Is a watch winder important?

[bronzerai]

What's your opinion?

I've recently been exposed to a new school of thought regarding watch winders. I was always under the impression that you needed a watch winder to keep your automatic watches moving, ensuring even distribution of lubricating oils and preventing them from gumming up.

The new thinking (to me at least) expressed by a horologist I was chatting with is that watch winders tend to overwind your watches keeping unnecessary tension on your mainspring. Logically you could adjust the winding rotations to keep the watch moving but not max the reserve thus minimizing tension on the mainspring. The question with most winder directories (Wolf, Orbita, etc.) is are they designed to keep the reserve at it's maximum, and if so what is a good % reduction.

So what is more important: continual movement, or lack of tension?

Found a video on this as well, see below:

[thelonedoc]

I read somewhere that they are a bad idea. When parts are moving they are being worn out. If you are not wearing the watch regularly I believe you should just periodically wind it up and give it periods of movement but otherwise leave it alone. I purchased a watch with a 7750 that had spent it's life in a winder and you can see very fine shards of metal on the inside of the see through caseback. I think of it like an engine, you wouldn't leave your car running indefinitely to try and preserve it. If anything you want to minimize the mileage put on it.

I could be wrong but this is my take on the matter.

[Yoda]

Watch winders are just gadgets, I find them completely unnecessary (potentially harmful) in my opinion.

[antonio651900]

I think that a continuous load should not be recommended for the actual dock. And the wear of parts must also be taken into account.
I use my watches interspersed.

[Plasmon]

I have owned a cal. 1570 since 1983 and worn two weeks per year on average (so serviced only once so far). It runs happily and accurately whenever I want to use it and never needed to replace parts other than orings. This tells me it's a stupid idea to keep running mechanical movements all the time on a machine for their health. What's the point of running it if you are not enjoying it?

My watchmaker told me that it could be harmful to keep a watch in a winding machine because it doesn't really mimic human motion and rather, it turns the watch always in the same manner, resulting in extreme abrasion on limited contacts.

[Emilio]

I think it's more important to have the watches serviced regularly instead.

[straps68]

If you like your watches wearing out unnecessarily when you're not wearing them then, yes, a watch winder is important

Let's say that a watch spent a year in a watch winder but you only wore it five times, then you have effected 365 days' worth of wear in 5 days, so to speak.

[Natas78]

Well it’s a very handy and toughtful way to keep us watchmakers from going poor
And to be honest, the wear is minimal, the synthetic rubies made these days are very strong, a good clone movement can take a lot of abuse and static rotation isn’t going to cause much wear. Most mainspring cost the opposite of a fortune and installing them in non-chrono movements is easy enough.


Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk Pro

[Hidden Impact]

I think this question is relative to your specific situation.

Is it important to keep your movement in good health? I think that’s already been answered.

Is it important for convenience? Yes.

For example: My wife doesn’t have the patience or desire to change the time on her 4-5 mechanical watches I built for her, and I’m not always around when she needs the time fixed so yes, they are important.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Yoda]

I think this question is relative to your specific situation.

Is it important to keep your movement in good health? I think that’s already been answered.

Is it important for convenience? Yes.

For example: My wife has doesn’t have the patience or desire to change the time on her 4-5 mechanical watches I built for her, and I’m not always around when she needs the time fixed so yes, they are important.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ha ha! My spouse has these issues as well, but I am keeping her leash tight and telling her what it is all about...at a cost, she gets irritated.