Reply With QuoteStart winding it and trust me you will know when to stop. Not that easy to overwind or break the spring!
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Just received a lovely Manual Wind watch and since I rotate watches a lot this question hadn't arisen...,
If I wear it for an extended period - how do I maintain a full charge on it.... do you Wind until you feel a slight resistance or just (as I've always done) give it twenty turns in the morning and hope it's enough - Google seems to be full of conFlicting advice - so what do the body of the Kirk say is best?
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Start winding it and trust me you will know when to stop. Not that easy to overwind or break the spring!
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Best to fully wind it everyday.
Ok thanks guys
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Your muscle memory will soon start to remember the sensation of it reaching fully windedness, and you'll find yourself gently easing up as you approach the end without even thinking about it.
Fnarr FnarrOriginally Posted by Der Amf
Last edited by forpetesake; 19th November 2017 at 11:52.
I used to just wind my manual every morning to full wound or there about state. As above, you'll know when to stop.
Lovely watch, didn't realise it was back up for sale recently, assuming it's the same watch.
Was Tom Warings watch originally I believe. It's lovely
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About 4 minutes in a different way to wind the Speed master, or at least I haven’t seen it before
He’s a bit brash but does have some strong views
https://youtu.be/awVOWCvjZwc
I've also found that winding my Speedmaster morning and evening rather than just once a day helps the accuracy. Wind it twice a day and it will run at +1. That goes out to somewhere between +3 and +5 a day on one wind. Obviously not a big issue at all but I like to keep mine as close to accurate as possible.
Armchair technician here - supposedly winding morning and evening keeps the mainspring in a state that optimises accuracy. Mainsprings lose their effectiveness at transmitting power for accuracy as they near complete unwinding. Someone could no doubt improve on my explanation.
If the watch runs fast at full power then winding twice daily may do the opposite of helping accuracy. I had a 2801 which was something like +2s/d, provided that I never fully wound it, and wound it just once a day. Knowing how short of fully wound you are is, of course, a bit tricky.... ;)
Wind it until it stops. That's always worked for me.
David
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
I found on a panerai manu wind that it kept better time when fully wound. On the 1861 movement on the speedmaster pro, I checked the manual this morning and said to wind once per day, and not to wind too often - I assume to reduce the wear on the winding mechanism
quite the opposite I understand. When the mainspring unwinds, balance amplitude drops and as a result watch runs faster than fully wound.
No!
Impossible to generalise like this. When the amplitude gets very low factors such as poise errors with the balance can cause the watch to behave very differently.
Amplitude will always drop when the watch unwinds, particularly if the watch isn’t in good health or is old and worn. The effect on timekeeping can vary in different positions, but generally loq amplitude will cause a change in performance. Winding a hand-wound twice/day will give more consistency and provided the watch is healthy and has been regulated carefully it should give better timekeeping.
My 1968 hand-wound Omega, freshly serviced then worn for 7 days, has lost 1 second over a full week. That’s based roughly on 16 hrs wear and 8hrs dial-up overnight. I went to great lengths to get the best out of this movement and I managed to get it close to chronometer standard, but winding twice/day is definitely helping performance.
As for ‘overwinding’, will someone please explain this to me?
Paul
I'm entertained that you only quoted the bit of my post that you wanted to contradict, and not the example I gave that the demonstrates it existing. I hope you don't mind if I rate my observed actual experience over what you "understand".
While I'm here, another instance of it: my 1971 Seiko manual runs very reliably at -6s/d when wound twice a day, and -10s/d when wound once a day, and then gets much worse towards the end of its PR.
Paul, I am not arguing fact, that watch rate will be most stable when it is around fully wound if you regulated it fully wound. From other hand if you regulate it when PR is ~50% and manage to keep it 50% wound, it will behave at its best :)
sure, no problem ;)
while we are on the topic, I'll try to remember to time my Speedmaster when it comes back from service when fully wound and after a day. AFAIR it ran faster after 24h.
p.s. I have to admit, that I can't explain physics behind low amplitude and faster rate partly because of I studied mechanics 25 years ago and forgot almost everything, and partly because of English is my third language (so I am not even trying to explain in my words ;)). Therefore here is quote from Rolex forum I believe explains relationship between lower amplitude and rate.
If the mainspring is run down, then there is less torque or pull on the gear train, so there is less energy imparted on the balance jewel by the tail of the pallet, and it swings in less of an arc (less amplitude)....... less amplitude means the hairspring is oscillating faster, and locking/unlocking the escapement at a quicker rate..... So, a partially wound mainspring equals less energy at the hairspring, faster swing (less amplitude or oscillation), and a faster watch......
Last edited by Normunds; 20th November 2017 at 10:51.
