Breguet Rose Engine Turning Guilloché Dials

Breguet @ Basel 2015 – rose engine turning of a Breguet dial – photos and video

 

Besides the impressive novelties that Breguet introduced, it is always wonderful to see traditional crafts that are part of the Breguet heritage, yet still very much alive today. 

 

Rose engine lathe

The machine is dated, approx. 100 years old. Looks wonderful in my eyes.

If you are familiar with Breguet, you are also familiar with their beautiful guilloche dials. I am certainly an admirer of guilloche dials, however I was not really clear how they are made.

Here is a definition of the rose engine I found on the web:

A rose engine lathe is a specialized kind of geometric lathe. The headstock rocks back and forth with a rocking motion or along the spindle axis in a pumping motion, controlled by a rubber moving against a rosette or cam-like pattern mounted on the spindle, while the lathe spindle rotates. Rose engine work can make flower patterns, as well as convoluted, symmetrical, multi-lobed organic patterns. The patterns it produces are similar to that of a Spirograph, in metal. No other ornamental lathe can produce these "rose" patterns. The decoration produced by a rose engine lathe is called Guilloché.

 

 

 

Selection of dial patters manufactured with the rose engine.

And here is the link to a youtube video sequence, which shows the operation of the machine

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oEXWCwpI6nM

Best,

 

Stefan