#SIHH 2017: Panerai Luminor 1950 LAB-ID Carbotech 3 Days – 49 mm

The Luminor 1950 case – 49 mm in diameter – is made of carbotech, a composite material based on carbon fibre, which was introduced by Panerai some years ago. As well as ensuring exceptional technical performance, carbotech has a dense, uneven blackness which varies with the cut of the material, making each individual example different from all the rest, and unrepeatable. To form the sheets of carbotech from which these components are made, very thin sheets of carbon fibre are pressed together at a controlled temperature under very high pressure with the organic polymer PEEK (Polyether Ether Ketone), which links the composite material, making it yet more resistant and reliable. Carbotech is actually lighter and more resistant to external stresses, as well as being hypoallergenic and not subject to corrosion.

The Luminor 1950 LAB-ID Carbotech 3 Days is powered by a P.3001/C hand-wound calibre with a power reserve of three days. It is presented for the very first time in an extraordinarily innovative version, semi-skeletonised, completely without additional lubrication and with only four jewels. By using a wide range of solutions, specially devised for the individual parts of the movement and associated with the unique properties of carbon, the plates, bridges, barrels, escapement and anti-shock device use self-lubricating and dry lubricating materials, and are hence exempt from any liquid lubrication.

Panerai says, that these solutions have revolutionised the need for maintaining and overhauling the calibre, enabling the company to guarantee it for no less than 50 years.

Also eliminated is the need to lubricate the escapement, as a result of making the main components from silicon and applying a special coating of DLC (Diamond Like Carbon) to the wheelwork.

A good two years of testing by the Laboratorio di Idee in the Panerai Manufacture identified the best type of coating – based on carbon – with which to treat the components of the two spring barrels of the P. 3001 calibre, so as to make conventional lubrication superfluous. The solution was to use a series of layers and sub-layers of coating, the surface one being coated with DLC.

Last but not least, a surface coating of DLC on the four jewels means that there is no need to further lubricate the Incabloc anti-shock device.

Panerai uses for the movement a balance wheel which is no less than 13.2 mm in diameter, fixed by a bridge with twin supports. The balance wheel is oscillating at a frequency of 3 Hz (21.600 A/h).  The calibre features a device which stops the balance and returns the seconds hand to zero (seconds reset) when setting the time, so that the watch can be perfectly synchronised with a reference signal.

PAM00700

MOVEMENT Hand-wound mechanical, P.3001/C calibre, executed entirely by Panerai.

FUNCTIONS Hours, minutes, small seconds, power reserve indicator on the back, seconds reset.

CASE 49 mm, carbotech.

DIAL Deep black with luminous Arabic numerals and hour markers. Small seconds at 9 o’clock.

POWERRESERVE 72h.

WATER-RESISTANCE 10 bar (~100 metres).