Our next stop was the bench of Monsieur Beccia. 

He was working on the ultimate watch—the 1735 Grand Complication. For those of you who perhaps just came in from diving or mowing the lawn and don’t happen to have one on your wrist just now, the 1735 is a combination perpetual calendar, split second chronograph, hour/quarter hour/minute repeater and tourbillon. M. Beccia explained to us that he had been working on this watch for several months already and that the total time for building it would be around 10 months to a year. 

The two watchmakers also told us the story of a 1735 owner who for about two years, had to send in his watch for repairs every few months. Finally, the gentleman came to visit their workshop and complained a bit that the watch broke so often. It turned out that he wore it to play golf and for mountain-climbing. After politely explaining that these activities were a definite no-no for such a watch, it hasn't been back.

Click on the thumbnails to view larger images

Shown in the photographs are two plates from the movement—on the left the chronograph plate, with the column wheel visible at the top, split second wheel at the bottom and tourbillon assembly at the lower left. The plate on the right is the upper plate of the movement which shows the perpetual calendar assembly. Monsieur Beccia was at the first assembly stage described above, he had put the second finish on the parts and was not building the watch to get it to work. Once he achieved that, he would tear it apart for final finish and re-assembly.

Hans couldn’t resist asking if he did this from memory or whether he had plans. Monsieur Beccia pointed behind to an enormous manual, which probably should have born the title “The 1735—Don’t Dare Attempt This At Home”.

A bridge and a few gears of the 1735, altogether probably two dozen parts and smaller than a fingernail.

Monsieur Dominique Loiseau, who worked for three years creating the 1735, a genius and a man every bit worthy of the title "Master of Complications"

We asked what were the hardest things to build. Both Messieurs Beccia and Tieche responded in unison –the repeater. They explained that each repeater was highly individualistic and that the finish adjustment to each part were very tricky indeed. In fact they said the building had to been done most methodically. The repeater would have to be built section by section. Before going onto another section the preceding section would have to be made to work perfectly. There was no way they said that you could put it all together and expect it to work or to bring it to work. The problem not only is that the tolerances for the parts are so small, but that the little variations in individual parts combine to create unique problems for other parts. All of this has to be sorted out for each watch in a way unique to that watch.

Having brought up the subject, M. Tieche pulled out a repeater movement to view under the microscope. The spring in the middle of the picture isn't much thicker than a human hair, on an earlier stage of our tour, we were able to compare both under a microscope.

The test of a repeater is not only the purity of sound, but the level of sound the mechanism makes. One wants to hear pure sounding and no whirring of gears. Even out of its case this repeater had a beautifully silent mechanism and pure ringing of the chimes.

I made a feeble attempt to shoot a short video clip of the repeater chiming under the microscope. This was a lot more difficult than it sounds and I experienced severe problems trying to get the moving parts into view. The chiming comes across quite nicely though and you can hear me in the background saying "I don't see a damn thing" - in French ! Those with a quick Internet connection should by all means download and view it. Click the below link to open or use the right mouse button to save the file.

Next hardest to build were—surprisingly—split second chronographs. Again there was complete unanimity on this among the assembled watch makers. It seems that the problem is application of the fork brakes to one end of a very long shaft. Since the brakes are at one end and the bearing at a distant end, the most minor off center errors will cause the mechanism to malfunction. 

The difficulty in implementing the rattrapante or split-second complication certainly reflects in their prices, a 150 % premium over the regular chronograph version is not unusual at all. Monsieur Tieche, using both arms, graphically demonstrated the enormous forces that were involved in accelerating the second hand back into position - and we were lucky not to get slapped.