nickd
1591
Prep time...
Sep 05, 2011,12:10 PM
I think you've hit one of the major nails on the head with the phrase "prep time".
There's been an interesting little discussion about the chronometrié results, with one of the observations being that the results indicate the ability of the company entering the watch to "prepare" it - adjust and regulate it - rather than the intrinsic chronometric qualities of the movement or design. Interestingly, this was one of the observations of the original competitions, as these rarified heights of adjusting are extremely time consuming and expensive. The person doing the adjusting was the key factor in the success, and their success was to a certain extent determined by the companies willingness and ability to pay their high salary and allow themself the luxuy of their highest paid employee spending the vast majority of their time tweaking one or two movements to scrape milliseconds of performance. The original competitions noted the name of the regulator, and if you look at results year to year, you often see that the same person scores extremely well even though they've changed company and are submitting different movements.
G&F have a huge interest in winning these competitions, as an extremely complicated, supposedy uber-precision watch costing many hundreds of thousands but that is merely an extremely good timekeeper is difficult to justify even by the extremes of watch collecting madness. So I'm willing to bet that G&F are putting an enormous effort behind adjusting so as to win, which does raise the question of whether they have an intrinsicaly uber-precise watch, or a watch that has the potential to go that little bit further with extreme levels of adjustment.
The real test of the design and their manufacturing quality is when their "production" watches are consistently in the uber-precision stratosphere, but as they won't publish data we'll never know.
nick
Comments:
view entire thread
Thank you
By: andrewluff : August 28th, 2011-09:29
Thank you for this report Andrew, I love GF's and was lucky enough to see IP 2 and 3 together a few weeks back to try on. The finishing really is amazing and can (sort of) understand the price. Cheers Andrew
The inspiration?? :)
By: nickd : August 28th, 2011-11:38
Sorry, couldn't resist Thanks for the report, it's fascinating reading. nick embedded video into post -AT This message has been edited by AnthonyTsai on 2011-08-28 19:34:26...
Very impressive
By: Davo : August 28th, 2011-13:48
G&F do it again. These pieces just leave me speechless. Thank for you posting, Andrew.
A splendid report! And, I agree with you...
By: Gary G : August 28th, 2011-23:24
...having handled this watch at SIHH, that it is the watch of the year! By far my favorite G-F piece, and really stunning in the metal. Thanks to you for this great reporting! Best, Gary G
Very nice report
By: RobCH : August 29th, 2011-04:57
...great photos, and awesome awesome watches. Thanks Andrew!
This is a superb post Andrew!
By: foversta : August 29th, 2011-12:10
I was totally seduced by this watch... especially because the two pairs of Tourbillon have been taken away. Fx...
Thanks.
By: VMM : August 30th, 2011-02:42
Interesting pics and info. Watches look fantastic. Cheers, Vte
Fantastic article...
By: KIH : August 30th, 2011-14:02
.. Thank you for the report. I have been always impressed with their creations. Wonderful Inventions! Ken
great post
By: donizetti : August 30th, 2011-14:02
I often find GF watches "too much" for me too understand and appreciate so this explanation, especially of the history, was especially helpful. Thanks!! Andreas
A great read...
By: dxboon : August 30th, 2011-22:54
...and the pictures of the uncased movements were really educational for me. I loved seeing the progression of work. It was like being inside the minds of the watchmakers. I have to say, the GF pieces challenge me aesthetically. The finishing is superb an...
So.....does it work?
By: MTF : September 1st, 2011-00:46
Andrew, Thanks for the report. It took a while (and I'm not a technical guy) to re-read the whole piece before I found there was no mention of performance except for a comment that it had the best potential for chronometry. So, how did it do in the indepe...
Prep time...
By: nickd : September 5th, 2011-12:10
I think you've hit one of the major nails on the head with the phrase "prep time". There's been an interesting little discussion about the chronometrié results, with one of the observations being that the results indicate the ability of the company enteri...
That is the point of the EWT...
By: 219 : September 7th, 2011-05:52
The point of GF's EWT process is to produce an improvement in the mechanism such that the results are repeatable. In other words, the time keeping properties of the movement are not dependent on one specialist fine tuning the watch; the improvements are t...
Well...
By: nickd : September 7th, 2011-06:22
Hi Andrew, I guess we'll end up disagreeing on this one. I really don't understand how publishing chronometric results involves intellectual property. If they win, their numbers will be published. The 2009 results were published, but only the category win...
In 2009, the GF entry was a last moment decision. With
By: 219 : September 7th, 2011-13:56
little time to get the watch prepared, GF entered the competition. Hence, the watch was not as prepared as other entries. The idea of the EWT is to ensure that results are replicable. So does the Double Tourbillon 30 degree perform better than a regular t...