buy more, wear in rotation or buy a winder...........
buy more, wear in rotation or buy a winder...........
I honestly wouldn't recommend keeping all of your watches running 24/7. In the long run you will end up servicing them all more often, and they will all have shorter useful lives.
This seems to be the consensus view among people who actually work on watches for a living, so I'm going to go with that over any 'common sense' approach common among consumers.
Just have one watch and then it's easy :)
It's just a matter of time...
Whats wrong with a watch winder? I have 8 watches on a winder and they are ready to go whenever I fancy rotating which in my case is daily :-)
^^^
in the good old days maybe. These days with modern synthetic oils less of an issue.
As others have said, wear one watch for a week and then the other seems the logical approach.
I`m convinced that watches worn sparingly don`t need servicing as often as those worn regularly, or 24/7. That's based on experience with my own watches plus the watches I`ve had sent for service. Modern synthetic oils help a lot, but I`m virtually convinced that a watch worn regularly starts to deteriorate in performance sooner than a watch worn occasionally. That has to be down to the lubrication starting to fail; whether it's the oil breaking down or the oil film migration I don`t know, but I think there's a definite link.
I also believe watch winders simulate the watch being worn in the maximum state of wind; in that condition the mainspring will be slipping inside the barrel and this causing wear. This happens when an active person wears a watch.....but no-one is active 24/7! To my mind, the watch winder is likely to maximise wear to the barrel.
My gut feeling is that winders will increase the wear rate to the movement; whether that increase is significant or not isn't clear. As for that old chestnut about 'keeping the oil moving' I just don`t believe there's any benefit whatsoever. Think about how a watch is oiled and it becomes clear.
The only exception I`d make to the winder rule is in the case of perpetual calenders, or possibly if two watches are worn equally over a week.
Paul
Like many here, I run a vintage ragtop when the weather is nice. When not in use I'll start her up every couple of weeks, cycle through the controls and switches and let her run until the fan kicks in. What I don't do is leave her idling in the garage for months on end...
It's hard to deal with beliefs.
Modern watch winder like Wolf which was set to the right number of turns makes some 50 turns to each side with long inactive intervals between series, all the cycle takes like 6 hours once in 24hrs. Moreover, when I put a watch on winder it already programmed to 24 hrs delay before the beginning of winding.
All the settings when done once are kept. No damage whatsoever.
Last edited by AlexL; 28th October 2016 at 20:01.
Please explain. Are you implying that the watch winder keeps the watch partially wound? if the winder can be programmed to give exactly the right amount of input to maintain this state I`d be both impressed and surprised.
I don`t claim to be the font of all knowledge on this topic, please elaborate, I`m always happy to learn. The way I see it, the winder would have to be programmed to match the rate at which the mainspring winds down; frankly I can`t see how this can be done and I welcome a detailed explanation.
Paul
Last edited by walkerwek1958; 29th October 2016 at 00:33.
Plenty of masterba.... oops wrong thread....
Nothing wrong with setting them as you are going to wear them, part of the fun with automatics :)
Unless, as previously stated you go down the winder/s route
My ElmaMotion two watch winder has the following controls:
1. Number of daily rotations - 650, 800 or 900. These are distributed over a 24 hour period.
2. Direction of rotation - Clockwise, Anti and Alternating.
3. Sleep Phase - The winder suspends rotations for something like 8 hours, then continues to achieve the daily count.
4. Speed Wind - Rotates continuously for something like an hour.
I use the speed wind feature with my ETA 2824/36 watches as an alternative to hand winding. If I wear a watch on a Friday evening, this ensures it's still going on a Saturday morning.
One of the winder manufacturers publishes a table showing minimum daily rotations for a variety of automatic movements.
None of this has ever really been a problem for me, because I wear automatic watches as they're intended to be worn - continuously.
It's just always been my preference to choose a watch, then wear it to the exclusion of others, usually for weeks, and sometimes for months at a time.
When I'm looking for a watch for more occasional use, as in something I'm only likely to put on for a few days or even hours at a time, my preference would always be for manual wind non-date, or an accurate quartz.