Hi all!

I´m a new old member at IHC 185. My main interest is military pocket watches, military timepieces in general actually. I´m a watchmaker working for the Official Breitling Prime Center for Scandinavia Stockholm. Therefore I will take the oportunity to inform about:

Breitling first "in house" movement.Breitling B01

I will participate in a course concerning this movement next week in the Breitling facilities in Grenshen, Switzerland and I really look forward to a really interesting week. Maybe I will come up with a report afterwords

Best wishes!
/Bernhard

I'll second that. Beautiful workmanship, style and design. I look forward to your report.

Thanks for sharing this with us.

Ray

Thank you Bernhard, first for sharing this video with us and secondly for suggesting you may file a report on the course you will be involved with in Switzerland next week....We all can hardly wait....

The Breitling B01 is certainly a beautiful piece....

Thanks, again....& have some fun in Switzerland next week....

Regards,

Jerry

Bernhard,

When I saw your post, I immediatly thought of the projects that you worked on a couple of years ago while in school. You obviously had excellent training.

I was wondering if you would post on what it is like to work for Breitling.

Hi all!

Oh yes, the two projects was projects during my education at the Swedish Wostep school of watchmaking, from witch I graduate aprox 1 1/2 year ago. It was a wristwatch and a table clock project. The wristwatch project was not the one I´m that proud of actually, (a fast job) but it was sure a nice memory, unfotunately it was stolen during a burglary in my home two weeks ago. I am more proud of the table clock project. I was putting a lot more effort in that one, and I´m happy that I still have it, that´s for sure.

Working for Breitling is actually really great. It has really increased my knowledge about watchmaking. Since I graduate school I have been working with all the different movement that Breitling use in their watches, both mechanic and quartz, mostly mechanic one of course. A good thing is also their training corurses, helded in Switzerland/Grenchen, given by highly skilled watchmakers in a very serious, inspiring and friendly matter. They are organized in Lvl 1 to lvl 4, B 01 and polishing course. All in all about 8-9 weeks. The courses include taking care and using of different tools, the different systems conserning spare parts incl routins among them (ordering, organizing etc),the differnt cases and movements consirning polishing (case, bracelet, pushers, riders, bezel and so on) service, reparation, cleaning, oiling and adjusting and finaly hand setting and caseing (witch shall not be underestimated! ).
The higher lvl courses includes tests were everything about cleanliness, oiling adjusting, handsetting, timing casing and waterresitancy beeing judged with points withdrawal if not good enough.

This weekend I came home from the B01-course. Very interesting and developing. A nice movement with som really nice technical solutions, like for exemple the patented self centrering return to zero hammers. Always nice to put a screwdriver in a new movement. I was, consirning the B 01, the second in Scandinavia doing that . I forgot the camera back in Sweden so no pictures, unfortunately. There are a lot to read about the B 01 caliber on the internet. This might be of interest, found at http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?p=2235365



"In its September edition, German specialized trade magazine Uhren-Magazin is full of praise for Breitling’s new Chronomat B01. Backed by concrete figures, it highlights the exceptional performances of Caliber B01, a chronograph movement entirely developed and produced in-house by Breitling. Its final verdict is 6 out of 6!

Uhren-Magazin, the German publication widely acknowledged in professional circles as the world’s most serious watch journal, recounts in detail its thorough scrutiny of the Chronomat B01 presented by Breitling at Baselworld last spring. This six-page article signed by Gerhard Seelen gives pride of place to the new Caliber B01, including a reminder of the advantages provided by its column wheel and its vertical coupling-clutch; by the fast date adjustment system that can be operated at any time; and by the patented mechanism for the auto-centering of the chronograph reset hammers.

The journalist is particularly enthusiastic about the result of the rate precision tests conducted by the magazine: «[…] the Caliber runs with incredible precision, to the point of creating the impression that the Chronomat is equipped with a quartz movement.»

A glance at the results does indeed confirm that the performances achieved are even more impressive than the official Breitling data: «With the chronograph activated, the variation is scarcely measurable at
approximately 0.3 seconds per day; while the variation is barely 0.8 seconds when the chronograph is not in action: these are truly dream values.» During the tests Caliber B01 also displayed a minimum 72-hour power reserve, two hours more than announced by Breitling and a performance directly linked to the excellent rating results.

The maximum 6 out of 6 score awarded to the Chronomat B01 by the Uhren-Magazin editorial team is nonetheless not exclusively due to the performances of its movement. While the article does indeed focus mainly on Caliber B01, it also emphasizes the quality of the design and the impeccable finishing of this
chronograph, which «seems to be built for eternity» in the words of Gerhard Seelen, who concludes the feature in even more lyrical terms: «the space available here could not possibly suffice to list all the positives of the Chronomat B01.»

Breitling vice-president Jean-Paul Girardin is naturally delighted with this article: «The praise heaped upon the Chronomat B01 by Uhren-Magazin is significant in that it stems from an extremely serious and neutral source, as well as being based on objective parameters backed by concrete figures. As for the results themselves, they reflect the philosophy that guided the entire development of Caliber B01 and which consists in giving top priority to movement performance, meaning its reliability and its precision. Finally – and very importantly – I note that the magazine salutes the quality of the Chronomat B01 in its entirety: not only that of the movement alone, but also the originality of its overall design, the level of its finish and its technical characteristics. At a time when consumers are clearly returning to authentic values, I see this as an encouraging sign for the Chronomat B01 – a wrist instrument designed to assert itself as the benchmark among selfwinding chronographs.»"