The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I second the motion on thanking the "Crew" on a very informative thread. Very concise and educational....correct me if I'm wrong on this, but isn't this the same process that some of the other companies also employ? Buying the chrono ebauches and reworking them and also relabeling them with their own caliber numbers? Thanks again for a good thread gentlemen.

_________________

It's what most companies have done up until now, but will decrease because Swatch group will not be supplying ebauches after this year - hence the rush to in house movements everywhere.

it sounds like a poor business decision to me. If you stop selling your product which causes your customers to design and build their own movements, then you lost a large customer base for life.

They are selling completed movements, just not ebauche kits. Customers who previously modified ebauches now have three options:

1) Go in house
2) Find another supplier
3) Buy completed movements from Swatch

In house is the headline decision, and is what the big players are doing, but many of the smaller players can't afford to do that. The other suppliers are either much smaller (so can't meet demand) or suffer the stigma of not being Swiss, so a lot of companies are forced to contract with Swatch for the supply of completed movements with any modifications being done within the Swatch group.

It's a change in business model, but it's not going to hurt them.

Thanks RJRJRJ for a clear picture, I assume that is B13 COSC certified A13322?

Its the same B13 found in all recent 7750 based Breitlings, including the COSC Old Navi.

_________________
-RJ

OK, but is there any difference between 13022 and 13322 just by taking a look at the movement after opening the back.

No.

Great topic with good information from our knowlegable members.

I have a B13 (7750) movement in my watch. What exactly does Breitling do to further modify the movement once they get it from ETA? Breitling orders the highest grade 7750 and they decorate the movement with a few "concentric perlée patterns" here and there and put their own rotor on with the Breitling name on it. Other than cosmetics, do they do anything else to improve the movement to prepare it for COSC or the end user (ie us)? When you view Breitling's PR movies available on Youtube it appears as they they work on the movement over a course of 80 days or so before it is cased. I know Cosc has it for 18 days or so - so what happens with the movement for the other 60 days?

They replace some parts as a matter of course - mainspring for example, and they subject other parts to tolerance tests that are much tighter than ETA. If the parts fail the tolerance tests then they are also replaced.

Much of the time is down to testing / observation / adjusting to ensure that the movement passes the COSC tests when it is submitted.

This thread has been almost beat to death and I hate to weigh in so late in the life. Essentially, it is about precision.

There are several wheels in a watch movement that transmit the power from the mainspring to the balance wheel. The balance wheel regulates the rate at which the wheels turn by converting rotational motion to oscillating motion. Other than the mainspring barrel, every wheel in the rotational train also has a pinion. It is a small concentric gear mounted on the same arbor (shaft) that meshes with the teeth on another wheel. Through this meshing process, one wheel drives another. The gear ratios are designed to allow the hour wheel to rotate every hour. The fourth wheel that also has an extended arbor for the seconds bit (hand) rotates once every minute. So, the mainspring barrel is the slowest in the train rotating once over a period of several hours and the escape wheel rotates several times per minute.

Now, every wheel arbor has a pivot on each end. It is smaller in diameter than the arbor and must be concentric. It must also be parallel to the plane of the arbor and the diameter must be the same along its length. It must also be highly polished to reduce friction. On high quality watches the pivots fit into jewels in the plates or bridges. There is an optimum depth where the wheel teeth engage the pinion teeth on its associated wheel. This depth produces the most efficient transfer of power from one wheel to another.

If you’re still with me, we get to the reason it takes so much time to make a movement perform with high precision. If there is a bent pinion or out of round wheel somewhere in the train, it will change the wheel depth along with the transmitted power. The only way to find it is to run the movement on a timing machine anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. The ultimate goal is to have the trace be a perfectly straight line from fully wound to fully run down. Obviously, this is not possible. So, the realistic challenge is to have the line as free of variations as one can make it. A problem in a wheel back toward the mainspring barrel will require a few hours of data for the cyclic trace to point to the offending wheel. Then, you must determine the cause of the problem, correct it and begin again.

I will not go into the almost infinite number of problems that can present themselves in this dialog. It has already gone on too long for most of you, and I haven’t touched on the balance or motion works that can introduce their own set of problems. Suffice it to say, you don’t always see the source of the problem the first time. These things are truly mechanical marvels! The next time you think about the price of an overhaul, think about this discussion.

Sorry about the length of this dialog, but it's hard to condense it any smaller.

_________________
1809 Cosmonaute
1903 Navi
Navi Olympus
Super Avenger

Digging this one up from the past here. Very Interesting post and very informative. I understand some of it but not all so here's a question for those of you that understood it all. I recently bought a Breitling Old Navitimer II D13022. As I understand it the movement in my watch is the same and the best grade/quality 7750 as a D13322? If that is the case then why do they COSC one model and not the other in the model as in the 3 verse 0 number? Is it just to save time and time = money? Do non COSC watches sell for less money initially? I bought mine used and its my first Breitling Navitimer and am just curious. TIA, Jim

Your watch is simply older. Breitling began certifying their watches around the year 2000 and over the course of a couple of years got to the point where every watch was certified. Your watch wasn't 'lesser' or 'cheaper', it was just produced prior to Breitling submitting their pieces for certification.

Thank you, thats nice to know.