Prior to the development of movements, the company began the manufacturing process of their watches by machining, finishing and assembling cases, below is an outline of part of this process.
The images below show the upper section of a case (unfinished) and the material it was machined from.
The DMG Mori below, produces the part of the case shown above. Long bars are fed into the machine from the left and the machined part is delivered through the window shown in the image below this one.
Although the form of the case is complete, it still needs to be lapped, polished and assembled.
There are 25 tools required to produce the part of the case shown above.
Each of the tools performs specific operations in the making process and the speed of its movement is dictated by its function and size.
The image below shows the cut of one of the tools which is used to remove material from the centre of the case avoiding the underside of the shoulders.
The steel bars used to make the cases are approximately 1.5 meters long with a diameter always exceeding the largest dimension of the case.
The first cut made by the machine is to tidy the external surfaces before the profiles cuts are made, to ensure the material is running perfectly round.
The tool used in each of the processes below accompanies the images.
The machine below is used for lapping the surfaces of the part of the case shown above prior to polishing and assembly.
The below machine is used for making case backs and movement rings. The long section to the left is the feed tray for the bars fed into the centre of the machine.
A steel bar placed into the feed tray.
Examples of the case backs leaving the machine.
The ecoMill below is used for mechanical engraving of the case backs.
The resulting machine engraving, after which the casing are circular grained removing the burs from around the engraved names.
In addition to the machine engraving above the lazer engraver below is used for custom additions to pre-engraved case backs. The case backs are fed in manually and executed individually.
GALLERY
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