges, from 1865 Ferdinand Adolph Lange used a single plate to hold the wheels and pinions in place. This is an extremely stable and simple construction—provided that the interaction of all parts was precisely calculated and accurately implemented.

Wire eroding

Thin, delicate parts are wire eroded. This means that a finest brass wire with a diameter of just 0.1 millimeters cuts them out of a stack of steel blanks under ionized water—this includes all the tiny corrector stars, stop-seconds springs, and dial holders, among other parts.

Beautiful leftovers

What remains of the blanks is too beautiful to be thrown away. Which is why we sometimes gild them, add a leather cord, and turn them into bookmarks or holiday decorations.

NOMOS decorations for the Christmas tree

Finishing

Setting stones, smoothing edges, adding a refined polish—in the finishing department, everything revolves around the beauty and perfection of NOMOS caliber parts.

Holding tree full of wheels featuring Glashütte sunburst finish.

Fine polishing

Ribbing, sunburst, or fine sunbeam polishing: In the past, workpiece surfaces were artfully roughened to bind dust. However, areas that were to remain dust-free were polished. Today, dust can no longer penetrate the watch case. However, the polishing is still beautiful—and a distinguishing feature of traditional watchmaking.