MB&F – HMX Black Badger & Starfleet Machine Black Badger

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MB&F has partnered with the ‘Black Badger’ founder James Thompson to create these two highly glowing horology creations.

For the Performance Art collection, Thompson has reinterpreted two MB&F Machines: HMX, first launched in 2015 for MB&F’s 10th Anniversary, and Starfleet Machine, MB&F’s first table clock, which was created with L’Epée 1839.

For HMX Black Badger, Thompson redesigned the “rocker cover” of HMX’s Engine, visible under the supercar-like sapphire crystal cover, milled from his signature solid blocks of brightly coloured, high-efficiency lume.

While the colours – Radar Green, Phantom Blue, and Purple Reign – are eye-catching by day, it’s when the sun goes down that they really come out to party. The long-lasting glow emitted by the high efficiency lume irradiates the HMX Engine compartment in an ethereal bath of light.

HMX displays bi-directional jumping hours and trailing minutes. Light streaming through the transparent Engine cover both illuminates the top of HMX’s Engine by day, and by night the brightly glowing lume provides its own colourful backlight to the time display.

For Starfleet Machine Black Badger, Thompson added his exclusive lumeunder the external ring running around the Starfleet Machine movement, to the inside of the spaceship’s landing legs, and the indication domes and hands. The Black Badger touch ensures that Starfleet Machine looks just as good by night as it does by day.

While it may look like a model spaceship, Starfleet Machine Black Badger is actually a high precision clock with a 40-day power reserve that was created by L’Epée 1839 from a design by MB&F.

HMX Black Badger is a limited edition of 3 x 18 pieces in grade 5 titanium and stainless steel, with lume in Radar Green, Phantom Blue, or Purple Reign.

Starfleet Machine Black Badger is a limited edition of 3 x 18 pieces in palladium-plated brass, with lume in Radar Green, Phantom Blue, or Purple Reign.

While most watch enthusiasts are likely to be familiar with lume in the form of Super-LumiNova-enhanced hands and markers, that substance is quite different to the luminous material exclusive to Black Badger. While Super-LumiNova is a liquid that is applied to surfaces and dries, Black Badger’s lume comes in solid blocks that are milled by hand or machine into the desired shape. Not only is Black Badger’s lume extremely efficient at storing and releasing light, being solid means that there is usually more of it, so that it shines brighter for longer.

“White” light, which includes sunlight, is actually composed of red, green, and blue wavelengths of light. There are also other wavelengths of light outside our visible range, including infrared, a red that is just beyond visible, and ultraviolet, which is a blue that is just beyond visible. These different colours or frequencies of light contain varying levels of energy, with red/infrared at the lower end of the energy scale and blue/ultraviolet at the upper end.

When charging luminous material from white light, most of the energy comes from the more energetic ultraviolet end of the spectrum. But as ultraviolet is only a small fraction of white light source emitted by most torches and sunlight, only a small fraction of the power of the light source will actually charge the lume. An ultraviolet light, on the other hand, will charge lume much more quickly because it is all high-energy light, so more energy is absorbed by the lume more quickly.

This effect means that while normal white light sources will more easily charge the Black Badger Radar Green and Phantom Blue colours, an ultraviolet light is needed to charge the Purple Reign lume because it absorbs more energy.

HMX Black Badger
Limited edition of 3 x 18 pieces in grade 5 titanium and stainless steel, with lume in Radar Green, Phantom Blue, or Purple Reign

Engine
Three-dimensional horological Engine composed of a jumping hour and trailing minutes module developed in-house by MB&F, powered by a Sellita gear train
Mechanical movement, automatic winding
22K gold automatic winding rotor
Power reserve: 42 hours
Balance frequency: 28,800bph / 4Hz
Number of components: 223
Number of jewels: 29

Functions/indications
Bi-directional jumping hours and trailing minutes, displayed by dual reflective sapphire crystal prisms with integrated magnifying lens. Engine “rocker covers” from milled blocks of high-efficiency lume

Case
Grade 5 titanium and stainless steel
Dimensions: 46.8 x 44.3 x 20.7 mm
Number of components: 44
Water resistance: 30m/ 90’/ 3atm

Sapphire crystals
Sapphire crystals on top, front and display back treated with anti-reflective coating on both sides
Dual reflective sapphire crystal prisms with integrated magnifying lens

Strap & buckle
Partially perforated calfskin strap with colour complementary to Engine, titanium tang buckle

Starfleet Machine Black Badger
Limited edition of 3 x 18 pieces in palladium-plated brass, with lume in Radar Green, Phantom Blue, or Purple Reign

Display
Hours and minutes: curved, hand-polished hands rotate to indicate hours and minutes on a polished, central dome. The lume-enhanced dome features MB&F’s signature numerals

Retrograde seconds: 20-second intervals indicated by double retrograde fly-out cannons emanating from central dome

Power reserve indicator: a lume-enhanced dome indicator framed by a hand-finished arc provides an intuitive view of remaining energy as it turns 270°: 5 bars, 4 bars, 3 bars, 2 bars, 1 bar (1 bar = 8 days). Complemented by a ‘radar dish’ that also revolves 270°

Lume: the solid Black Badger luminescent material is on the underside of the external ring surrounding the whole structure, on the inside of the three legs supporting Starfleet Machine, and on the hour and minute hands and dome as well as the power reserve dome

Main structure
Height: approx. 21cm
Diameter: approx. 29cm
Inner C-shaped structure, external C-shaped structure, support arcs and screws all in palladium-plated brass.

Movement
L’Epée1839 in-house designed and manufactured movement
Balance frequency: 18,000 bph / 2.5Hz
Barrels: 5 in series
Power reserve: 40 days
Jewels: 48
Incabloc shock protection system
Manual-winding: double-ended key to set time and wind movement
Mechanism and main plate in palladium-treated brass

Transparent ‘biosphere’ dome
Material: polished glass
Height: 27cm
Maximum diameter: 31.5cm