A. Lange & Sohne Factory Trip Part 2

That liquid is non-conductive oil. It helps keep things cool and removes debris. It also helps the machine look impossible, and the whole plate cutting process is done as it is submerged. Underneath the machine image, you can see an image of a tray of sample parts that A. Lange & Sohne relies upon the wire erosion machine to create.After parts which are small, tiny, and impossibly fragile looking are made, the longest part of the watch *** process begins. This is the finishing and decoration phase. Where leagues of skilled workers dedicate months of time to going over virtually each part of the watch movement in extreme detail. This time is dedicated to polishing, engraving, texturing, and of course quality assuring. The bottom line is that when you pay for an A. Lange & Sohne movement, you are paying for a fanatical attention to detail, beauty, and perfection - as well as the amount of time involved in the process as each component is specially finished and/or decorate. I asked the Lange people how often mistakes were made as most of the processes are manual, and what they do with the imperfect parts. They just looked at each other and then calmly stated to me, "this does not happen." It was confident enough an answer that I had no problems believing it.Lots of white, and the hum of expensive machinery with the sweet scent of lubricating oil. No white coats just yet, you need to get further into the process for that.While the CNC machines work on large pieces such as the movement place with drills and alike instruments, what about the tiniest of tiny pieces that go into a watch movement? Cut by lasers? No, not really - though some watch hands are laser cut. Here a better technology is used, one that I hadn't even heard of before. It is called "wire erosion" and the process is quite cool. Basically, the wire erosion machine takes spools of ultra thin copper wire and applies electricity to the wire to create an ultra-hot spark. That spark is what cuts the metal plates that are put into the machine resulting in the creation of tiny watch movement components that seem almost impossible to produce. Once the wire is heated up, it is oxidized and must be recycled. The machine uses small rectangular metal plates, that are stacked. Each run of the machine can process 25 or so plates. You can see the machine in operation in one of the images. It is the image with the complex looking machinery with the pool of greenish liquid.