Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph

Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph Watch Review

The Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph is a purist’s watch. It’s fitted with the hand-wound calibre FM04, a Lemania 2310 recreation, featuring a column-wheel and horizontal coupling. Mark McArthur-Christie travelled to the independent company’s atelier near Geneva and shares his observations.

Image – Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph Anthracite dial

Launching new watches

Sometimes the watch industry can try a little too hard. Breathless press releases polishing the trumpets for a new dial colour (probably green this year) or a glitzy black tie event with more horologically interesting canapes than the new watch being white-gloved around. A cynic might even suggest that the budget for the event is often in inverse proportion to the importance of the watch.

Seeing a new watch is at its best when the place smells of machine oil, involves a lathe or a jig borer and you can chat to the person who’s turned the handles, ideally over a workshop coffee or two. With a watch sharing a name with a legendary Harley-Davidson, this seems thoroughly appropriate.

Fleury Manufacture

Rolling up at Fleury Manufacture in Choulex, just outside Geneva, is very much one of these zero-pretence events. Next door is a carpenter’s workshop with a metalwork business just down the way. A two minute walk sees you in the countryside. In fact, if there wasn’t a brass plate on the wall, you could walk past the atelier, mistaking it for a private house.

Image – Fleury Manufacture in Choulex

Real watchmaking

Inside, you get a fine example of how the independent watchmaking industry really operates. It’s a combination of the up to the minute (CNC machinery cutting blanks) and centuries old workbench craft as parts get hand-finished. There’s even a steel stock shelving area with enough material to produce everything Jean-Marc Fleury needs in-house. It’s not all serious stuff though; on top of one of the cabinets is a remote-controlled car for when the machines aren’t running and there are a few minutes of downtime.

Image – measurement using a vertical dial gauge

Not that there have been many of those in the last couple of years. Fleury makes and finishes parts for some of the best known independents in the business alongside somehow finding time to work on his own new watch – the FXR-4. He’s making just 22 of these (11 with blue dials and the remainder with anthracite dials) which doesn’t sound too onerous until you realise the level of craft and care that’s going into them.

Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph – Lemania 2310 recreation

The basic specification is simple enough: a 40 mm steel-cased column wheel, twin register chronograph with a horizontal clutch and a 65 hour power reserve. However, these few bullet points don’t convey the full story. Jean-Marc Fleury refers to the movement as a ‘Lemania 2310 recreation’, a rare example of understatement within watchworld, an industry with a fondness for hyperbole.

Image – Fleury Manufacture calibre FM04 – Lemania 2310 recreation 

Fleury has been working on his iteration of the calibre 2310 movement for the last five years, quietly improving and refining what some would argue was already close to perfection. The visual clues are still there with the 2310’s catapult-shaped intermediate bridge, the horizontal clutch and the column wheel, but this is not a simple refit or a bit of a gussy up.

You’ll know the calibre 2310 from its incarnations in serious chronographs from the Omega Speedmaster (renamed as the calibre 321 – see what Bienne did there?) to Patek Philippe’s cal. CH 27-70 and Roger Dubuis’ cals. 56 and 65. The movement has been made with three registers, two registers, moonphases (with and without dates), monopusher variants, free-sprung and swan neck regulated balances and has had more come-backs than Cher.

Image – chronograph heart cams

Fleury’s take on the 2310, a component comprising 255 components, is significantly different both in terms of engineering and finishing. One of the first engineering aspects that stands out is the sinuous, mirror-polished and hand-chamfered horizontal clutch actuation lever. There are echoes of the same lever in the old Valjoux calibre 13”’ that Patek modified to power the Ref. 1518. Given the time Fleury spent in Plan-les-Ouates, it’s not too surprising.

Image – cylindrical control gauges and heart-shaped cams

Not quite so obvious is the tuning that’s pushed the movement from, in modern terms at least, a lazy 18,000 vph (2.5Hz) to 21,600 vph (3 Hz), along with a smaller, free sprung balance. At the same time, the power reserve goes from circa 40 hours to a useful 65 hours between (manual) winds. Without further ado, let’s explore the habillage in detail.

Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph – two dial options

Function-wise, you get a satin-brushed small seconds hand at 9, a black polished pointer date hand on the 6 o’clock (smaller) subdial, a centre chronograph seconds hand and a chronograph minutes register at 3. The chronograph functions are marked in red lacquer, not just lifting the visual interest of the dial but making it easy to read. There’s also a neat day/night indicator at the base of the dial. Do you need a day/night indicator when your house has perfectly serviceable windows? Of course you don’t, but like all the best things in watchmaking, it’s there because it can be and because it’s the result of beautiful engineering. Life would be miserable if everything was simply functional.

Image – Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph Blue dial

The dial takes a similar approach to finishing as the movement – minimum fuss with a focus on quality. The base brass dial is satin brushed over the majority of the surface with circular brushed registers and inset steel rings. The indexes are applied in black polished steel and echo the shape of the running seconds and chronograph minutes’ printed subdial markers. Hour and minute hands are polished with a satin-brushed small second hand, black polished pointer date hand and those red lacquered chronograph hands. Apart from the date subdial there’s not a numeral to be seen, but it’s still a simple dial to read and all the more modern for it.

Fleury Manufacture Calibre FM04 – additional refinements

Calling ‘black polishing’ ‘a bit fiddly and technical’ is like describing Lando Norris as ‘a bit quick’. The idea is simple enough; finish a component to such a state of polish that it looks black from some angles yet can appear white when seen from an alternative viewpoint. The reality is moving down, step by step, through a series of progressively finer abrasives until you finish by polishing the component on a tin plate. It’s time-consuming, intensive and far too easy to slip up – even a single particle of grit can mar the finish and you’re back at the start, having just discovered a whole new vocabulary.

Image – applying perlage to mainplate

Probably because its bridges are matte-black NAC coated, the FXR’s movement can look, at first glance, a little plain. In fact, everything is simply well-finished without being fussy and functional without being prosaic. Stainless steel screws are polished, contrasting with the NAC coated bridges (a significantly corrosion-resistant treatment), all brushed with polished chamfers. You’ll probably spot the barrel bridge has been re-machined. The movement designation, maker’s name and jewel count are engraved through the coating with the bright metal showing through, while the gears and free-sprung balance are all bronze toned alongside German silver components. The level of detail is such that even the chronograph heart pieces are satin finished with the gear wheels being circular grained.

Image – chronograph bridges, jewels and screws

Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph – date display

Calibre 2310 devotees may be wondering what the extra pusher at 7 is for, as it clearly has little to do with stopping or starting the chrono. It’s for changing the date and it’s a bit of genius. Invariably, date changes either involve crown-twirling or poking with a pointer, usually twirling or prodding too far and having to start again. It can all be a bit fiddly. Not here. Just the required number of pushes five times a year and you’ll have the correct date.

Fleury Manufacture FXR-4 Chronograph – case

The watch industry may not be a major contributor to environmental pollution, but it’s still good to see Fleury using high quality recycled steel for the 40 mm diameter case. At just under 13 mm thick, it’s an easy watch to wear. The case, in contrast to the movement, is highly polished throughout.

This is one of those watches where strap choice will completely change its character. Supplied on a dark grey neutral fabric, with a polished steel buckle, it would easily take a coloured strap to dress down or dress up on a crisp black or oxblood shell Cordovan.

Closing remarks

It seems odd to be talking about a watch with a circa CHF 40,000 price tag as a value proposition, but look at the prices of the competition and the watch itself. OK, these aren’t pieces unique, but they’re a very long way from being mass-produced.

You’re getting a highly refined Calibre 2310 with significant improvements over the original movement as well as a date and a day/night indicator complication. Each bridge and gear is hand-finished. It’s a watch from a properly independent maker and you just have to meet Jean Marc to get a sense of how much sheer craft, let alone time and love, he’s put into his first complicated release.

Image – Fleury Manufacture calibre FM04, various components including column-wheel and S-shaped bridge

This isn’t an easy market, or an easy time, for independent watchmakers, but with timepieces like this coming off the bench, Fleury looks well-set.

Image – view from outside Fleury Manufacture

Stand outside the company’s atelier and you cannot fail to see Mont Blanc sitting on high. No doubt it proves a source of inspiration for Jean-Marc Fleury as he seeks to ascend to new heights of horological greatness.