Reply With QuoteIt couldn’t have been warped by the sun could it? One of those freak things like a bit of broken glass starting a forest fire by focusing the light the right way
OK this isn't the greatest disaster in the world - even in WIS terms, but I'm baffled!
Like most of my watches, my Seiko Solar diver is on a silcone strap with normal 3-fold deployment clasp. I was wearing it yesterday morning, then took it off to put something else on. Being a solar watch, I usually put it on a window sill to sunbathe when I'm not wearing it. I moved it to another sunny location later on during the day. Apart from this I didn't go near it.
When I came to put it back in during the evening, I found I couldn't as the centre (link) part of the 3-fold clasp had been bent round almost to a right angle! But how??? Bending the metal isn't easy - its stanless steel and its so rigid I can't bend it back by hand or in fact bend it at all. So for it to have bent must have taken a huge force, so its hard to see how this could be done accidentally. But I live alone and in these days of self isolating, no-one else to my knowledge came to the house. So I'm utterly baffled!! Do I have a watch focussed poltergeist?
Anyway, I have a couple of other clasps salvaged from failed straps, so I was able to replace it in a matter of seconds.
It couldn’t have been warped by the sun could it? One of those freak things like a bit of broken glass starting a forest fire by focusing the light the right way
Weird. A pic would help here.
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Are you related to or are Uri Geller?
That's the best explanation so far....maybe Uri Geller was in the area! Yes, it was in the sun, but its stainless steel we are talking about!Originally Posted by andyd30
OK I've hopefully manage to upload a photo (famous last words). Sorry its so big! The bit that has the nice 90 degree bend in used to be straight!
BentClasp by TIm Bounds, on Flickr
Totally strange but from your original post it has to be heat related?
Can you not just straighten it back out? It should have a gentle curve which matches the other bit.
Its EXTREMELY hard to bend! I cannot bend it back at all, using only my hands anyway. Maybe it is heat related, but although yesterday was sunny (and the sun was warm), so were the previous days, and nothing happened then.
Just leave it in the window again, but facing the other way
That is a weird one though. Surely it would take more heat than a sunlit window to bend it like that?
Yes agree it would take a lot of heat and force. I wonder if somehow the piece that is bet was under tension and there was a magnifying effect of the sun to concentrate the heat?
Couldn't have happened through "someone" opening the window, the watch getting moved by being brushed against (or buy the wind) and the window then being slammed shut, trapping the deployant and bending it, "someone" then noticing the problem, shifting the strap and then closing the window unaware of the damage?.... Or perhaps it really was Uri, passing by?
A
Nice idea, but the window in question doesn't open! I feel I must have done something by accident, but the force required is so large I can't imagine what!!
I've heard the government are pulsing a special thermal microwave into people's homes through the windows to defeat a certain virus.
This confirms it!
Good thinking! AND it means I can blame Boris for it, as I do for most things anyway!
This is not due to temperature. Steel does indeed expand as it gets hotter but unless it is constrained it just expands uniformly.
Steel's coefficient of linear thermal expansion is not that high compared to some other materials. The figure for steel is about 0.0000072 per degree F. If this clasp was heated by say 100 F then it would expand 0.00072. Multiply this by say 2 inches to account for the clasp length and you get an expansion of 0.0014 of an inch, I don't think you could see the difference and it would not account for the extreme bend and that is assuming the clasp was constrained from expanding somehow.
If this clasp was composed of two different materials bonded together with very significant differences in expansion rates, say lead which expands at over twice the rate or tungsten which expands at one third the rate, you might possibly see a visible bend it would be tiny though and nothing like the bend shown in the photo, that has to be from a physical cause.
Mitch
Obviously...
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Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
Certain people would blame 5G.
In Estonia it causes a lot of problems...but... the Government has not issued licences yet:)
My explanation
The strap got very hot in the direct sunlight. Normally the metal would have dissipated the heat back into the air or along the metal as it expanded.
You see the 2 holes on either side of the central bent portion. That prevented a smooth expansion of the metal. As a result as it got hotter and as the expanding metal could not expand along the holes properly it started to melt slightly and bend.
Thats why you got that shape.
Seems unbelievable that a piece of steel could have warped so much in a sunny window in March.
My Mrs keeps her steel bracelet Eco-Drive (she never wears it!) in a sunny window facing our South facing garden and nothing has happened to that.
Weird.
Cheers,
Neil.
It accidentally got knocked onto the floor, happened to land in the optimum position for bending (with the section that's bent perpendicular to the floor) and someone trod on it. They picked it up, saw what they'd done, panicked and put it back on the window sill.
If you live alone then the above is complete bollocks of course.
Is it ‘memory metal’?
Yeah....but the weather was more or less the same the previous days, and nothing like it happened. Unless the strap was in a strange position with some tension on it, and the heat was enough to make it fluid. But every explanation seems so unlikely!
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Well, it certainly seems stuck like it is now!
I'd be more concerned about: 1] the fact your clasp is hanging in mid-air next to your white-coated wall or ceiling, and 2] you've got a few spots of damp. => most definitely supernatural.
Unless you live alone, this. They may not even have noticed that anything was bent if they weren't looking properly.
Dave E
Skating away on the thin ice of a new day
That was never done by sunlight./ ambient heat.
Lots of mysterious things happen in our house like broken floor tiles and fridge doors. The back door key was found snapped in half this morning. Could be elves or one of the 5 other people living in the house who never seem to have any knowledge of how these things happen. Unless you live alone I’d be interrogating your fellow inhabitants.
+1 for the Elves. I should know, I've seen one.
Don't worry, I took the photo on a bit of manky old white paper to make the picture clearer. I'm sure that there are lots of other issues with the house but I don't bother thinking about them!
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I do live alone, so I can rule out the malicious effect of family members!
If you look closely, the far section of the 'hinge' appears to be misshapen/deformed. Possibly this part of the hinge was no longer tightly wrapped around the pin and had a gap sufficient to allow the centre section to slide into the gap while it was sitting on its side. This would lock it rigid. Then when you attempted to close it, without noticing that the hinge was rigid, this section just bent. This is precisely where it would bend when you attempt to close the clasp and the hinge is rigid.
I can imagine that it promptly released when you started to 'wiggle' it, but by that stage the damage was done. When the watch is on your wrist you would have a significant amount of leverage and considerably less force would have been required to bend it initially, than trying to straighten that section using your fingers when you have no leverage.
It would probably be difficult to replicate the jamming/locking of the hinge as I suspect that the deformed section if the hinge may have been opened up further when you were attempting to close the clasp.
Last edited by TomGW; 30th March 2020 at 00:14.
You can experiment and see if the steel plate is easier to bend/straighten when heated. If that proves true, I'd say you bent it when trying to put the watch on. It didn't require active 'bending' force, but simply pressing force between the cap of the clasp and the hinge.
Do you have a mischievous pet slow worm?
Definately a poltergeist.
How many other people have a watch-orientated poltergeist??? Most poltergeists stick to throwing other stuff around!
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