Winding Manual Watches: Best Practices

And I used to manually wind them once a month at the beginning haha Now I just stopped by laziness and wind them like once every couple of month. I will see what others recommend I may need to start winding them again more often. So far I have not noticed any malfunction on the watches or noticeable reduction in the power reserve. Kev

One part is to re-ignite the flame, another is just like what we WIS do, keep them running but not as often like on a winder. I'm not sure this frequency is right or wrong but I have other watches that last for years without servicing even when I wind them once a month.

I bought a few watch winders that will wind manual winding watches, used them for manual winding perpetual calendar watches. I now wonder if keeping them on a winder might do more harm than good over a longer period of time? In any case I stopped using them. Like you, I set and wind my other manual winding watches when I wear them or sometimes just for pleasure.

Generally it’s wind it if I’m wearing it. From time to time I will run (wind) a watch for several weeks as I want to measure its timekeeping or day to day variance. In those cases I tend to wind once a day and at the same time each day.

Whether manual or automatic, I was advised by a watchmaker friend to have them run at least once a month just to get the oils flowing. I guess it also depends on the conditions of storage. It’s quite humid here where I live, so maybe in such conditions, a little more running would not hurt. In any case, winding them once a month allows for some bonding even for those pieces not worn. I do understand that for those of us who have many, many pieces, this can be a challenge ;-)

After the kids are off to school, I wind every watch in the collection. I also make sure the time are adjusted as needed.