Chopard

Chopard Manufacture Visit Part 2(a)

 

Continuation from  Part 1 of Chopard Visit.                        

After the first day in Chopard at Geneva, the following day was to visit an important site.  

A site which Mr Karl-Friedrich Scheufele has worked to rekindle Chopard's actual trade - watchmaking. 

It is the 'return-to-root' location in the Swiss Jura hills where Chopard watchmaking began - Fleurier, in Val-delTravers.

That day, my good host, Mr.Patrick Wehrli arrived early and  we set of  at 7:30am. 

The trip to Fleurier, from Geneva takes about 1.5 hour by car.

Some pics along the way ...

Up on the highway  ....

Some houses and a small yard on my right ...


Cutting through a town and hills, then ...


through a quiet road to nowhere ...


Then this interesting saw-tooth-chain rock formation.... understand from my army-trained host, this rock-chain is some
sort of a barricade to prevent the enemy tanks from crossing during last world war.

I think it is called Toblerone ... yes, like the popular chocolate


At 8:42am ...a sign!


Still not arrived yet...




A map from the Watch Valley to provide perspective, the location Fleurier and Geneva.


At 8:53am...saw the signage pointing to Chopard.



Passing by the extremely quiet town, no human in sight but really serene.




This was a picture of the building before ...the birthplace of  the Chopard Manufacture since 1996.
Initially started with half a floor as more machinery were purchased, the expansion speeded up...eventually Chopard purchased
over the whole building in 2000 and did a renovation.

Total amount invested in the buildings, machinery and others since 1996 amounted to CHF30 Millions.



A minute later....the new Chopard Manufacture emerged !

Standing at the entrance, took several pics before entering the building ...

A hill on my right -side and a playground opposite the building....


To my left ...


The playground in front ...


The entrance to Chopard Manufacture


A 6-level building with a basement


The friendly receptionist ...greeted us..



Perlage pattern welcomes everyone at the front door


Followed by another framed message as a reminder or mantra to everyone... synonymous to L.U.C

Just my interpretation :
L.U.C ( as conceived by Karl-Friedrich Scheufele) to be positioned as a watch 'with substance that will last and enables
the adventure to go on' and  it is dependent on the MOVEMENT.  Precision is relevant here.

Staying just a while in the reception area, I could feel this venue is everything about horology, and time. 

Of course, later we visit one of the ultimate 'time capsule' - the LUCEUM.

Opposite the frame is  ....

A 'Cadran Solaire , circa 1778' , a sun-dial


Behind the receptionist ... another nice piece ...did not manage to get the details.
Will look very good if this could be a miniaturized dial ...aged over time...


This piece L.U.C Qualite Fleurier (QF with Caliber 9.96) is relevant to this site, and it is a milestone for L.U.C. 

The L.U.C QF commemorates the launch of the extremely stringent Haute Horlogerie Quality Certification by the
Fleurier Quality Foundation (FQF) in 2004.

More about the FQF later in Part 2B.


The excursion began with Patrick Wehrli leading the  tour.....

The machining division


A very clean and tidy working environment.
This is very heavy investment. 
3 top notch multi-axis Mill Turn machine centre with extremely high precision specially for the precision, aerospace and watch industry.


The components fabricated at Fleurier are near to 85% to 90% of each movement/calibre requires ranging from the main plate,
all bridges, tourbillon cage, click spring, yoke spring and date disc.  Earlier on, at Geneva plant, we have seen Chopard's
capabilities to design and develop own toolings to stamp their own casings.

To meet the Swiss Made criterias, Chopard easily surpasses the criterias. 


Unfinished main plates


The unfinished main plate of the signature Quattro Double twin-stacked barrels (4 barrels) cut-out.


Unfinished carriage supposedly to hold the Variner Balance.


A sample set indicating the progressive steps of fabricating the various bridges of the Quattro (lower row).
The above row is the main plate.


A few close up shots followed  ....








The above are the barrel bridge, balance bridge and gear train bridge of the Quattro Calibre 1.98 .


Theses are 3 super hard and dense tungsten rotors which were machined out from these Multi-Axis MC.


This piece of speedster is a very advanced 6 axes machine.  It  can cut very complicated shape at great precision.


More machines on the other side...


Semi cut plates...pending for next operations.


Cutting in action with the coolant spraying onto the workpiece.


Another zoom out view.




Beside the machine is the automatic quick change tool-magazine.


A drawing of a tourbillon bridge of Caliber 4T


A box of 'GO' and 'No Go' gauges from diameter 1.200 to 1.300mm. Note it is to the 3rd decimal places. Each piece is
at an incremental 0.020 mm or 20 microns.



A digital depth gauge is used for more accurate readout.


As the components are small, naked eyes are not good enough for visual inspection.  All parts to be examined under
a microscope.


Even better, a more sophisticated  vision system matching the parts to the CAD drawings.


