HourTime Show Watch Podcast Episode 82: Max Busser of MB&F

That is especially true in the watch making world where things get pretty incestuous. As long as you are mingling with Swiss (and to a large extent Germans and the French), things are a gonna be OK in their eyes. For me, Dubois-Depraz offers an expert service, and they do it well. If Patek Philippe or Jaeger-LeCoultre comes to them for parts, it is because they probably do a pretty good job.Efficent practices has Dubois-Depraz producing over 100,000 movement modules each yearPalette jewels set by hand into tray for automated placement into modulesYears of developing special modules for dozens of brands has given Dubois-Depraz a very large catalog of watch modules they can produce. They mostly work with base ETA movements, but also often with Girard-Perregaux and Jaeger-LeCoultre base movements as well. There is some extremely high-end work that goes on here, and most of their client projects are totally confidential until completion.Spending time at their manufacture helped me appreciate just how complex a chronograph mechanism is to make. Not necessarily in terms of sheer engineering, but rather at how each cam, pinion, and gear must be painstakingly tested for precision and durability. I saw patient workers place individual gears into microscope machines used to ensure the gears spun perfectly with out wiggling. Another machine was used to test the precise torque of springs used to reset chronograph hands to their starting position. Even the insertion of a pinion into a gear is done carefully, and by hand - each time. According to Dubois-Depraz they produce on the low end about 120,000 watch modules per year.The production of modules is very similar to that of base movementsBanners for the company around townI gained a lot of respect for the chronograph after visiting with Dubois-Depraz. I also learned a lot more about how the watch industry works. Suffice it to say that educating yourself about the watch industry is like understanding? watch movement. From the surface if can appear decorated and impressive, but you really need to get inside of it to start understanding the nuances and see how things work together (for the better or the worse). Thanks to the Dubois brothers and thanks to the people at Dubois-Depraz for their open doors.