F.P. Journe watches :
François-Paul Journe (FP Journe) is an independent master watchmaker ( high-end watch) whose timepieces embody the spirit of the 18th and 19th centuries. Each of the 700 watches he creates annually is designed and developed by him personally and handmade according to the strictest watchmaking standards.
The motto of the brand, Invenit et Fecit (Latin for "Invented and made") denotes that the company builds the entirety of the watches. Journe often designs brand new movements, even inventing completely new systems, like the resonance chronometer.
F.P. Journe defines himself as an inventor and maker of watches. He is not, he emphasizes, a manufacture, the title claimed by companies that make their own watch components.
“If I had the plant, machinery and specialists to manufacture every part, my annual production of watches (currently around 700 timepieces) would keep (my watchmakers) busy for only a few days a year,” says Journe. He goes on to explain that the term “manufacture” is largely a myth. According to Journe, “The reality is that (most watchmakers) depend on outside suppliers for key parts, especially balance-springs and escapements. But most of the brands buy finished movements ready for casing up; they only have to manage a couple of suppliers. We manage 40.”
ourne’s business is to invent the watches of the future and to implement these inventions into functioning prototypes. Research and Development consumes 40% of the time and resources of his teams in the construction studio, mechanical and watchmaking workshops. Before a prototype goes into production, its manufacturing feasibility is tested in a small pre-series, which could include unique variations of the model.
The workshops are divided into three sections, each dedicated to a particular model . Under the direction of Journe’s “chef d’atelier” Georges Alessio, each watchmaker—including Journe himself—builds an entire watch from A to Z, poising the balance, assembling the movement, adjusting and testing it. For the tourbillon, for instance, the process can take up to eight weeks.
Each watch has its own file, which includes details of its adjustment and performance. When the watch is returned to the workshops for a repair or servicing, it is attended to by the watchmaker who made it.
F.P. Journe employs Swiss and French watchmakers with broad experience in a variety of movements. But regardless of how experienced they are, each one comes to F.P. Journe as an apprentice. “The watch schools teach the conventional standard calibers,” explains Journe. “Our watchmakers have to adapt to a new horological environment, which can take three to four months.
They must also be competent in all the major disciplines: assembly; timing; casing up; even mechanical work and tooling.”
F.P. Journe’s watchmaking operation is divided into two independent companies. Montres Journe SA handles the administration, marketing and sales, while TIM is the manufacturing arm. They both occupy an Art Deco building on Geneva’s left bank, not far from the city’s banking district.
F.P. Journe plans to increase his production over the next few years to reach an optimum output of 1,500 watches per year. The watches are sold exclusively to 32 retailers in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
F.P. Journe Octa
F.P. Journe’s latest invention, the automatic Octa watch, is a new, multipurpose construction of extreme complexity, integrating different mechanical complications in the same structure without changing the size of the movement. The movement’s future evolution is thus designed into the caliber, without the need for add-on modules.
Each Octa complication is an original design because it must conform to a common baseplate with holes and recesses cut for other complications. It also has to fit into a 1mm-high space.
F.P. Journe Octa is the first caliber to combine automatic winding with a long (at least 5 days’) power reserve and precision adjustment. Like all of F.P. Journe’s watches, the Octa has a free-sprung chronometer balance of Journe’s own design, with four opposing weights for close dynamic adjustment. The mainspring maintains the amplitude of the balance, and thus a constant rate, for 120 hours of the total power reserve.
Many watches with long power reserves require small balance-wheels, which are susceptible to shocks and disturbances. The Octa’s compact construction allows a large (10.1mm) balance to be fitted, giving greater inertia and stability.
The first Octa model, introduced in 2000, incorporated a 120-hour power-reserve indicator and Journe’s patented large date with separate numerals. Later that year, F.P. Journe produced the Octa chronograph, which features zero-restart as well as zero-stop functions and a 60-minutes register. The watch displays the large date and the hours, minutes and small seconds on Journe’s trademark dial.
F.P. Journe designed an ultra-thin version of the classic column-wheel chronograph to fit into the 1mm-high space under the dial. This space is shared by the twin concentric discs of the large date display. The column-wheel has been flattened into a cam-wheel and its profiled rim, instead of columns, acts on the chronograph levers. A single, sliding lever zeroes both the chronograph seconds and minutes, disengaging their brakes as it strikes specially profiled heart-pieces to zero the hands. These two innovations allow the entire chronograph’s work to be reduced to three mechanical levels.
The third Octa complication integrates an annual calendar with a retrograde (fly-back) date into the automatic, five-day movement with the same dimensions (30mm x 5.7mm) as the first two Octas. The calendar displays the days and months through separate windows, advances instantaneously and is self-adjusting for months with 29, 30 and 31 days. This means that in non-leap years, when February has 28 days, the date must be advanced manually by one day on March 1st.
The annual calendar is a particularly elegant mechanism, driven by an internally toothed great wheel that surrounds the movement. The retrograde date-hand, which rides up its scale on the curve of a snail cam, is held on the precise, correct date by twin sprung-racks acting on a pinion. The design controls the fly-back, reduces the forces required, and distributes them evenly throughout the mechanism.
