Brac 115

Description

Brac was a manufacturer of pin lever movements, which offered the whole bandwidth, starting with simple Roskopf movements to very elaborate lever movements.

To the latter ones belongs also the 10 1/2 ligne Brac 115, which is not only aesthetically very pleasing.

The base plate alone shows, that we have a (relatively) high class movement here:
All bearings, even that of the minute wheel, contain rubies.

In fact, this caliber uses much more jewels than required, mainly on the dial side.

As every conventional lever movement from the mid last century, the Brac 115, too, uses a directly driven center minute wheel.

We have the classical gear train here, which is quite unusual for a pin lever movement: Center minute wheel, third wheel, directly driven center seconds wheel and finally the escape wheel, made of steel.
You have to look carefully to see, that only a pin lever escapement is used here.

Because the movement is so well made, the balance staff is a bit disappointing, since it consists only of a very simple, flat anular balance, which is not shock protected, and whose frequency of 18000 A/h can be regulated at the hairspring key only.

A shock protection, screws (even only mocked ones) on the balance wheel and a long regulator arm would have matched the otherwise good quality of this movement far better.

The interestingly executed, asymetrical pin lever is, also unusual for a pin lever movement, very flat and beared under an own real cock.

On the empty dial side, you can see the rocking bar keyless works with a well made ratchet (at 11 o’clock).

Three cap jewels are easy to spot - one for the balance wheel, one for the escape wheel and one, quite useless one for the lever, which is not oil beared.

Unfortunately, there are two further blind jewels, which don’t have any function at all, at position 9 o’clock quite in the middle of the movement, and between the cap jewels of lever and escape wheel.

The calender mechanism is simple but efficient. The date advances slowly and a really large and unusually shaped pawl ensures, that the date ring snaps into the correct position.

A fat “thumbs down” is given, when the cover plate of the calendar mechanism is mounted, since on that plate no less than four blind jewels are inserted, which have no real use at all, but should “bear” the calendar switching wheel, which is sufficiently enough axle beared and not prone to friction at all, since it revolves only once per day.

With those six blind jewels on the dial side and three more or less useful cap jewels (two on the dial side, on the gear train bridge), the normal 14 bearing jewels are increased to 23 jewels, which are an absolutely impressive number for a pin lever movement.

That’s a pity, since even without these tricks, the Brac 115 is a very well made upper class pin lever movement.

Technical data

Usage gallery