While the quote makes sense at one level, haven't clever watchmakers spent decades successfully decoupling amplitude from torque?
Last edited by alfat33; 20th November 2017 at 13:22.
Hi Guys
I haven't posted here much but as am coming back to UK, thought it might be nice to read a UK forum sometimes. Apologies as I'm working out how to do quotes from other mails, attachments and so on. I haven't yet worked out how to show images in my posts either.
The quote from the Rolex forum above is not quite right. It's pretty good to here:
If the mainspring is run down, then there is less torque or pull on the gear train, so there is less energy imparted on the balance jewel by the tail of the pallet, and it swings in less of an arc (less amplitude).......
Theoretically, within reason it shouldn't matter the amplitude. It's much easier to understand this in a pendulum such as in this link where they state "The period depends on the length of the pendulum and also to a slight degree on the amplitude, the width of the pendulum's swing." There is an error depending on the swing and an equation to calculate it but, it's not big.
The BHI teach this sort of thing in some detail and also in watches with a balance wheel as is being discussed here. There are 8 factors that will affect isochronism but the two that are most in play for what's being discussed are these two.
1. Regulating pin gap and how the hairspring is centralized in them.
2. Balance not being in poise.
In this graph below, you'll see three lines. Just taking the middle one in blue, you'll see how as the amplitude drops (to a pretty low level), the effect of the regulator pins being a little wide apart causes the rate to drop off but, it's pretty constant for all reasonable amplitudes and that means above 200 degrees amplitude, the isochronism is good. What you'll also see is that, as Paul said above, the rate can vary fast or slow depending on the other errors in the watch.
some isochronism errors.jpg
Anyway, your watchmaker should set the watch up so that winding once per day will give the best results. If it's badly set up and is only running accurately at full wind (for example) then it's not a good thing as winding it twice per day will have double the effects on the crown seal, keyless works etc.
Regards, Chris
Of course, fusee comes to my mind, double mainspring barrels. watchmakers tried a lot of things to keep rate steady as possible.
I think @ChrisN has explained it pretty well (that is an understatement).
Chris, I'm looking forward to you really working out how to post ;).
I believe ChrisN. He's used lots of science words I don't understand plus graphs with curves/waves. :-)
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Ok at the risk of being overly technical I've given the crown thing 17 twists each morning and it's -1sec after 3 days. Lucky I know about these things
Seriously tho thanks for the replies, it's been an education
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Thanks, sorry, I can go on a bit sometimes... Anyway, figured out quotes and multi quotes nowand I do like a graph!
Great result on a really nice watch.Ok at the risk of being overly technical I've given the crown thing 17 twists each morning and it's -1sec after 3 days. Lucky I know about these things
Seriously tho thanks for the replies, it's been an education
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Cheers, Chris
Thanks for posting. It would take me ages to post graphs, but there are some interesting ones around that show the relationship between amplitude and rate when various faults are present.
As for the title of the original thread, it amazes me how the myth of 'overwinding' a hand-wound watch still hasn`t been well and truly killed off. If someone's clumsy and ham-fisted enough to continue trying to wind the crown when it's obvious it won`t go any further they will damage something, but this isn`t the same as 'overwinding' which is impossible.
I think it probable this myth has it's roots in the distant past. Someone picks their watch up to wind it because it's stopped. They fully wind it and it still won`t run because it's faulty. Watch isn`t running, watch is fully wound....therefore I must've overwound it!
I`ve come across plenty of old hand-wound watches that aren`t running and in almost every case the mainspring will be fully wound. If it won`t run after several turns of the crown and a gentle shake it won`t run, there's no point continuing to wind till it's fully wound.
Paul
Last edited by walkerwek1958; 22nd November 2017 at 15:34.
I think the first overwound watch launched its owner to November 5th 1955, and left a a trail of flames where their wrist was. :)
I'd already made that graph for someone else, Paul, so it wasn't an issue to post it. As you know, there's a lot involved in getting a watch to run well in various positions and various states of wind so, interesting to touch on that.
Agree, I'd need pliers on the crown to damage something in the movement so I think you're right that people wind a watch fully even when it has a fault and then conclude it's "overwound" because it won't run.
The manual wind I've owned the longest is a mid nineties Speedmaster which I bought new. I must have wound it thousands of times but it's always clear when it's on full wind although if someone is not used to them always worth asking.
Cheers, Chris
I must admit I had the same worry when I bought my SMP. But there's an obvious hard stop when it's fully wound. It goes from winding freely to a point hard stop. You know right away when it's fully wound
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My point was really do you Wind it till you can't wind it any more or should you just keep it ticking over. Taking it right up to fully wound where it won't wind a quarter turn more just made me uneasy in case it was better the other way. Thanks for the replies
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What he said
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