Quote:
Originally Posted by sailmed
Can someone explain to me why a watch would gain time as it goes out of adjustment? I can imagine why it might lose time, lubricants failing, tolerances widening, etc. Just can't get my head around why it would GAIN time? Mine gains about 50 sec per 24 hrs.  |
First thats no way to test the accuracy of any mechanical watch about 50 seconds that is not testing for accuracy.What you want to do is manually wind your watch about 40 full crown turns clockwise only.Then reset your watch with a reliable time source a quartz watch will do.Wear as normal check time daily with same setting time source,then average out the loss or gain over those 5 days.Now when a watch does get magnetised the first symptoms they generally speed up and run very very erratic or come to a complete stop and refuse to start.But most major Swiss watches today are very anti-magnetic its the hairspring that could become magnetised,but a very simple process to de-magnetise any mechanical watch most high-street watchmakers could do this very simple task only takes minutes to do.
If you find your watch not to be as accurate as you would expect after the break-in period, there are generally two courses of action to take to increase the accuracy, both very minor in nature,but require any good competent watchmaker to do it.Now if your watch runs consistently too fast or too slow remember the keyword being
consistent. The solution for the watchmaker would be to regulate the true beat rate accordingly plus or minus.Now this is a very simple and quick procedure achieved by turning Microstella adjustment nuts and screws.And with the use of a time-measuring machinery a good watchmaker can accomplish this in a matter of minutes I just cannot understand why they send watches back to the RSC for such a simple task. Regulating is most probably one of the most common tasks for any watchmaker to do.Now when a watch is fast or slow or does not have a consistent rate, especially in different positions.Then the balance wheel needs to be adjusted further to compensate for the beat rate in the different positions. Although this too is a simple procedure, it does require a little more time to correct as each position needs to be monitored and adjusted carefully.