HOW WINDING DAMAGES YOUR WATCH & How To Wind Your Watch Correctly - For Manual & Automatic Watches

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0:00 Intro
0:29 Does over winding / hand winding damage a manual watch?
2:17 Does over winding / hand winding damage an automatic watch?
4:32 What not to do when winding your watch
8:04 How to wind your automatic watch properly
8:47 How to wind your manual watch properly
9:50 Ending


#watchmaking #automaticwatch #mechanicalwatch

[Jake-btfc]

Watch collecting is seriously the most neurotic hobby out there. Just wind your watch. They're tools. They can wear out. Who cares.

[swilkobarfingtoniii]

Generally, on my vintage pieces I have a pretty good idea of many many winds it takes to put a full load on the mainspring. I tend to count the winds I do and as I come to the end I slow down and leave just a bit of slack, maybe two crown rotations and the watch is ready to wear.

I am usually only wearing these vintage watches for a few hours at a time and then changing to a "daily beater" that I don't worry too much about.

[thomasroberts]

Unfortunately, I recognized a couple of those no-nos from this video! In 1978, I was out for a morning run in the rain wearing my two year old Omega Speedmaster under my rain Fogged up immediately when I got home.
In other times, I've broken a mainspring and then a stem all for the reasons you lay out. This is" watch wisdom 101" and thank you for posting it. Oh, I still have the Speedmaster after 48 years and it's keeping better time than ever. I wear it everywhere.

[chrishennemeyer]

It would have been useful to explain what in fact "overwinding" is if you're going to advise people to avoid it.

[davidjb]

Clearly from this it's best not to wind mechanical watches at all, and this approach comes with the additional benefit that the watch will always be exactly correct twice a day 😏

[think]

Wow, your watches seem to wear and break VERY easily!
I wind everything, have done for decades...zero issues.

[matthewpaull]

So hand winding doesn’t damage your watch, but doing in a stupid way or in stupid place might.

[jltrem]

I have a 1965 Hamilton Accumatic which belonged to my uncle. It is the only automatic watch I own and initially didn't know anything about it. Before trying to wear it I would wind it, thinking it functioned like a mechanical watch. This caused it to gain time to the point of it gaining 20 minutes over a two hour period. Now when wearing it I give it a couple of vigorous shakes to get it going and it keeps good time, only gaining a few seconds per week. It has never been serviced.

[SirStamford]

Good useful video. 👍 found it a bit strange though that in a video about winding, you showed the Seiko SKX a lot. A watch you can't hand wind

[stevehuffman]

ummm ... my one mechanical watch (circa 1885 Elgin 15 jewel H.H. Taylor grade 79 pocket watch) only winds by hand ... with a key..
Since it does not have an automatic wind complication, (and it is not possible to add one) how do you suggest I wind it, if not by hand, using the key?

For wat it is worth ... to date it runs great. It was recently serviced. The main spring did not need replacement. or did any other spring.
I wind it until te key does not turn, without forcing it. As it was designed to be wound.

[r.stanley]

I’m old enough to remember when an “automatic” watch was simply called a “self-winding” watch, and most of us usually just wound our mechanical watch in the morning before putting it on… sort of topping off the spring tension a little. The Bulova Accutron tuning fork movement was the space-age dream watch back then. Another reminder of how time passes quickly.

[QoraxAudio]

I had an old watch serviced that didn't run at all, the only thing they had to replace were the winding stem and the engagement of it.
Except for that it was very grimy so they ultrasonic cleaned all parts and lubed it.
It only cost me 45 bucks!
Really pleasantly surprised about that!

[dire]

Congratulations to me. I do 90% of these "don'ts" 😅

[Hkram]

Interesting video.
My old watchmaker always told me to be gentle and consistent with my winding, so it the tear is even and well spreaded with time.
But well, I don't forget neither that using a watch, is damaging a watch, it's not alive and can't regenerate so, it is what it is :)

[fredflintstone]

Thanks for making this video. All great advice that person's with watches are well served to keep in mind.
One thing I do is not open watches to replace a battery when the humidity in the area is greater than 20 percent. Certainly NOT in any kind of rainy weather. Sealing the watch back up with humid air inside will cause that humidity to condense when the temperature of the watch goes below dew point which will be a higher temperature with wetter air trapped inside.

[lobdsk]

Winding it in a back and forth motion resets the clutch and also the click spring. So it’s a better choice than just winding it clockwise.

[phillipwong]

One technique I ALWAYS use to wind a watch whether is auto or manual wind is to wind by going back and forth to feel the tension of the spring, if you wind on one direction, you won't get to feel the tension as much as going back and forth.

[velviaman]

Amounts to keep ‘em is your watch box message . Me I have been winding them every morning for decades without issue.

[Solitaire]

Thanks for this informative video. I haven't a mechanical watch in years but when I did I would stop winding when I felt some resistance. To deal with issue would the following work: Design the watch to run 2 full days on a full winding (20 winds), then instruct the User to wind it it ten times.

[CasparSchlickum]

Saw a video recently (sorry can't remember who it was) who referred to "Mechanical Empathy". I thought that was a really nice way to think about it. These are complicated mechanical machines, and approaching how you work with them (wear them, wind them, clean them etc) requires a certain level of empathy or recognition that you are not dealing with a swatch.