TSF'nin IWC'nin ünlü saat ustası Kurt Klaus ile İstanbul ziyareti sırasında yaptığı röportajın İngilizce metnine bu konudan ulaşabilirsiniz Master Klaus'a teşekkürler
Master Klaus welcome to Turkey and have a pleasant stay in İstanbul. Thank you very much in advance for the interview. These are the questions we would like to ask you that chosen from our forum members, IWC fans and TSF editorial staff. We have many threads in board about IWC line-up and the amazing movements / modules you created.
TSF: What sparkled you to choose a course in watchmaking?
Kurt Klaus: Since my youth I always like small things, today we call it “micromechanisms”. There was different possibilities to work with micromechanisms, one of them is watchmaking. I choosed it!
TSF: How did you put your goal in starting the design of the perpetual module?
Kurt Klaus: During watchindustry-crises in the 1979’s I started to developp some special additional mechanisms o pocketwatches to make it more interesting. When the trend for pocketwatches got lost, my boss told me to continue with a wristwatch. After the years constructing calendars, I wanted to make somthing more, a perpetual calendar!
TSF: What is the main difference between IWC Perpetual and other perpetual movements or modules. Is it the ease of use in brief with single crown adjustment?
Kurt Klaus: The IWC calendar is really new generation of perpetual calendars.
- The calendar is module, set on a basic movement.
- The calendar is very userfriendly, that means, ist is very ease to adjust. Only turn the crown in middle position, and all indications move together.
- I constructed it for a industrial production.
- It is possible to set the module on different basic movements.
TSF: You did construct calendars onto automatic movements such as JLC 889 at past. Putting chronograph movements aside, what base movements apart from calibre 5000 do you think are preferable in terms of both slimness and having adequate torque for powering a perpetual calendar module? Could you name a few.
Kurt Klaus: The calendar was used on c.889 exclusively for JLC-models.
IWC Romana model is a very elegant flat watch using the calibre 849 JLC (1.85mmthick)
In our “Novecento” I used the JLC calibre 946 automatic (17.5 mm diameter)
In the same time as Da Vinci we prodused a model “Ingenieur” using the calibre ETA automatic.
TSF: What complication, if any, excites you other than perpetual calendar?
Kurt Klaus: After launch of the Da Vinci I started together with Giulio Papi to developp a special minute-repeater, fitting on the Da Vinci. The resuult was 1990 the Grande Complication.
One of my preferred “Babys” is the Tourbillon Mystere on the calibre 5000.
TSF: Turmoil of daily business life today compels one to seek solitude when out of office and be occupied with doing something for relief that is irrelevant to his/her professional works. Watchmaking sounds a solitary occupation, but is it relieving or infuriating? Would you suggest such a person acquire watchmaking as a hobby?
Kurt Klaus: May be, to work on a wallclock could be a pleasure, but to have a serious hobby for watchmaking I have big doubts. I would be an exception.
TSF: Which current IWC watch is your favorite?
Kurt Klaus: I love all my “Babys” but the most important for me is still the Da Vinci (the old original and also the new Special Edition) because it was the first and an important “Milestone) for a new”Renaissance” of the mechanical watch.
TSF: What is the first thing you look at when you pick up a watch that you have never held before?
Kurt Klaus: The first look is automatically the brandname, then the secondshand: is it quartz or mechanical? Then it is the design, nice or not!
TSF: The perpetual calendar is an amazing feet in watch making, is there any other complications not yet developed for a wrist watch that you think will be possible / desirable in the future or that you personally would like to see, or is it a case that everything that can be done has been done.
Kurt Klaus: Almost all complications was made before and the ony thing we can do, is to make some new generation of a mechanisme, to make it better than before and in the dimension of a wristwatch.
TSF: What is you passion outside watchmaking?
Kurt Klaus: During many years I trained my Whippets for dogracings. Every early morning I was walking with my three dogs in the free nature. I did it not only for the dogs, but also for my health.
TSF: In the last couple of years internet watch forums have many advantages as direct information sources about timepieces and positive effects on customer choices regarding to traditional marketing methods. Next to being a master watchmaker you as a senior ambassador for IWC Schaffhaussen do you read forums to learn real user opinions about the IWC watches and what is your opinion about global and local watch forums in brief?
Kurt Klaus: When I have some free time, I am surfing in different watchforums. It is interesting and sometimes a fun to read all the opinions. Because I am no more active in our developping departement, I read it only for my information and to still stay in the big world of watches.
My standard forum is IWC Collectors Forum. (www.iwc.com)
Over all, the forums are very useful for everybody.
TSF: On behalf of all TSF members we would like to thank you very much for the interview.
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