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THE
WATCH DOCTOR'S WATCH HEALTH GUIDE
 Greetings
and welcome to the Watch Doctor's waiting room. The information
given in this Watch Health Guide should help prevent some trips
into the surgery by assisting you to keep your timepiece(s) in
good working order. So the first thing, as with any health issue,
is to get to know the patient.
To
be a good and caring watch owner requires you to have at least
a basic understanding of your timepiece(s). You may find a quick
visit to our dictionary helpful at
some point. On the subject of 'know thy watch', I have to admit
to some amazement when a patient was brought to me recently by
it's owner who was most unhappy that the watch wasn't going. "How
come it needs a new battery so soon?" he demanded, "I
paid a lot for this only a few days ago, so I am NOT happy!".
Well he wasn't happy either when, after a quick examination, I
resuscitated (posh medical jargon for 'brought back to life')
his watch, by WINDING it. Yes, dear seeker, the client had bought
a mechanical, hand wound wristwatch and was blissfully of the
opinion that it was battery powered and therefore didn't require
winding.
Well,
I also blame the sales assistant who sold it to him for not ensuring
the client understood the basic operations of his new timepiece.
So, as prevention is better than a cure, my first piece of advice
is:
- Always
read any instructions that came with your watch and when
buying a watch get the sales assistant to run through its
operation. (Note: If the staff don't know how your watch
operates I would head for another place to spend your money).
You
see, proper care of a timepiece is no different to looking after
anything mechanical. You wouldn't, presumably, run your car for
the next couple of years without having it serviced every 10,000
miles/12 months and checking the tyres, fuel and fluid levels
regularly. So why would you expect a watch to run forever? So
my next piece of advice is:
- Get
into the habit of scheduling regular servicing/inspection of
any watches by a competent watch doctor. For a mechanical
watch, hand wound or automatic,
I would recommend a service every 2-3 years. This keeps the
lubrication up to correct levels and condition to protect the
moving parts (yes, a watch does need oiling!), equally important
is that the case seals/gaskets get replaced which ensures the
correct levels of protection against dust and moisture entering
the movement through case back, crystal and winding crown/pushers.
If
your watch - unlike the patient mentioned earlier, IS battery
powered then you should check to see if the watch is equipped
with EOL: End Of Life indication.
This is a feature of most quality modern quartz watches where
the circuitry monitors the charge in the power cell and when this
starts to fall below a certain level (indicating that it will
fail within a short period of time) the watch makes the second
hand jump in two second intervals (some models use 4/5 secs) and
this tells you to get the watch battery replaced. So for you battery
powered quartz watch owners here's my next piece of advice:
- Please
do not keep a quartz watch with a 'dead' battery for any length
of time. Get it changed as soon as possible as a dead battery
can (and usually does) leak after a while and this corrodes
the contacts and can seriously damage your watch.
Another
point that I need to raise regarding Quartz watches is in regard
to accuracy. The truth is that most Quartz watches are more accurate
than the majority of mechanical wristwatches - even chronometers
- and there is a good reason why. The world's fastest beating
mechanical movement was developed by Zenith and is still known
as the 'El Primero'. In this movement the balance wheel performs
36,000 oscillations per hour, which is 10 cycles per second. That's
very fast for such a small thing and makes this movement a premium
collectable - especially when installed into the earlier Rolex
Daytona Cosmographs. A quartz oscillator, however, delivers 32,768
cycles per second! So if you knock something oscillating 10 times
a second (but more usually quality mechanical watch movements
are slower, often at 28,800 oscillations) and also knock one at
32,768 a second, which one will register the most disturbance?
A 'glitch' of several oscillations in a mechanical movement occurring
several times a day results in a noticeable variation in time
keeping accuracy. A quartz watch however doesn't notice it! So
when a quartz watch isn't keeping time there's a problem which
leads to the next piece of advice:
- If
a quartz watch is not keeping time this is almost never anything
to do with the battery. Get the watch back to an authorised
dealer for the model, or to your local watch doctor for a check
up. In normal operation tiny fragments of metal dust are formed
and usually are captured by one of the magnetic poles of the
step motor(s). But sometimes this 'swarf' gets into the gears
that control the hand movements and a 'train block' results
causing intermittent missed beats of the seconds hand.
Moving
on, dear browser, I want to just get back to the basics of winding
a mechanical watch. Whether your watch is 'manual' - that means
hand wound - or 'automatic' - which we also call self winding
- the mainspring has to have been wound to operate the movement.
A mechanical watch can take as much as 40+ hours to run down completely
from fully wound. An automatic takes its winding from the movement
of the watch in general wear but a sedate lifestyle or being left
on a bedside table overnight will mean the mainspring isn't being
kept sufficiently wound to keep operating. I remember a lovely
elderly client bringing in their Rolex perpetual complaining that
it kept stopping. Sadly, upon subtle and gentle questioning of
the client's son, I learned that she spent nearly all day in a
Parker Recliner at the local home. Fortunately a quick guide to
having the staff give it a manual wind each day solved the problem!
So my next piece of advice for owners of non-automatic mechanical
watches is:
- Get
into a regular routine of winding your watch. I suggest
winding it every morning and last thing at night. The best way
is to hold the winding crown between thumb and forefinger and
wind in a 'back and forth' motion of the crown 12-15 times or
until resistance is felt. It is pretty hard to 'overwind' a
watch if you do this slowly and gently. By keeping the mainspring
wound this way you increase the accuracy and reliability of
the watch.
For
owners of automatic - self winding - wristwatches who are not
physically active or who do not wear the watch all the time, my
advice is:
- Talk
to your watch dealer about purchasing a winder box for your
watch. This is a box that holds your watch and, either through
mains or battery power, slowly turns the watch thus causing
the rotor to move and wind the mainspring. Alternatively:
if your watch stops after being off your wrist you can wind
it with the same back and forth motion of the crown mentioned
above. However, the gearing in the movement of automatic watches
is different to hand wound ones so you must wind slowly and
gently about 15-20 times which will be enough to start the
movement and you can then set the time and wear the watch as
normal.
Well
dear reader that's all I have time for right now. I will be dishing
out more advice very soon so please be sure to visit me here in
my waiting rooms again soon. In the meantime I hope this guide
has been of interest and will help you to protect the health of
your timepiece(s).
Cheerio!
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