Parts are measured at a regular interval to ensure the dimensions are inside the controls.

In Chopard, I observed they implemented Statistical Process Control (SPC), which is not a surprised since this plant has
obtained ISO 9001:2000 certification since 1998.  That's besides the point, the SPC is implemented to ensure parts
manufacturability and repeatability.
It is the first and foundational step to reliable movements and mastering the processes.



Each batch is considered one sub-lot , and accompanied by a ticket for traceability.


At the end of the room, there is a wire-cut EDM. 

Typically use to cut a contour in a workpiece.  So it is mostly used to cut precision stamping-die manufacturing and miniaturized
parts. 


The wire (which use to cut)  diameter is ranging from 0.02 to 0.30 mm.  Very fine and delicate.



Saw the date-discs beside the wire-cut machine (with label "Good" & Defective"). 
Perhaps the date-discs are fabricated using this machine.


Another set of non-contact vision measurement system.  It is neccessary for such miniature components.


Leaving the super Machining Division ....


Next entering a quiet room....


Brushes, wood-sticks (like giant toothpicks) and microscope?


The specialist is doing manual deburring under scope. 

Yes, even with high-tech machinery, burrs still occur.  Its inevitable in cutting processes.

Woodsticks are used so as not to damage the brass parts.



A reference to the size of the parts the ladies could be working ... I placed a thin 0.3mm wire beside.

Observe the edges of the bottom piece with burrs. The piece above it, the edges and holes were completely deburred.
Notice the difference?






Some smaller parts require a special holder to grip.



After deburring, all parts are to be washed off the oil, contaminants and debris  with this industrial cleaner.
This cleaning process is critical to the next...if the surface is not thoroughly cleanse, the plating would be affected.




Next we have a glimpse of the Plating Section,


Full plating facility


It is reassuring to see the L.U.C has the in-house complex plating capability.
As good and well controlled processes ensure the durability of the plating.



A rhodium plating station. 

Rhodium is important for white gold cases.  Rhodium not only provides the mirror-shine surface, it is also resistant to
surface abrasion and chemical.  However the control of the thickness is critical.
Thus it is great to have the plating process in-house as it can be tightly controlled internally.


Some gold-plated main-plates...


A closer shot ...



Next to the Movement Decoration Division

Did you notice the below piece of bridge has gold-letterings on the a white rhodium surface?

This is another tedious process which gives the bridges a distinctive look with the  bi-colour decoration step ...




Every piece of bridges after gold-plated will be manually painted  with a special ink which acts like a resist or mask against the
next rhodium plating. 

The tools are a microscope, ink, a thin brush (or a syringe) and most important the manual dexterity.


Masked with a black ink


Masked with a white ink


Unmasked pieces ....


Instead of brush, this is with a syringe ... each piece is carefully masked...



Some of the masked pieces, ready to be sent for nickel and rhodium plating.  After which the masks will be stripped using
a solvent and then sent for cleaning again.





Continue with the next technique ...



 The scope of skills for the Movement Decoration



First stop, perlage or stippling (or circular graining)...a surface process to create continuous circles with arcs over-lapping
or just touching the centre of the next circle.
It looks like simple process, however, to execute a quality perlage with consistent overlapping requires great skill from the specialist.

Not only consistent overlap, though the depth of the spindle is controlled, the specialist has to pay detailed attention that equal
downward force is applied to produce consistent pattern cut and also to know when to make adjustment when the stippling
tool wears.


The specialist has a jig to jog her piece from inside to outside perimeter.

Side-lights are mounted to assist her in proper alignment of the workpiece during stippling and also enable
her to see from the reflection in case the perlage pattern starts to thin down due to tool wears.

Some examples of the beautiful perlage .... (these are sample pieces and  not production pieces)

A closer look ...

Why was this piece here?  Turn it around ...

The back is perlage too...

L.U.C specifies even the underside of the bottom plate and bridges to be decorated even though the customers could not see!

This is a very good spirit and the action is congruent with high standard.

Even hidden areas blocked by the barrels are perlage.

As it is handwork, no two pieces are the same.

Another example of before and after perlage on both sides.

The flip side. Notice the 2 levels of perlage.



"COTE de GENEVE" or Wave of Geneve

The COTE de GENEVE decoration station.

The spindle depth is controlled by the setting on the micrometer.

Undecorated parts



Decorated parts

Careful adjustment to be done for wave width to ensure balance and even distribution of the patterns over the entire surface.

The specialist constantly check to ensure the quality of the wave pattern  as the grinding-head will slowly wear off and
need replacement.



COTE de GENEVE on the Quattro Barrel Bridge




Chamfering or Beveling

Definition from FHH :

Chamfer (Bevel)

(In French: angler ou chanfreiner)

To form a flat surface by hand-filing the sharp edge of a bridge, plate, screw head, etc.

These group of specialist work with the dentist-tool, hand-held burnisher.

