Drawings, Photographs, Words and Poetry
Preface
Message from Mr. Rene Felber, - Federal Councillor and former President of the Town of Rolle (1991)
To evoke the two hundred years of the Bergeon House, reliving the history of watchmaking in the Neuchateloise mountains. As is often the case, at the outset, we find the descendants of 17th-century French refugees brought to our region. We see many influential figures who constitute a veritable dynasty of industrialists and traders.
The international ramifications of their trade, which quickly spread to Germany, France, but also London, Amsterdam, and then, later, in North America and Asia. Wars, revolutions, economic crises often slow down business, but the company was renewed each time. The Watchmaker of the past centuries worked at home with his own tools. In the face of the imperatives of specialization, which allows for ever more abundant and cheaper production; the workshop then replaced the counter, the tool of the watchmaker perfects itself and becomes a machine; it is to this development that Bergeon & Cie SA has devoted most of its strength during its two centuries of existence.
Since then, nothing makes more sense than to mark this anniversary by a book highlighting man’s relation with the material, by the tool, the extension of the hand. As a company based in the canton of Neuchatel it is also a tribute to a particularly rich archaeological past. In our country, the tool is 40,000 years old. How far we have come since these modest pieces made by Neanderthal man in limestone siliceous-scrapers, tips, scrapers - discovered in Cotencher's cave!
Tracing the history of the tool through the ages appears as an exciting adventure, in this framework, the tool of the clock brings an additional dimension, it binds intimately Man and Time. There is no doubt that this presentation will be an appreciated gift in this year of the 700th anniversary of the Confederation calling us to reflection and a return to source. -200- A birthday is a particular moment where you have to take time to look back in order to respond to the questions about the future.
This is the case today for the firm Bergeon & Cle SA, formerly Faure Frères. Let us first pay tribute to our predecessors who, since the end of the 18th century, devoted all their energy to give to the watchmakers, then to the jewellers, the tools that their hands need to make most complicated mechanics, create beautiful adornments or bring the mechanism to life. What satisfaction to serve these trades fascinating people who never cease to amaze. It is indeed not by chance that our house was born in Le Locle in 1791. The 18th century had seen the city devote itself to watchmaking... giving birth to so many names that have carried high and far from the region's reputation. Evolution of the requirements of the watchmakers. In the 19th century, in full industrial development, the company set up branches in Amsterdam and Paris. Then came the ' 50s. and 60, those of the great watch boom that enabled Bergeon & Cie to resume development until the advent of the Quartz Watch. The time was then to focus more on the needs of jewellers. This remarkable continuity rests on an extensive network of relations in Switzerland and worldwide, years of exploration and travel continues. Our activities could not have developed without the toolmakers, those suppliers who are essential partners to ensure the quality and product development. Similarly, they could not have grown without our customers and resellers from the world that, we serviced faithfully for many years, at the call of watchmaking and jewellery. Attentive to professionals capable to imagine the new needs for tools; our direct contacts in Switzerland with our customers, manufacturers, craftsmen and teachers are precious in this respect. It is by thinking of all those who, from near or from far, are bound to our activities we have created this presentation - a witness dedicated to the tools, always indispensable to man. Confident in the future, loyal to the companies of our predecessors, we devote all our energy to evolve with the products and with the means of modern management. Information technology, new exhibitions, reception and storage, modern offices, all assets to secure the future and be able, when the time comes, proudly to pass the torch.
Michel Soldini Bergec
From the forge to the workbench
Watchmaking tools
The tool precedes the object to the realization of that which it will be implemented. To the question of the philosopher: "How to be creative before creation? The craftsman says that the tool is at the origin of any work! Its pragmatism does not allow it to get lost in the meanders of an anxious thought of itself.
At each questioning of the material or his work to improve it constantly, he responds by creating a tool to overcome the new constraints imposed by his creative genius.
Thus, the primitive tool, very simple, dedicated to multiple functions, will slowly be diversified and specialized in different trades that will all have tools for each function, or even several variants for the same gesture.
The watchmaking tool is one of the richest examples of this evolution of tools related to the evolution of the product from the basic tooling of the forge.
On the basis of the developing watchmaker, we find, even today, the coupled symbol of creation, the anvil and the hammer. But the anvil is reduced to the size of a phalanx of the thumb and the hammer is so delicate that it is hardly enough to break the shell of an egg.
The evolution was systematic in application of intellectual knowledge, since it was necessary to translate into metal the reflection of the mathematicians of the end of the 13th century who knew how to divide the circle in as many measurements as requiring the counting of time…
Plate 1
The Hammer.
A long and meticulous mutation will modify the tool and give it a definitive shape for a specific use. Evolution will not be stopped, however, in search of the perfect harmony between form and function, the watchmaker's hammer is a masterpiece of balance.
At the centre of the steel mass, the eye receives a handle that each hand adjusts to suit it for accuracy and flexibility. The shape of the handles undergoes imperceptible variations. They are important enough to change the behaviour of the tool if it changes hands.
On his anvil, the watchmaker does not forge but rivets, redresses, alters parts, an axle, a wheel.
Plate 2
Pliers
Eagles beak, fisheye, a cold approach to the hard reality of the pliers.
Steel speaks painfully to noble metal, which are much softer. This is why the jaws of the forceps must take the form of the prey so that it is held tightly without hurting it.
The function of the pliers is in a word that sounds like a motto under the coat of arms of a high lord: "Hold."
So, the pliers are a tool of the left hand in the service of the one who works with the saw or the file, the hammer, the polisher ...
When the pliers are used to shape the material, to bend, it is with the tools of the right hand.
