Breguet, The making of a dial.

The making of a Dial in the Breguet watchmakers workshop.

I asked the Berguet firm in a e-mail if they are still using rose engines.

This is their answer.

Dear Mr Riddering,
Indeed, we have these kind of tools at Breguet, we use them to produce our dials. For a long time we used to renovate old engine-turning machines in order to produce our dials, because we were not able to create new machines working as well as the old ones. Recently we have developed a new machine that works quite well, however the principle of working remains still the same.
It is often that in the watch-making industry we produce our own machines to produce our watches, or dials. So it is not a surprise to find engine-turning lathes with the name "Breguet" on it, even if it must be relatively rare.

You have two types of rose-engine lathes for the engraving of dials : one makes circular patterns , the second one makes straight lines.
People who work on these machines are called "guillocheurs" in French.

You will find enclosed pictures of a dial while being engraved on a rose-engine. And another picture with different patterns that we create for our dials.

Best regards,

Noémie Wüger
Press Relations Manager

And this is the result of their very precise work a nice very attractive looking watch Dial.

I would like to know how long the apprenticeship is for this type of work, i did hear that it is about 7 years.