Montblanc

Here is Chapter 2 of Don's report.

My personal opinion is that the Rieussec model will be the one to keep your eye on.  If your tastes are a bit more conservative and your wallet a bit thicker I would jump to the Villeret collection without hesitation.

But even as I was impressed to see the Minerva Instiut De Recherche in Villeret, I think I was even more surprised to read the following chapter.  Here at Le Locle Montblanc has successfully allowed old fashioned watchmaking skills to exist alongside technology.  Again please enjoy and don't forget to thank Don.

Best, Mike

 

 

 

 

A visit to Montblanc Montre in Le Locle - part 2


Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec was a watchmaker for the King Louis XVIII of France. He invented the chronograph to give written documentation of the times of race horses, one of the kings great passions.  The dials turn below the hands, the hands hold a drop of ink and when pressed make a mark at the beginning and end of a lap.  Below we can see a reproduction of the first chronograph invented and patented by Nicolas Rieussec.

And here an original chronograph made later by Nicolas Rieussec  In this case the hands turn and the front glass can be pivoted up to be able to erase the ink written on the enamel dial.

The Montblanc Nicolas Rieussec chronograph exploits the idea of the disks turning under a still hand as in the original chronograph.

While the movement finishing is not at the level of the Montblanc Collection Villeret 1858 pieces, it is still nothing to be sneezed at.  There will be more pictures further along in this report.

The manufacture is now dedicated to the assembly of the Montblanc Nicolas Rieussec movements and substantial investments have been made in equipment to be able to ensure highest quality in production.  There are about 8 watchmakers active here.  As I visit the workshop the first production batch of automatic Rieussec calibres is being assembled.  The going train of the movements has already been assembled and tested and now the chrono parts are being added.

Cleaning the column wheel before installation on the movement.

Carefully placing the column wheel.

Following we will see some of the equipment that is used to ensure the best quality in each piece.  Below, an automatic oiling machine.

A tester for the wheel shakes.  The axle of the wheel is pushed up from below and the movement of the axle is measured from above for each wheel.

An automatic oiler for the antishock units with visualisation to be sure that the and oil has been placed correctly and in the correct amount.  If the the oil is not symetrical around the jewel hole, the movement has to be disassembled, cleaned, and oiled once again.

This machine measures the draw of the pallets on the escape wheel.  You can almost read the results on the screen, “hors tolérance”, out of tolerance, indicating that the pallet positioning needs to be retouched.

On this screen we can see exactly what is wrong.  The draw, the distance that the pallet jewel to the left and the escape wheel tooth to the right overlap, is too large and the pallet must be adjusted on the echappmeter. This optical measurement not only verifies the positioning, but gives the values needed to adjust the pallet corretly on the echappmeter.

To adjust the pallet jewels the anchor is removed from the movement and placed in the echappmeter which heats it to soften the shellac used to hold the pallets and allows very precise corrections of the pallet position.

Finally this tool is used to precisely adjust the rate of the watch.  The Rieussec movements have free sprung screwed balance wheels.

After timing with the red Witchi machine above the balance is held in place and a tool with measuring equipment is used to turn the 4 timing screws the exact amount needed to adjust the rate.

The watchmaker is checking the “réserve de marche".  This particular movement did not run long enough so it is being disassembled to find the cause. On the bench we see all the dial side, the parts of the motion train and the date function.

Investigating why the movement didn't have its full running time, are there wheels touching each other ?

The dial of the Rieussec is assembled from several pieces.  This dial is ready for the final assembly of the counter hands.

This jig assures the perfect alignment of the hands during assembly.

After mounting the dial and hands the movement is cased up.  Here the front bezel is being mounted.

In the next instalment we will follow the production of some of the other Montblanc timepieces.