A handheld rotating spindle with various grade of diamond-tips can bevel and polish to mirror-finishing at the same time.

It may sound simple to perform this step. 





An untrained hand will easily over-bevel, damaging the part.  As it is removing material from the part, the step is non-reversible
or undone. 
To remove material without pitting the surface requires knowledge of the spindle speed to set and the grade of diamond
tips to use.

At the final polishing stage, the touch and feeling gained through years of experience determines the quality of the beveling.
It must be of even sheen throughout the entire surface and maintaining a consistent chamfering angle (slope) under the microscope!

Some of the finished parts ....

The tools - handheld-burnishers.  Observe the various tips...




Is the chamfering and polishing just by the handheld-burnisher?





No, there are areas which could be spotted to verify the chamfering & polishing is of high standard.

Observe the areas with change of angle.  For example, the above steel-wings tourbillon bridge.
The drawing above indicated an unfinished part (on the left ) versus a finished part (on the right).

Besides chamfering the 3 holes, there are 8 points which need to maintain the sharp angle after full polishing.
The difficult areas are those marked in pink lines.  And only the hand (with the files) can achieve the sharp angles.
The burnisher will round the edges!
 

As the tourbillon bridge is small, it has to be gripped with a customiszed handtool (left hand).

This specialist has been with Chopard for a long time...she is a Chopard fan too .

The angular bevelling is performed under the microscope.   The movement is so small, could barely see her hand move but
the resulting finish is spectacular.  ( Lack of a macro lens at that visit  to capture the good work)

Polished parts are checked constantly with a vision system before buy-off and sent to assembly division.

A view through one of the windows while on the way to the ....


Sub-Assembly Division

All the L.U.C calibers are assembled here at Fleurier except the few which are with the Poinçon de Genève or Geneva Seal.

I like this...exploded view of a Cal 3.96 with the part descriptors on the left.

Put on our dust-coat and entering ...




A brief description of the work to be done at this Sub-assembly section ...

These are some the components to be assembled together.

So in actual fact, a component are made up of many sub-parts.

The bottom plate (platine).

Did you see the different layers of perlage done?

Observe the 2 little channels ( located at 5 or 11 o'clock position).

The flip side... all surfaces are decorated.

Something Interesting ...



The dials for movements to be sent to COSC testing ...

Just simple black & white dial (with a second hand) for maximum contrast which works best for the COSC automated
result recording with their vision system.

A ready-assembled piece to be sent to the COSC test laboratory.

As of now, only the base movement is sent.  Heard that pretty soon, the spec could be changed, and full movement have
to be submitted to qualify.  This will raise the bar to pass.



The tools




The specialist is placing the jewels...

Assembling the date disc...

Assembling of the spiral/hairspring onto the balance wheel

A completed balance with the hairspring

An overcoil hairspring bent by the in-house experts

Every piece bent is verified with the template on the profile projector


After the sub-assembled components are done, they will be used to fully assemble into the final movement and then encase.


However that section is controlled -room (Class 100K) , so out of bound.... a picture at the entrance.








Next at the Testing Section ...

Saw the technicians testing the L.U.C Tourbillons ...

A beautiful Steel Wings 168963

And the avant garde Tourbillon Titan SL 168502




Well, I asked Patrick if he can show some data if tourbillon really precise.

Have a look at the result randomly pulled from the Tourbillon pieces produced ...very impressive!

In 6 positions (though all are calibrated at 5 positions) , the tourbillon (data on the left) it operates in a tight range between
-1.4 sec to 0.2 sec  while the other piece is from -0.6 to 0.8 sec. 

Now I understood why L.U.C send in 2 tourbillons for the Chronometry Contest which will start in mid 2009.

The automatic test machine ...the Witschi Chronoscope M10 which can test 10 watches at time.

The results logged ...

Next move to the Prototyping Section and saw an IMPACT Tester...

The piece under test was placed at  a stand and then the tester after setting the impact head travel angle, he
releases the head.  The watchhead just flew like a golf ball.

Impact tester are used the most during the design & prototyping stage, to see how well the whole design
(from casing to movement) work together to withstand tremendous shock and survive.

The 'executioner' is dropping the ....

Time flies...it's already 12:05pm... got to break for lunch. 

A shot of the "Chapeau de Napoleon" at the background ....

A closer shot ... will be there for a short break later with Patrick.

Please stay tune for the exciting afternoon session ....Visit to the independent Fleurier Quality Foundation (FQF)
and the remarkable LUCEUM of Chopard.

Posting sooooon.


Kong


** For the next two parts, please click on the links :

Part 2(b) : Visit to the independent Fleurier Quality Foundation (FQF)

Part 2(c) : Time Travel with L.U.CEUM









This message has been edited by Kong on 2009-05-07 10:24:33 This message has been edited by Kong on 2009-05-08 09:57:52 This message has been edited by Kong on 2011-05-08 22:28:30

Site Info.

Privacy Policy Cookie Policy