Patek Philippe

Question for the purists.   I am in the daily habit of winding all of my manual watches that are at home at any given time and not in the safety deposit.   Also, any auto's are on winders.

Is this typical?   If you have multiple watches do you still wind the ones that you do not wear that day?

only the perpetual calendar or annual calendar watches wound.     My reasoning is that the hassle associated w/ setting them and more importantly the risks of NOT adjusting them properly & causing any damage is not something I want to neglect.

As for other watches that can be easily set/adjusted, I don't keep them wound for the purpose of prolonging the life cycle between service.

This message has been edited by Jester on 2015-03-21 10:29:08

If you Wind your Watch once or twice every month, that is enough...Necessary, but enough.

Best,

Nicolas

I make sure all my watches are wound daily depending on the length of the power reserve and keep my automatic watches on winders. I like to monitor the accuracy of my watches and compare them to one another so this is my personal habit of keeping all my watches fully wound. As stated by the other replies, this is probably totally unnecessary to keep the watches in tip top shape but only necessary for perpetual calendar or moonphase watches.

Sham

PS I only have 7 watches by the way so winding the 4 manual ones daily or twice a week is quite a joy.

It is better not to wind them so often, they will wear out much less.

In the mean time, winding them once iin a while keeps the oils work properly on the long run.

Thanks Mark. I learn something new. I knew over winding was bad but I had
not realised that winding them too often is not so good either.

{6871988} AutoForum response Not too much winding

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sham
20/03/2015 10:41

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Posted By: Mark in Paris (registered) on March 20th, 2015 - 03:40
Title: Not too much winding

it is in the case you don't wear them.

Otherwise, if you wear your watch, you of course have to wind them each morning (manual wound).

Cheers Sham.

Mark

Oh yes, I understood Mark. I have been winding all my 'not worn' watches
too:-) My rationale was that if they are left unwound, the oils may dry up
but I suppose it all depends on how long they are left unwound.

{6872003} AutoForum response To be clear,

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sham
20/03/2015 10:47

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Posted By: Mark in Paris (registered) on March 20th, 2015 - 03:46
Title: To be clear,

"how long" and also taking into account that synthetic oils today are "working" much longer than oils in the past.

Cheers, Mark

How about watches with silicon? Will winding them too much result in an
adverse effect as they use less or no oils? You can tell I like winding
all my watches daily so that they are always working:-)

{6872283} AutoForum response Exactly,

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sham
20/03/2015 13:40

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Posted By: Mark in Paris (registered) on March 20th, 2015 - 06:39
Title: Exactly,

any mechanism working will show some wear and tear effects.

So, every period during which you don't wear it, is a good opportunity to make a "pause", making the watch "live" longer before needing servicing.

To answer your question, I would say that only some parts are in Silicon, not every moving parts (subject to frictions).

Hence, there are still parts in steel needing more oil than the parts with Silicon (lever, escapement wheels...).


Anyway, if you wind your watches every day (when not wearing them) compared to not winding them won't have that much of an impact if you decide to service your watches every 7 or 8 years for instance.

But, if you wait for servicing untill your watch stops and doesn't work anymore (>8 or 10 years maybe ?) then it is a bit different. If you wear a watch 50% of the time it is working then you are ageing your watch (and thus reducing the time bewtween 2 servicing periods) by a significant amount.


If the price of servicing on a very long run is not that much of a problem for you, then do as you like and wind them everyday

If you may have to sell watches because the servicing costs become too high, then you can certainly save some budget there.

Mark

with service intervals and as I said only one has ever stopped running.    I treat my vintage watches the same way, just wind them daily

Mark, thank you very much for the informative reply. I am ok with
servicing costs and I am planning to service them every 5 years (or as
soon as they are too fast or too slow) to ensure they are always in the
best condition. I know servicing costs are not cheap these days but my
watches cost a lot more than my car but the maintenace cost of my car
costs many more times than my watches in total do! So I am quite happy to
spend the necessary money for watch maintenance.

Thanks again.

{6872363} AutoForum response I would say...

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20/03/2015 14:59

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Posted By: Mark in Paris (registered) on March 20th, 2015 - 07:51
Title: I would say...

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show in accuracy if something was up.   My collection is med/large and I'll give you one example.

I have a 3970R purchased new in 2003.   I have wound that watch pretty much every day for 12 years and while it will occasionally run fast a little fast when left in one position, it pretty much keeps perfect time and winds as smooth as when new.

It has never been back to Stern but I was going to drop that one off in the next couple of weeks for service.

So it would appear that winding daily has had almost no effect (or almost a positive effect for longevity!).   The only one that I have ever had actually stop was one of my 5070's, J version and the funny thing is that that one had actually been serviced about 2 years before that by Stern. (and now has run without issue again since that second service about 5 years ago).

Anything thing with excess wear would be replaced at a service correct?   The real issue would be is service required sooner?

Thanks for the responses.

Bill

and by the way, congratulations for your very nice pieces.

My thoughts are just based on experience shared by peolpe here and there, discussions with watchmakers from time to time and just simple thoughts based on the fact that the more a mechanical object is running, the more it wears.

But I'm nothing more and I also heard many watch owners whose watch was perfectly running after 15 years. And some who had a problem only one year after a purchase :p

Beside brands communication, some watchmakers seem to say that, since it is working, keep it like this. If it doesn't work anymore, then go for a servicing check-up.

I just hope, in the latter case, brands will not charge additional costs...

But I really don't know what is the real truth there...

For mine, I will certainly not do it after the official 4-5 years but wait until 8 years maybe... or more....

In any case, I will not be afraid to wait longer.

Cheers, Mark

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told me constant running will not hurt the watch or will allowing it to sit. The oils dry out at the same rate regardless. I would definitely get your 3970 in for service given its age. I think the best indicator of the oil condition in a manual watch is the power reserve. If yours still runs 65 hours on a full wind its still in decent shape oil wise.
Bob

All watches are made to run as if they were the owners only watch, 24 x 7. With modern oils and techniques, it really makes no difference whether they rest or not. The wear and tear factor enters in how you use for watch. If you wear your watch doing physical things such as chopping wood or playing golf, you will prematurely wear our the mechanism no matter how often you service it.