Tuscar - The New McGonigle Timepiece

[Ernie Romers]

With the "Tuscar" featuring their new time-only in-house calibre movement, the McGonigle brothers, John and Stephen, have retained the qualities that were so successful in their tourbillon, including its distinctive design elements and transcendental levels of fine finishing, and distilled them to their pure essence.



"For the Tuscar we wanted a time-only watch with a high focus on excellent timekeeping; a substantial power reserve; solid reliability; and superb finishing and decoration." explains John McGonigle. "The design had to have a clean coherent style and we wanted the principle mechanical elements visible on the dial side. To achieve all of that we had to develop our own movement from the ground up."

The Tuscar is now available in a red gold case in a limited edition of 20 pieces. This follows the success of the quickly sold-out "One in Ten" launch series. The new Tuscar features a rich red gold case with a transparent sapphire dial revealing all of the subtleties of the stunningly finished movement beneath.

Origin of the name "Tuscar"

"Tuscar" is the name of a group of rocks with a lighthouse that is often the first part of Ireland seen by those approaching by sea from the west. The solidity the name evokes is a powerful analogy for the McGonigle's new model

"To ensure the success of our new calibre, we teamed up with the legendary Alberto Papi, one of Switzerland’s finest designer constructors, to help refine our movement design and specifications." explains Stephen McGonigle.

Tuscar - Technical Specifications
Calibre: McG01 manual-wind mechanical movement
Double mainspring barrels connected in parallel
Power reserve: 90 hours
Balance: free sprung balance spring with Breguet overcoil
Balance frequency: 18,000 bph/2.5hz.
Balance diameter 12.8mm (large diameter for timekeeping stability)
Gold escape wheel (to function without oil)
Number of jewels: 31

Case
18k white gold case and crown
Case diameter: 42.5mm
Crystals: Anti-reflective treatment on both top crystal and display back
Water resistance: 30 metres/ 3ATM

Dial & Hands
Transparent sapphire dial
Flame-blued hand-polished steel and hand-polished gold hands

Strap & Buckle
Hand engraved 18k white gold deployant buckle.
Black hand-stitched alligator


"We wanted a time-only watch with a high focus on excellent timekeeping; a substantial power reserve; solid reliability; and with superb finishing and decoration." explains John McGonigle. "The design had to have a clean coherent style and we wanted the principle mechanical elements visible on the dial side. To achieve all of that we had to develop our own movement from the ground up."

Background
After many years working on complicated timepieces with some of the most prestigious brands in Switzerland, John and Stephen McGonigle launched their brand, "McGonigle Watches" in 2007 at Baselworld, as candidate members of the AHCI. Their first model, a tourbillon, was critically acclaimed for the purity of its design and function as well as for it’s high standard of workmanship and finish. The McGonicles launched the Tuscar in 2010.

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[blerpa]

Balance: free sprung balance spring with Breguet overcoil
Balance frequency: 18,000 bph/2.5hz.

What is great that the basic Breguet overcoil can reach perfection in timekeeping, without tourbillon features. The basic balancing qualities of the Breguet hairspring is that its center of gravity is in the middle; not only at rest but also coiled in and out. A flat spring does not do that. Flat spring run great when amplitude is not varying much, for the extremes you need tourbillons or Breguets. Also quite some hours in adjusting the escapement helps a lot !

Great watch ! Hubert Pellikaan

[aznseank]

one word... WOW

[Watchbreath]

While checking out their watches caused my 'dribble-bibble' to fill up over 4 years
ago, this one, not a drop.

[mars-red]

I'm in love! I have a thing for finely finished time-only movements.