The RM 004 V2 Split Seconds Chronograph: Putting The Racing Machine In RM
Richard Mille has long since become an institution in modern watchmaking, and his watches, thanks to the high prices they command both new, pre-owned, and at auction, have been called “the billionaire’s handshake.” It’s easy to forget, partly thanks to the dollar signs, that when he began releasing watches under his own name in 2001, no one had ever seen anything like them before, and his “racing machines for the wrist” as he called them, with their Formula 1-inspired materials and aesthetics as well as their often featherweight mass, originally became famous not for their cost, but for their technical and design attributes. (The context in which prices are seen nowadays has changed out of all recognition in just a few years as well; with simple time-only hand wound watches from independents routinely priced at mid-five to lower six figures, Richard Mille’s prices seem less aggressive than they used to).
Many of the design and materials trends pioneered by Richard Mille in the early 2000s have become, if not commonplace, at least an accepted part of the larger vocabulary of watchmaking, and the watch we have today for A Watch A Week is an example of the originality of Richard Mille’s designs. The RM 004 was first released in 2004 and it’s Richard Mille’s highly idiosyncratic take on a classic complication – the rattrapante, or split seconds, chronograph.
The RM 004 has been produced in several different versions over the years. The first version in 2004 had a titanium baseplate, and version 2 – the model we have today (RM004 AH WG) – was introduced a year later. The major difference between V1 and V2 is that V2 has a carbon nanofiber baseplate, which was at the time a highly unusual material – as a matter of fact it’s still a highly unusual material. (The most recent version of the RM 004, V3, was released in 2016 and the major update then was the replacement of aluminum in some critical components, with grade 5 titanium – those components include the chronograph and split seconds bridges).
Carbon nanofiber is extremely light and rigid, and it’s nonmagnetic, which makes it ideal in many respects for watch components although it comes with some challenges. Especially in the early 2000s, machining the material for watch components came with a lot of unknowns, and one of the challenges involved was figuring out how to tap a carbon nanotube baseplate to receive screws.
The problem was that the carbon nanofiber material has such low surface friction that if the plate were tapped in the usual way, screws set into it would eventually work loose over time. The solution was to drill out holes for metal inserts which were then glued into place with an industrial adhesive used in the aerospace industry (like the carbon nanofiber composite itself, which is used for, among other things, anti-radar surface coatings on stealth aircraft).
The case has complex curvature, as do the front and rear sapphire crystals. The case construction is a big part of what gives Richard Mille watches their distinctive appearance – the case is in three parts, with five-spline screws front and back. The curvature of the case itself, as well as the pronounced downward angle of the strap, make the white gold, 48mm x 39.7mm x 15.05mm watch much more wearable than you’d think from its physical dimensions and general appearance. In addition to the upper and lower sapphire crystals, there’s also a synthetic sapphire, translucent dial on which the numbers, indexes and letters for the various functions are printed.
The operation of the split seconds chronograph follows the usual procedure for the complication – there are two pushers for start/stop and reset to zero, and a third pusher to split the chronograph seconds hands, in order to record the difference between two elapsed time periods (the difference between two finish times for race cars, for instance). The arrangement of the pushers is different from the usual set up, though, with the two pushers for the chronograph start/stop/reset to zero on the left side of the case, and the split button just under the crown, at about 4:00.
The RM 004 has a small seconds subdial at 6:00 and a chronograph 30 minute counter at 9:00, with a couple of other unusual functions as well.
First, there is an indicator marked H-N-W just below the cover for the keyless works at 3:00. This is the Richard Mille function indicator – N, neutral, is shown when the crown is pushed all the way in; H is for hand-setting the time, and W is for hand-winding.
Between 10:00 and 12:00, there is a relatively conventional power reserve indicator, and, to its right, there’s a torque indicator. The torque indicator shows how much torque at any given time is being delivered by the mainspring to the movement. While this sounds like more or less the same thing as power reserve, they’re distinctly different – the power reserve, to make a car analogy, shows how much gas is in the tank while the torque meter shows how much power the engine’s delivering to the drive train.
The torque delivered is important in watchmaking because if it falls below a certain level, you start to see increases in rate variation and corresponding decreases in precision; this phenomenon, which was well known in watch and clockmaking even in the very beginning, was the reason for the invention of constant force mechanisms like the remontoire and the chain-and-fusée. Today the problem has been more or less solved by the development of modern mainspring alloys, and curves used in modern mainsprings, which deliver a much more even torque than plain steel mainsprings did, across most of their running time. The automatic winding systems in modern watches act as sort of field-expedient constant force devices as well, since they tend to keep mainspring torque from decreasing to the point that precision is noticeably affected.
If you keep an eye on the torque meter in the RM 004, you’ll notice that it doesn’t really start to noticeably decline until the power reserve has dropped significantly – the decrease in torque is not linear in relationship to the power reserve, which is a testimony to the sophistication of modern mainspring design.
The torque meter, or dynamographe, was first produced by Audemars Piguet’s then-complications partner, Renaud & Papi, for the Jules Audemars Piguet Grand et Petite Sonnerie Dynamographe (AP acquired Renaud & Papi in 1992) who are today still involved in the production of Richard Mille’s more complicated watches. (The production of RM components and movements is today divided between a number of entities; including Vaucher, Richard Mille itself, and APRP, as well as other suppliers). Both the torque meter and the crown function indicator are signature complications for Richard Mille.
If you’re not familiar with Richard Mille’s design aesthetic, your first look at an RM 004 movement can be a bit of a shock as many of the traditional movement finishes are absent, although functional finish is excellent. There are for instance no Geneva stripes to be seen anywhere (and I imagine that trying to apply them to a carbon nanofiber baseplate would be a Quixotic exercise in frustration in any case). This is not to say that such finish is absent; the large screws visible on the rattrapante clamps, for instance, have polished, beveled heads and slots. The aesthetic, however, is that of a high performance machine – the analogy again being the automotive world, where the RM 004 is much closer, by design, to a Formula 1 car than it is to something like a Rolls-Royce.
Any version of the RM 004 is an historically important watch; the design is part of an era that included a number of then-rising stars of independent watchmaking, including URWERK, De Bethune, and F.P. Journe. The rarest model of the RM 004 is the earliest, with the PVD coated titanium movement plate, but any of the first three versions are a direct connection to a time when the possibilities in watchmaking seemed infinite and the sky was the limit.