Omega Speedmaster 38 Co-axial is the NEW Speedmaster Reduced
There’s a new Speedmaster for us slim-wristed guys. Or is it for ladies? Sensitive guys. Who cares?
Hey guys. I’m Max and this is WatchCrunch. We’re all stuck inside during this holiday season. So, I decided to debut my ugly Christmas sweater just for you. Also, the turtleneck is making a comeback, you mark my words. Anyway, the Speedmaster Reduced, or Automatic has a special place in my heart. It was the first watch to be featured on this channel. And also, for people with slimmer wrists like me, that watch with its thin case profile just fits like a glove. It was made between 1988 and 2009. So, it was overdue for a refresh.
So, in 2017, Omega brought out the Speedmaster 38 Co-Axial, and it’s supposed to pick up where the Reduced left off. Since then, they’ve had a number of models, including blue dials, gold cases, even diamond encrusted ones. But today we’re going to look at the black dial Speedmaster 38 and ask whether this new watch is a worthy successor for the beloved Speedmaster Reduced.
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Let’s get one thing out of the way. To say that a 38 millimeter diameter is a lady-size is preposterous. 38 would be considered big for most men’s models by vintage standards. In fact, the first Speedmaster ever made was about the same size, and the last time I checked, the human wrist hasn’t exactly undergone some recent evolution. Somewhat neglected in the back of the Omega catalog, the Speedmaster 38 is a striking watch with a lot of polished surfaces. And we get that big, bold Omega seahorse engraved on the case back.
You can see the clear family resemblance here with the two watches side by side. Oh, don’t worry about the sticker on the Reduced. That’s a story for another time. But look at their bracelets, both feature president-style links with polished center sections. They taper from 18 millimeters down to 16 at the clasps. With the new watch sporting a fancy butterfly variant while the older brother has to settle for a friction-fitted stamped one.
The biggest difference in their stature is the case thickness. The new watch gains two millimeters in height, which is significant, but the most controversial feature are those notches on the bezel. They correspond to numbers on the tachymeter scale. We still get the asymmetric crown guards, unique to the Speedmaster. A glossy deep grayish-black dial provides the backdrop for polished hands and a six o’clock date window, which is new. There is a lot of tech behind the scenes. The movement is an Omega caliber 3330, which is a column wheel chronograph with a free sprung balance containing a silicon hairspring and a power reserve of 54 hours. This movement features the advanced co-axial escapement system.
I think the co-axial movement is worthy of a moment of our time. And I must admit this took me a while to understand, but first, let’s familiarize ourselves with the parts of a watch’s escapement. The escape wheel is the last stop in a chain of wheels that delivers the power from the main spring to the balance, the timekeeping portion of the watch. The main purpose of an escapement is to release this stored energy in an orderly fashion. It is the interaction between the escape wheel and the pallet fork that has performed this job for well over two centuries.
However, in the 1970s, master watchmaker, George Daniels, thought that he could improve upon this tried and true mechanism. You see, the enemy here is friction and given the sliding action of the teeth of the escape wheel onto the jewels in the pallet fork, parts needed to stay well lubricated to function and were subjected to variations in the environment. Daniels, without the help of computers I might add, designed a system to combat this. His solution was to stack two escape wheels on top of each other along the same axis, hence the co-axial, and double the number of jewels on the pallet.
Take a look here. In the pallet fork for the lever system, you have two ruby jewels, whereas on its counterpart in the co-axial, there are four. This way each ratchet of the escape wheel was broken into two smaller interactions with the pallet instead of one large movement, reducing the amount of friction. As Daniels would describe it, instead of two surfaces rubbing upon each other, the action was more akin to pushing open of a door. Less friction means longer service intervals and less variation in timing between them. This bit of ingenious design has been adopted by Omega and lives in this Speedmaster 38. So I guess you’ll have to decide if this means that this watch has one leg up over the Speedy Pro.
So, after spending a month with this watch, I must say it has grown on me. I especially like the subtle sunburst effect on the dial, making it iridescent in certain light. Those deeply-set sub dials give the watch face a lot of dimension. Wearing it feels like a Speedmaster, but dressed up without completely losing the tool-like persona. The bracelet conforms well to the wrist and the cornell mechanism is nice and crispy. I did find myself missing the distortions of [inaudible 00:06:55] though. The date function also gives it some added practicality, and being an officially certified chronometer, the watch is alarmingly accurate, only off by about a second a day.
So, who is this watch for? Well, I think it’s somebody who wants a Speedmaster, has a smaller wrist, and is looking for the latest mechanical watch tech from Omega, like that co-axial movement. For me, would I trade my Speedmaster Reduced for the 38? Well, we don’t buy watches with our heads, do we? So I think you know the answer to that question. So, thanks for watching. Take care.
