Everything worth seeing is smaller than you think.
We make movements, and repair the ones nobody else will touch. The one below is running on your clock — the same gear ratios a Swiss going train has used for a century.
A mechanical watch is a machine that loses a second a day and is considered excellent for it. Everything in it exists to make one small wheel turn at exactly the wrong speed, very consistently.
Restoration
Complete services, and the ones that need a part made because the part has not existed since 1954.
Calibres
Three in-house movements, all hand-finished — anglage, côtes, perlage — on surfaces the owner will never see.
Regulation
Adjusted in five positions over fourteen days. A watch that keeps time on a bench is not a watch that keeps time on a wrist.
Calibre A—21
Not a picture of a movement. The wheels below are generated from tooth counts and a pressure angle, meshed at their true pitch radii, and turned by your system clock. Zoom in far enough and the bridge is engraved.
Specification — the going train in numbers
| Wheel | Teeth | Pinion | One turn in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barrel | 72 | — | 6 hours |
| Centre | 80 | 12 | 1 hour |
| Third | 75 | 10 | 7 min 30 s |
| Fourth | 80 | 10 | 1 minute |
| Escape | 15 | 5 | 3.75 seconds |
| Balance | — | — | 4 Hz · 28,800 A/h |
6 × 8 × 7.5 = 360, so one barrel turn is six hours and the minute hand comes out at one turn per hour exactly.
Three movements
-
Ancre 21
Time only, small seconds. The one on this page.
- 21
- 4 Hz
- 72 h
-
Ancre 33
Annual calendar. Four correctors, no pushers on the case.
- 33
- 3 Hz
- 65 h
-
Ancre 8 Jours
Two barrels in series. Eight days, and the last one keeps time.
- 29
- 2.5 Hz
- 192 h
Four hands, one loupe
-
The cage
-
Setting a wheel
-
Twenty-one jewels
-
Disassembled
Before you send it in
What does Ancre do?
Two things. We make three in-house mechanical calibres, hand-finished throughout, and we service and restore movements other workshops refuse — including watches whose parts have not been manufactured for seventy years. The atelier has been in Genève since 1911.
What is calibre A—21?
Time only, with small seconds: 21 jewels, 4 Hz — 28,800 alternations an hour — and a 72-hour reserve. The movement drawn above is generated from its real tooth counts and pressure angle, meshed at true pitch radii, and turned by your device clock rather than played back as a video.
Which calibres do you make?
Three. Ancre 21 — time only, 21 jewels, 4 Hz, 72 hours. Ancre 33 — annual calendar, four correctors, no pushers on the case, 33 jewels, 3 Hz, 65 hours. Ancre 8 Jours — two barrels in series, 29 jewels, 2.5 Hz, 192 hours, and the last day still keeps time.
Can you restore a watch whose parts no longer exist?
That is the work we take. When a wheel, pinion or spring has not been made in decades, we cut a new one to the original geometry rather than fitting something that nearly matches. Complete services and one-off part-making both happen at the bench here.
How is a movement regulated?
In five positions over fourteen days — dial-up, dial-down, crown-left, crown-up, crown-down — adjusted and then timed again. A watch that keeps time flat on a bench is not the same thing as a watch that keeps time on a wrist.
How do I send a watch in?
Write to studio@webstoree.com or call +91 89815 64862. Tell us the movement, its calibre if you know it, and what it is doing wrong. Movements come in by insured post and are assessed before anything is quoted.