Roger Dubuis

SJX
[Purist]
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Part III: Assembly

After the parts are finished, those that require plating are sent to another facility for that, before being returned and sent upstairs for assembly. Dials, hands and cases are obtained from suppliers.

The assembly area is quiet and well lit with a parquet floor, just like any other assembly workshop in any other manufacture. The decor is unchanged from the time of Carlos Dias.

A good number of the watches being assembled are tourbillons in all shapes and sizes (well, mostly large). The tourbillon, especially the skeleton tourbillon, is Roger Dubuis’ best selling model. Despite its small production I would surmise Roger Dubuis is one of the leading producers of tourbillon movements at the high-end of the market.

Below: The various component of a tourbillon and assembled tourbillon regulators on the right

Below: A sampling of tourbillon movements from MRD

Some of the recently completed watches were a pair of minute repeaters. Enormous as they are, both sounded quite good, clear and pleasant sounding with sufficient volume.

To prevent any repeat of past problems, assembled watches are all tested by the watchmakers themselves for three weeks. Samples of watches are also tested, much more rigorously, by external testing labs (which I expect are owned by sister Richemont brands).