Hairspring versus human hair

Ryan_Schwartz

We all know that hairsprings are super thin and delicate. I found a tiny remnant of a coil on a balance cock that I bought as a spare part and decided to do an actual comparison. I pulled out a hair from my head and cut it to size. I straightened the coil and put them side by side. The sizes are much closer than I expected. The hairspring (bottom) is a tiny bit thicker, but it's barely noticeable. I can't even begin to fathom what sort of machinery is needed to make metal so thin. Hats off to the designers of those machines.

#watchmaking
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