The pliers can intervene in each hand; they are then capable of extreme tension! The vice is a tethered pair of pliers, locked to the bench.
It is a mechanising tool whose power of the jaws is increased tenfold when hugged.
Plate 3
Files
The morning is in friendship, in kinship, in affections with all the tools, but if one wants to speak about intimate relationships, then no doubt that the file is the most pampered.
It is flexible in the hand, soft on the material, Tucked in the hollow of a hand it takes support, it preserves all freedom of movement in the fingers, which guides it on the hills, the plain or the valleys of the matter like a caressing hand visit the landscapes of a body.
The files of the watchmaker and the jeweller are the finest of this immense family. They take all the most subtle convex and concave oblong, flat or triangular forms, as knives, rat's tail, pointed or square.
When the file finishes her life so much used she moves to other functions. Its sharp steel makes excellent chisel, engravers, parting and other tools, changing hands and jobs, it changes course
Plate 4
The Piercing Saw
"To saw" is to insist until patience is broken.
The jeweller's hacksaw, which the watchmaker uses only occasionally, is a tool of fracture.
It separates abruptly, cutting material irreparably. But when the thin blade, stretched on the bow, meddles on the bridge of a movement to leave no mark on the piece of a watch, just to leave a shadow of metal between the rubies, then the piercing saw is an act of poetry. It is true that a skeleton watch is a delicate metal poem where space and time unite in the transparency of the movement.
Plate 5
Pliers (2)
The tool looks like a couple of dancers to whom we fix the theme of variation on which they can evolve into infinity.
To impose, held between their jaws, sliding towards each other and embraces for a kiss, cutting ... biting cruely or warmly.
These primitive tools, of multifunction, gradually multiplied through millennia and centuries, in the shape as required in each gesture of the craft, has become a specialist in a practice. The head of the pliers is an example of this infernal multiplication in a devil of tools, ready for all mischief.
Plate 6
The Compass
Everything is in one, one is in everything, as the point contains the circle.
Nothing is more precise than the circle which, in the image of the universe, is without beginning or end.The compass contains the circle at arm's length, like the moralist in principle without any nuances.
Placed at the center of its circular conviction, the compass never varies its credo except that it recites it more or less wide. It is the tool of the absolute.
Given its cold rigor, the tool is a measuring instrument from when it enters a straight line from one point to another to repeat elsewhere this data that it memorizes with unalterable precision.
Plate 7
Measuring Guages
When it takes a hair to be precise, the "tenth in a row" this measurement is well beyond what can be estimated by the most exercised eye.
And when the compass multiplies its talent, it captures the shade of a hundredth of a millimetre displayed by a reference arrow. This instrument is a measuring tool because it requires all the skill of a hand exercised to handle it.Watchmaker, clockmaker, jeweller, each trade has its "precision", adapted to the most frequent use which is to say the thickness of the material, bottom to top or from tooth to tooth.
It is a tool whose use can transform the material ... without acting directly on it.
It is a masterly tool, certainly, but even more a tool of a master to control the work of others.
Plate 8
The Oiler
A hint of oil in the movement of the watch is like a reassuring, affectionate word in a conversation. A little tenderness allows you to walk side by side for a long time without suffering the outrages of the habit.
Turning tirelessly on their pivots, wheels and pinion live in osmosis, like two loving hands that cherish each other to tie and unceasingly untie the knots they handle.
Just like men and women need affection, brass and steel need the unctuous medication of oil "Moebius", the oil of watchmakers, so that their friction never leads to misunderstanding.
But too much and too little spoils all the roles of the gears. It is necessary to adjust the tiny drop of oil, as one adjusts a hundredth of a millimetre in mechanics.
The oiler with its agate pot prepares a pearl of oil at the end of a needle to deposit it with care and precision.
This is the last act on a watch movement before sealing the case, like the last stroke of a brush by an artist on a painting.
Plate 9
The Flame
In almost all of the workshops of artisans a fire burns, either to warm the glue of the carpenter or to keep the irons of the furnace hot.
Burning fire, ephemeral wood, patient wick, the fire is watched under surveillance because it remains feared as a dangerous prisoner who thinks only to escape.
The watchmaker retains what the old catalogues call "a brass lamp for the spirit of wine", that never enlightened! The flame was mainly used to blue the screws arranged on a metal iron held on a long rod. The life of many tools is often extended by jobs for which they are not originally intended.
Plate 10
The Drill
Drilling is a delicate operation because it requires both precision and strength. The drill is an ancient tool, anterior and Neolithic. Guided by the chuck, the drill bit can intervene to an exact point, in variable diameters, on soft metals.
The wooden handle is grasped in hand, the wood slipping between the index and the middle finger. The flywheel is launched by rotating the shaft, between the index finger and the thumb.
By pressing gently and slowly at first on the handle, one accelerates a movement back and forth by winding and unfolding the leather thongs passed through a hole at the top of the wood. By pressing harder, you quicken the pace.
The tool is unusual in that it reduces the hand to the function of a driving force as with the first machine tools, but retaining its essential role as a skilled guide.
Plate 11
The Lathe
The small lathe is fixed in the vice. It varies in its form according to whether it is used to turn, finish, burnish, polish, etc.
This tool looks like a machine. It is a three-handed tool: the vice, your right-hand tailoring, the left hand turning the subject by the movement back and forth of the bow. Here the hand has lost none of its prerogatives.
If the left is power, the right is craftsmanship.
Plate 12
The Grinding Stone
The ratio between the toothed wheel and the pinion makes it possible to turn the wheel very quickly. Both hands are at work. On the spindle, the pivot is fixed and rotates on the spindle, while the file is free in the hand and the workpiece is machined. Here, it is the opposite...
Plate 13