The first Octa annual calendars are expected to be ready in 2002. Further developments of this revolutionary caliber have yet to be announced, but there is a clue: the slightly decentralized winding rotor allows access from the movement to future indications at the back of the watch.-tourbillon-watches.com-
François-Paul Journe (FP Journe) is an independent master watchmaker ( high-end watch) whose timepieces embody the spirit of the 18th and 19th centuries. Each of the 700 watches he creates annually is designed and developed by him personally and handmade according to the strictest watchmaking standards.The motto of the brand, Invenit et Fecit (Latin for "Invented and made") denotes that the company builds the entirety of the watches. Journe often designs brand new movements, even inventing completely new systems, like the resonance chronometer.
F.P. Journe defines himself as an inventor and maker of watches. He is not, he emphasizes, a manufacture, the title claimed by companies that make their own watch components.
“If I had the plant, machinery and specialists to manufacture every part, my annual production of watches (currently around 700 timepieces) would keep (my watchmakers) busy for only a few days a year,” says Journe. He goes on to explain that the term “manufacture” is largely a myth. According to Journe, “The reality is that (most watchmakers) depend on outside suppliers for key parts, especially balance-springs and escapements. But most of the brands buy finished movements ready for casing up; they only have to manage a couple of suppliers. We manage 40.”
ourne’s business is to invent the watches of the future and to implement these inventions into functioning prototypes. Research and Development consumes 40% of the time and resources of his teams in the construction studio, mechanical and watchmaking workshops. Before a prototype goes into production, its manufacturing feasibility is tested in a small pre-series, which could include unique variations of the model.
The workshops are divided into three sections, each dedicated to a particular model . Under the direction of Journe’s “chef d’atelier” Georges Alessio, each watchmaker—including Journe himself—builds an entire watch from A to Z, poising the balance, assembling the movement, adjusting and testing it. For the tourbillon, for instance, the process can take up to eight weeks.
Each watch has its own file, which includes details of its adjustment and performance. When the watch is returned to the workshops for a repair or servicing, it is attended to by the watchmaker who made it.
F.P. Journe employs Swiss and French watchmakers with broad experience in a variety of movements. But regardless of how experienced they are, each one comes to F.P. Journe as an apprentice. “The watch schools teach the conventional standard calibers,” explains Journe. “Our watchmakers have to adapt to a new horological environment, which can take three to four months.
They must also be competent in all the major disciplines: assembly; timing; casing up; even mechanical work and tooling.”
F.P. Journe’s watchmaking operation is divided into two independent companies. Montres Journe SA handles the administration, marketing and sales, while TIM is the manufacturing arm. They both occupy an Art Deco building on Geneva’s left bank, not far from the city’s banking district.
F.P. Journe plans to increase his production over the next few years to reach an optimum output of 1,500 watches per year. The watches are sold exclusively to 32 retailers in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
F.P. Journe Octa
F.P. Journe’s latest invention, the automatic Octa watch, is a new, multipurpose construction of extreme complexity, integrating different mechanical complications in the same structure without changing the size of the movement. The movement’s future evolution is thus designed into the caliber, without the need for add-on modules.
Each Octa complication is an original design because it must conform to a common baseplate with holes and recesses cut for other complications. It also has to fit into a 1mm-high space.
F.P. Journe Octa is the first caliber to combine automatic winding with a long (at least 5 days’) power reserve and precision adjustment. Like all of F.P. Journe’s watches, the Octa has a free-sprung chronometer balance of Journe’s own design, with four opposing weights for close dynamic adjustment. The mainspring maintains the amplitude of the balance, and thus a constant rate, for 120 hours of the total power reserve.
Many watches with long power reserves require small balance-wheels, which are susceptible to shocks and disturbances. The Octa’s compact construction allows a large (10.1mm) balance to be fitted, giving greater inertia and stability.
The first Octa model, introduced in 2000, incorporated a 120-hour power-reserve indicator and Journe’s patented large date with separate numerals. Later that year, F.P. Journe produced the Octa chronograph, which features zero-restart as well as zero-stop functions and a 60-minutes register. The watch displays the large date and the hours, minutes and small seconds on Journe’s trademark dial.
F.P. Journe designed an ultra-thin version of the classic column-wheel chronograph to fit into the 1mm-high space under the dial. This space is shared by the twin concentric discs of the large date display. The column-wheel has been flattened into a cam-wheel and its profiled rim, instead of columns, acts on the chronograph levers. A single, sliding lever zeroes both the chronograph seconds and minutes, disengaging their brakes as it strikes specially profiled heart-pieces to zero the hands. These two innovations allow the entire chronograph’s work to be reduced to three mechanical levels.
The third Octa complication integrates an annual calendar with a retrograde (fly-back) date into the automatic, five-day movement with the same dimensions (30mm x 5.7mm) as the first two Octas. The calendar displays the days and months through separate windows, advances instantaneously and is self-adjusting for months with 29, 30 and 31 days. This means that in non-leap years, when February has 28 days, the date must be advanced manually by one day on March 1st.
The annual calendar is a particularly elegant mechanism, driven by an internally toothed great wheel that surrounds the movement. The retrograde date-hand, which rides up its scale on the curve of a snail cam, is held on the precise, correct date by twin sprung-racks acting on a pinion. The design controls the fly-back, reduces the forces required, and distributes them evenly throughout the mechanism.
The first Octa annual calendars are expected to be ready in 2002. Further developments of this revolutionary caliber have yet to be announced, but there is a clue: the slightly decentralized winding rotor allows access from the movement to future indications at the back of the watch.-tourbillon-watches.com-
