Baselworld 2015 Preview. Big Bang Unico Full Magic Gold.
Hublot’s Magic Gold, the world’s only scratch-resistant gold, certified as 18K meats the iconic design of the BIG BANG in the world’s only scratch-resistant gold watch.
The Magic Gold is a noble material protected by patents, certified as 18 carats by the Central Office for Precious Metals Control, and developed by Hublot in Switzerland alongside the prestigious EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), several months of fine-tuning took place in the manufacture to machine the famous alloy.
The revolutionary material is a fusion of 24 carat gold (nature’s ultimate noble material) and the latest high-tech materials expertise. A boron carbide powder is pre-formed in moulds very similar in shape to that of the finished parts, in this case the watch’s bezel. The pre-formed powder is then hardened at a very high temperature, creating a rigid, porous structure. After this operation, 24K gold alloyed with 3% molten liquid gold is injected under very high pressure with inert gas at a high temperature, allowing the metal to fill the ceramic pores and creating a “fusion” of the two to produce Magic Gold.
Since November 2011, when Magic Gold was unveiled to the world’s press, Hublot has equipped itself with the means to produce this material in-house from start to finish thanks to its high-tech foundry at the Nyon Manufacture, which is home to the ceramic sintering and high-pressure metal casting processes. The first watches made from Magic Gold were presented at BaselWorld 2012 in a very limited Big Bang Ferrari edition.
“The fusion of materials is in Hublot’s DNA. Four years ago, Hublot created Magic Gold, the only scratch-resistant gold in the world. Still today, Hublot is the only brand to offer this material, whose hardness is close to 1,000 Vickers, more than twice that of ‘standard’ 18 carat gold, which only reaches 400 Vickers,” said Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot.