The Making Of F.P.Journe's Most Complicated Watch

today we're at the Geneva headquarters of fpj one of the most thoughtful Innovative and interesting watch makers alive today we'll be following the process of building one of his most complicated watches the grand serery [Music] ref for the most interesting thing about fpj is that it's a fully integrated manufacturer despite the fact that it only makes around 900 watches per year every component for the watch except for the dial is made in its downtown Geneva manufacturer in the basement of fan you'll find CNC machines a CNC machine is responsible for cutting the 18 karat rose gold base plates following the CNC machine the 18 karat rose gold base plate will then go into the electroerosion machine which has an ultimate Precision of up to 2 microns the grand strike watch chiming gongs are cut out of stainless steel several years worth of chiming guns will be cut at the same time the components from the basement of fpj are taken upstairs and prepared to be polished and beveled each component is finished by hand and the smallest eror would cause the finisher to throw away that component this for example is mirror polishing it can take up to 4 hours to polish the turbon cage to have a perfect mirror finish the watch maker here is now inserting Jewels into the base plate next the watch maker will begin to assemble components on the base plate each chiming gone for the grand sunary must be completely beveled by hand placing the chiming gongs into the ground sunary takes the utmost [Music] [Music] Precision once the chiming gongs have been inserted into the grand Sony the watchmaker will then test the resistance of each hammer visible through the sapphire case back the Striking racks activate the Hammer of the ground cery when the strike is released the rack drops into their respective cams they're then immediately engaged by the Striking train and lifted to the end of their travel as the rack lifts their outer teeth Engage The Gathering pallets to strike the gongs once the wash has been completed there will be a final polishing of the case what many people do not know is that fbj also owns his own dial manufacturer on the outskirts of Geneva here you see one of the new fpj and gold dials being polished with a diamond tool to provide a perfect mirror polish to the numbers integrated into the dial it should be noted that this dial will not on a grand soner but is representative of many of the processes used to make dials for fpj here we see the blue chrome dial of the chronometer blue this dial is actually the most difficult to produce for fbj and sees only a 30% success rate here we see the small subsecond dial being placed into the main dial and then fixed with a minuscule amount of glue using a tool the size of a sewing needle the paint is transferred onto an fpj dial using a homemade gelatin pad kept at a very precise temperature the paint is transferred up to six times to give the numbers the exact required fpj bomb shape the dial is then examined by computer to check for imperfections the galvano plasty workshop allows the dial manufacturer to create different colors for its dials depending on which color the dial will be it could be dipped in silver red gold white gold or Rine ium immediately next door to FP Jordan's dial manufacturer is its own casem maker after the case has been produced it will take several rounds of polishing to give it a perfect form and shine what makes the fbj and granite petite CER so interesting is that it completely mitigates any user error it is incredibly wearable it's usable by anybody you don't need to understand how it works you use it properly on top of that the case is in stainless steel it's not in Gold it's not in Platinum the reason for this is that fpjourne decided that he would use the metal that has the best resonance capabilities and that is stainless steel I think what fpjourne is doing today is really cutting edge watchmaking with respect for the past without living in the past finally while the granite peti soner is in fact the most expensive watch fpj makes it is significantly less expensive than competing watches with the same complication

Channel: Hodinkee

Views: 347,850

Keywords: F.P. Journe (Business Operation), Watch (Industry), HODINKEE, FP Journe Grand Sonnerie, Grande Sonnerie Watches, Most Complicated Watches, Francois-Paul Journe, Geneva Watchmaking, Grande and Petite Sonnerie, HODINKEE videos, Watch manufacturing process

Id: E6WMenS141A

Length: 7min 20sec (440 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 19 2015