Kurt Klaus has made a living keeping track of time. And the master watchmaker, who has half a century of watchmaking experience with Swiss-based International Watch Company (IWC), demonstrates the same patience and precision in his thoughtful, measured responses.

When asked if he's found time for hobbies since retiring from full-time work, he pauses for at least a minute before replying: 'I start every day with a two-hour walk with my wife and the dogs. After that, I go to work. I still love my work but it is a lot more flexible now that I am semi-retired.'

Master watchmaker Kurt Klaus invented a revolutionary perpetual calendar module, which was then used in IWC's mechanical Da Vinci watches.

The Swiss is the first IWC employee to have a watch made in his honour in the company's 139-year history.

The Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Edition Kurt Klaus was launched last month and is priced from $53,000 to $96,000. There are only 600 pieces available worldwide.

Indeed, Klaus, 73, is known as the Einstein from Schaffhausen (a city in northern Switzerland from which he hails), and is widely regarded as the father of technical watchmaking. He is famous for having invented a revolutionary perpetual calendar module in 1985.

A perpetual calendar is a device in a watch which automatically gives the exact date taking into account the different number of days in a month and leap years. It can include other details such as moon phases.

The feat is made even more remarkable by the fact that he worked without computers, relying instead on drawings and detailed calculations.

He recalls: 'When I first started working, I tried to make watches more accurate than before. But once quartz watches entered the market, I stopped trying because the best mechanical watch will never be as accurate as a quartz watch. We could only work to make mechanical watches more complicated.'

A mechanical watch uses a non-electrical mechanism to measure time while a quartz watch, which is more accurate, uses an electronic oscillator regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time.

And Klaus came up with an intricate mechanical watch with his perpetual calendar system, which was easier to use than others and for the first time, displayed all four digits of the year in a mechanical watch.

It was used in IWC's long-time Da Vinci brand. The timepiece with a chronograph movement (an instrument that registers or records time intervals) came with automatic winding and was designed to provide accurate dates and times until 2499.

The Da Vinci watch produced in honour of watch maker Karl Kurt.

'It was the most complicated wristwatch at the time,' says Klaus, who is married with three children.

The watchmaster was in Singapore last month to conduct workshops and promote the three new variants of the Da Vinci released by IWC: the limited edition released in tribute to Klaus, a chronograph edition and an automatic edition. The Da Vinci Automatic and the Da Vinci Chronograph start at $9,300 and $20,600 respectively.

The calendar invented by him has also been incorporated into other watches from IWC, including the Grande Complication, the Destriero Scafusia and the Portuguese Perpetual Calendar.

Of the Da Vinci released as a tribute to him, he says: 'Only the design of the watch has changed. It has a square face now, but it is the same on the inside. For a model to be around for 22 years is quite exceptional.

'When I started working on it, I didn't think it would be around for so long. I just thought that I should try to invent something better for the watch industry.'

Did you think that the Da Vinci would be such a great success?

No, I did not, but I felt strongly that we needed to create a simpler perpetual calendar. The calendars at the time were very complicated and had many buttons and knobs. I hated that. The system I invented was a lot simpler and had fewer parts to the mechanism. This meant that we could produce more pieces of the watch and it was less expensive than other watches.

What do you think is the appeal of mechanical watches?

Men, like little boys, need toys. When a man looks through the windows of a watch shop, he is like a little boy looking into the windows of a toy shop. It fascinates him to see and to feel all the mechanisms in a watch working together. That is why we often make watches with glass bottoms, so people can see for themselves how the watch works.

The orginal 1985 IWC Da Vinci watch.

How did IWC cope with the advent of quartz watches?

When quartz watches were introduced, it was a very difficult time for mechanical watchmakers. The number of employees in IWC dropped from 330 to around 145.

But we believed that there were people who appreciated mechanical watches and didn't just want quartz watches. They wanted watches that were complicated so I began to work on something new on my own.

I made a pocket watch that came with a calendar that could show the days, weeks, months and moonphase. The management was very excited by this pocket watch and we presented it at the Basel Watch fair in 1977.

All around us were the newest quartz watches and here was IWC showing a mechanical pocket watch, but our watch was a success and the 100 pieces we had made sold out within 10 days.

This was a sign that we were doing the right thing and that we should keep going.

What sparked your interest in watchmaking?

I was the first person in my family to go into watchmaking. My father designed embroidery and my mother was a housewife.

When I was a young boy, I did not think that I wanted to be a watchmaker. All I wanted to do was play with small mechanisms. I liked working with my hands and I would take the radio apart. Then I decided to work with watches and I became fascinated with it.

What part of your job do you enjoy most now?

Now, I get to work with a new generation of watchmakers at IWC. It is amazing because sometimes there are three generations of watchmakers working together. But we are all true friends and I am very impressed with them. They often come up to me to ask me for advice. But a lot of the time, I tell them how I tried the same thing 30 years ago and it did not work so they do not make the same mistakes I did.