Chopard

Delving deeply into the Chopard L.U.C Full Strike Minute Repeater part 1 of 3 - Intro and Manufacture

 

With the L.U.C Full Strike, Chopard has created one of the most advanced and accomplished minute repeaters currently on the market, in both musicality, technology as well as user-friendliness. The piece presents a holistic tour de force improving on the status quo of repeating watches in almost any of their main features, precisely:

1. Crystal clear sound: World's first sapphire gongs, as integral part of the watch glass. Thus, sound source and amplifier form one single unit
   
2. Consummate cadence: Perfect musicality with defined intervals between notes
   
3. Indefatigable power: Reserve for 12 full sets of 32 gong strikes at 12:59 and 60-hours of separate timing autonomy. COSC certification
   
4. Unmitigated security: Built-in safeguards against user error breaking strike mechanism, with water resistance to boot

The watch has been featured here on PuristSPro quite extensively, just to list a few articles:

• Report from launch event (MTF)
• Interview with Karl-Friedrich Scheufele (MTF)
• Presentation of the Strike One (KIH)
• Comparison of sound - professional vs. amateur (MTF)
• L.U.C Full Strike piano concert (MTF)
• Discovery of a vintage Chopard minute repeater pocket watch (MTF)
  

With the wealth of information already there, I will refrain myself to just the absolute necessary piece of information to make sense of this article.



In pure data and numbers, the Full Strike is described like this (source: Chopard website):

REF. NUMBER: 161947-5001

CASE & DIAL
CASE DIMENSION(S): 42,50 mm
CASE MATERIAL: 18-carat rose gold (fairmined)

STRAP & BUCKLE
STRAP: black alligator vegetal tanning (matt square plate) with hand sewn matching tones, lining: alligator brown
BUCKLE MATERIAL: 18-carat rose gold
BUCKLE TYPE: pin buckle

FUNCTION(S):
hourly strike
INDICATION(S): hours and minutes, small seconds, power-reserve indicator
CERTIFICATION(S): Poinçon de Genève quality hallmark, Chronometer certificate issued by the COSC
LIMITED EDITION: 20

MOVEMENT:
L.U.C 08.01-L
TYPE OF WINDING: hand-wound mechanical movement
POWER RESERVE: 60 hours
FREQUENCY: 4 Hz (28,800 vibrations per hour)
JEWELS: 63
CASE-BACK: see-through sapphire crystal

But nothing, really nothing beats the real deal:



The Full Strike is visually exceptional in the sense that its partly open-worked dial follows a stringent logic, and is designed to showcase the aesthetic mastery and its finishing excellence at Chopard...



... and finally the profound mechnical personality of this piece.



Minute repeaters, by nature of their complication, are judged not only on their design and finishing excellence, but obviously also on their audible qualities. Here, Chopard chose a decidedly idisoynchratic path for its very first minute repeater - a solution which upon closer inspection immediately justifies the decisions on the dial layout:



Chopard implemented an ingenious and proprietary solution to improving the musical qualities of this piece - a solution which was fraught with risk: Front crystal and gongs are crafted from a single block of sapphire, thus instantly offering two world firsts: (i) the first time that sapphire is used to create repeater sound and (ii) the frist time that sound source and its amplificator are one single piece.



The movement, Cal. L.U.C 08.01-L, is without doubt one of the finest in industry, and entirely developed and crafted in Chopard's workshops in Geneva.



The finishing is exactly as one would expect with such a piece: subtle, creamy, flawless.



Chopard's first minute repeater movement not only borrows tremendously from Grand Sonnerie mechanisms (i.e. its own mainspring barrel enabling operation close to the latter movements), it also comes with a wealth of  original features which increase listening pleasure and and prevent accidentally inflicting damage - thereby sparing the owner's as well as the manufacturer's nerves and resources.



In fact, this minute repeater looks like the child of experienced parents - its a tremedous feat to pull this off, and even more so for a company that just presented its first such complication ever!

In this series of articles, I shall delve deeply into the ingredients which make the magic sauce of this watch, separately for:

1. manufacturing capabilites at Chopard
2. technological details
3. design consideration

Today, I'd like to start by recapitulating the essentials of the Chopard manufacture, as this is the foundation upon which, Chopard, could build this outstandinging piece.

Thanks for reading
Magnus