Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie

Conceiving and making a fine watch movement

Conceiving and making a fine watch movement

Over the centuries and building on inventions and progress by their illustrious predecessors, watchmakers have succeeded in creating increasingly reliable, precise and sophisticated mechanical movements.

And yet creating a mechanical watch movement continues to demand years of preparation. This preparation is entrusted to design engineers and micromachinists in watchmaking, who use cutting-edge digital tools to conceive the movement and produce a functioning prototype which they then verify and validate before conceiving each individual part in readiness for series production.

For a mechanical movement comprises hundreds of sometimes microscopic parts (watchmakers frequently measure in microns), all of which must fit perfectly together and effectively contribute to the correct functioning of the whole. A watch movement can thus be likened to an ingenious feat of architecture on a tiny scale.

In a modern-day Manufacture, the coordinated production of these parts is shared among numerous specialists in dozens of highly-skilled fields.

The first step is to shape each of the future movement's parts. This calls upon diverse techniques according to the material, form and function of each part. Some are sculpted or stamped from a block of metal, others are made using complex digital machines; some are laser-cut while others are abraded. Once each part has its fundamental form, it undergoes a long series of transformations. At one workbench, holes are drilled to carry the arbours of the different wheels; elsewhere hollows are machined in which to lodge other elements; contours are shaved to within a micron, teeth are shaped in wheels, and so on.

While these processes have now been largely mechanised, ultimately each one hinges on the operator's skill. When creating a mechanical movement for a Fine Watch, each part is inspected at every stage in its transformation. The importance of human expertise - and very often "secrets" that are handed down from one generation to the next - must never be underestimated.

Once a part has been shaped, it is in principle ready to be assembled. However, the specificity of a Fine Watch is that its movement, though often hidden from view, is finished and decorated to the same degree of perfection as the visible parts. And so each of the components is patiently polished or satin-finished, perhaps even engraved or otherwise embellished. Screws are "blued" over a flame and edges are bevelled to confer upon the movement its singular beauty and enviable perfection.

Only then does the watchmaker assemble the parts in a time-consuming, meticulous and extremely intricate ritual that has barely changed over the centuries. He begins by spreading the different parts across his workbench. Then, using the bottom plate as his foundation, he carefully builds the delicate mobile architecture that slowly takes form. Never taking his eye from his loupe, he positions the parts in relation to each other, secures them with screws, patiently adjusts each one and, with each new element, ensures the correct functioning of the movement that is coming to life in his hands.

THE PROFESSIONS INVOLVED IN CONCEIVING AND MAKING A FINE WATCH MOVEMENT:

• Design engineer
• Prototype-maker
• Micromachinist
• Digital-machine operator
• Movement fitter
• Movement regulator