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Manufacturing the Movement Parts
Feb 21, 2007,21:03 PM
Appearing, almost as a metamorphosis from the blank metal plates, the forms of the RM005 and RM010 movement take shape.
The movement plates start life as solid pieces of titanium that are then cut and machined into the required basic forms. Base plates, front plates, rotor wings, escapement arms,
are all machined into their crude shapes. They are then sent to the anglage workshops and finished. Rather than receiving the more traditional Geneva stripe finishing and polishing on rhodium plating, the anglage finished pieces are sent instead to be PVD treated at another location.
The beginnings of the rotor: this is only the crude titanium rotor arm that will hold the finished white gold weight, and the adjustable white gold weights for the variable inertia. The simple shape will be hand finished and later receive the 18-carat white gold wing shaped weights fitted with the characteristic five-point Richard Mille spline screws.
The base plates themselves resembling something similar to an engine block:
The following photo shows the difference between one of the top plates, where the lateral support pattern was for the RM005, against the new ‘cut-away’ version for the RM010. Only the minimum of metal has been left to support the jewels necessary for the gear train.
The unfinished forms for the front (top picture) and back (bottom picture) of the main plate for the RM005 (top within the picture) against the new version 005-S caliber (partially finished) for the RM010 (bottom within the picture):
The photos show the extent of ‘cut away’ on the main base plate for the movement. Where possible, metal has been removed. This has added greatly to the time taken to manufacture each plate and intricate spare metal is removed by the CNC machines. Further, the number of edges required for finishing has increased and at the same time, increased the degree of difficulty in applying an even PVD coating finish to the plate.