Independents

Steyr
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Casing an Antiqua

Let's start by the end and check at Christian, casing an Antiqua. Christian, not me, but another Christian. You might get lost when I am talking about Christian as we were 3 at that time, out of a dozain. Christian H ; Christian L and Christian R ...

Here is Christian L:




I love Christian's "office", especially in winter




The whole operation of casing is taking about 3 hours. Quite stressfull as you must avoid the faintest scratch. You might easily waste several days of your colleague's work. Well, with the comments provided by Christian, we probably reached 4 hours, but  4 hours I hardly noticed passing.



The movement just assembled, here is already one month of work just in pre-assembly and assembly. The movement basis is a Lemania. Ho, I hear some saying in the back that this is not in-house. Well, you're right, but you need to understand that the watch was first built in 1998 and at that time, Vianney wasn't feeling confortable in making a whole movement. He did learn it later with the Goldpfeil experience. The Trio is in-house movement and he's planning to make his own Antiqua's mainplate soon, when the second CN machine will be operational. For the time being, the Lemania is still used but I can tell you that the changes made are making it something really different from its basis (new stones, new openings for the fucntion, moving some wheels, ... In the end, the in-house will be easier to produce, and that's why they'll be doing). Note also the architecture of the overall result that is far from the usual modular QP. The reason is that they worked a lot in trying to integrate as much as possible of the complication, in the basis. The idea was to keep the movement as flat as possible. You can notice as well the finishing of the parts, such as the bridges, wheels, springs...







Then comes the case. The case is made out of 6 different parts assembled by invisible soldering.





First checks for the settings appendices in the case (QP correctors)







First dial, the hours/minutes
The dial is not fixed, it's the top part of the case that will block all the 3 dials thanks to the little slots at 6 and 12.









Checking the instantaneous jump of the date, as well the 28th february.







Second dial

 





Last one :







Checking the Bezel. Vianney is calling this part the table, maybe because that's how is called the very top and flat surface of a diamond.








Cleaning the inside part of the table.





This part is amazing. This is a very nice piece of machining and assembly. Note that every traces of tools have been removed with "traits brouillés" (scrambled stripes ?)







Silicone gasket





Delicate part : assembling the table with the case. Remember that you have to match the 6 slots of the dials that will be "squeezed".









Assembling the table is made with screws






Oups, a screw is slightly too long and might interfere with the oscilating mass :
Christian is turning with the hand. It's rare as most of the watchmaker would prefer the motor. He prefers to adapt the speed this way, although it requires a good experience. Well, he surely is !







Cleaning the oscilating mass :
Christian is just mentionning that " You know these days, people have crazy cameras and I don't want to see any dust on some watches posted on the Purists".






Here is the secret :






We have few more minutes to enjoy the result :
Pay attention at the perfect polishing of the case. Sharp angles, alternance of soft and shiny... It might take about a week to polish a platinium case to reach this level of perfection. Vianney is very proud of the finising of its cases. Of course, the buyer will damage it at the first contact but his feeling when he'll open the box worth the time and efforts spent in a high level polishing. I Didn't see Laurence polishing a case, that's one of the rare operations I missed but there is no lathe polishing here that would damage the angles. Only sticks, various abrasives, and patience, a lot of patience...
























Here is something else waiting, the first Trio yellow gold produced ! That something really breathtaking but we'll come back to this another time.

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