Technical Notes: Ball Watch SpringLOCK System

Ball Watch is an old American watchmaker (now just mostly American) known for its railroad watches. In fact, it was founded in 1891 after a train collision prompted officials to name Webster Ball the overseer of railroad timekeeping. To this day, Ball hasn’t strayed far from its roots, and even when it has, it still stays in the realm of tool watches.

Since the family-owned company’s name was sold to foreign interests in the 1990s, Ball has utilized ETA movements. This move can easily give the appearance of Ball just being a shell of its former American self, but that’s not totally true. Besides maintaining unique design that hasn’t kowtowed to aesthetic cues of the bigger brands, they’ve stayed on the (ahem) ball with regard to innovation. For one, their use of luminous materials is superior to just about everyone. But they’ve also developed an in-house anti-shock system, going above and beyond the masses of ETA-stuffed mid-range watches.

Ball SpringLOCK can be seen as the protective cage around the typically exposed balance spring.

Back in September, Ball announced their new SpringLOCK system, which protects the balance spring from harsh vibrations. Without such protection, balance springs can be affected by everyday shocks to the point where timekeeping can be noticeably disrupted – to the tune of about one minute per day. That really adds up over the course of a week! Ball’s system looks to reduce that disruption by up to 66%.

The balance spring is one of the weakest and most fragile parts of the movement, so Ball’s solution was simple, protect it. What they did was essentially put a cage around it. Think of it as riding in the subway with an egg (bear with me). If your goal were to get from A to B with an unbroken egg, would you rest it on the hard plastic seat beside you? Or would you hold the egg in your hand? Since throwing your egg at the selfish person leaning their whole body against a pole is not an option, you’d obviously opt to hold it. Well, that’s the idea here. Like your hand, the SpringLOCK cage is meant to absorb as much shock as possible. Sounds like a face-palmingly obvious solution to a universal problem for mechanical movements.

To add more context the actual function of the cage, what it does is help maintain the integrity of the balance spring’s shape. Under even everyday shock, the balance spring can distort, and in some cases, detach from the balance wheel. The SpringLOCK cage is designed to prevent that from happening, or at least reduce the occurrences tremendously.

Ball Engineer Hydrocarbon Airborne

If everyday shocks can throw off your watch’s timekeeping ability, obviously playing golf or the drums would wreck it. It just so happens these are two activities Ball claims can be performed while wearing their watches outfitted with SpringLOCK. Not to be left as mere talk, Eric Singer, drummer of legendary rock band KISS, has actually performed on stage with his Ball Engineer Hydrocarbon Airborne. A total watch geek, Singer has said it’s the only watch he’ll wear while drumming. Ball performed a series of tests while Singer wore a SpringLOCK Ball versus one without, and the results were obvious. The SpringLOCK Ball kept time within seconds during the set, and the non-SpringLOCK gained about three minutes.

In general, mechanical watches are at a huge disadvantage to quartz watches in a few key areas – shock protection being one of the primary areas. For some tasks, mechanicals just aren’t practical, which creates gaps often left unfilled. With their SpringLOCK system, Ball has diminished a weakness, using modern technology alongside traditional watchmaking to sustain the relevance of mechanicals beyond the appreciation of enthusiasts and hobbyists. If mechanical watches are to continue to survive at a meaningful level, technology gaps must continue to be narrowed, and thankfully, we have watchmakers like Ball to take on the responsibility.

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