Should we only "prime" and not fully wind our auto Rolexes?

[Guppydriver]

Had an interesting convo with a watch maker who I like and trust. I guess he doesn't "make" watches but he owns an indie watch and clock shop and services all models.

Over coffee, he mentioned that automatic watches have a far less robust winding mechanism than a manual wind. He said he would avoid fully winding by hand any automatic watch. That they are designed to be primed with a few turns and then worn to wind and not manually wound to the stop.

Since all modern Rolex are automatics, I thought it was an interesting topic.

True? Urban legend? Somewhere in between?

[padi56]

Yes true manual wind mechanism can be more robust that automatic winding mechanism simply because auto has more moving parts.But been wearing Rolex watches for well over 50 years always fully wound my automatics even gave a wind when wearing to top up power-reserve never had any problems.

[Guppydriver]

Originally Posted by padi56

Yes true manual wind mechanism can be more robust that automatic winding mechanism simply because auto has more moving parts.But been wearing Rolex watches for well over 50 years always fully wound my automatics even gave a wind when wearing to top up power-reserve never had any problems.

Good to know Peter. I just received of my second modern Rolex GMT (226570). Obviously a second task required to set them.

I hate watch winders so when I know I may spend a week to a month alternating between the BLNR, EXPII, and/or the other GS GMT I own, I'll manually wind to the stop to keep em' ticking for another few days.

[swils8610]

The only time I’ve wound my Rolex is when it sat for a few days and stopped running. My wrist has always kept them wound.


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[amphr1]

Definitely make sense. I've bent my crown stem and had to have it serviced because I was too rough on my watch. So avoid it when you can. But I would go as far as how you do with old Seiko where you prime it by walking around the house while wearing the watch and them set it once it gets going.

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[vichardy]

I never wind my automatics unless they won't come to life with a few shakes. This morning I pulled my sub out and it would not so I wound it 20 times and it's good to go. Most of the dozen or so automatics in my collection will start without winding.

I realize that automatics have a slipping mainspring to prevent over-winding but I still try to avoid a full manual winding anyway.

[Guppydriver]

Originally Posted by swils8610

The only time I’ve wound my Rolex is when it sat for a few days and stopped running. My wrist has always kept them wound.


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Totally

And that was his point. Give it a few spins to get it running to set it. Wear it.

Don't manually wind "to the stop" lest you put wear and tear on the watch that it wasn't designed to take.

[Guppydriver]

Originally Posted by amphr1

Definitely make sense. I've bent my crown stem and had to have it serviced because I was too rough on my watch. So avoid it when you can. But I would go as far as how you do with old Seiko where you prime it by walking around the house while wearing the watch and them set it once it gets going.

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I only have one manual wind. A 3861 Speedy.

Anecdotally, I can tell you when I fully wind the Speedy I can skip my arm workout. There definitely seems to be a difference.

[S’portEye]

I don’t think it matters on the modern Rolex.

[Mystro]

Is this for real??? If you already unscrewed the stem, then wind it up fully. I mean fully like 60+turns as you can’t over wind a Rolex. Accuracy is always optimal at the top of the power reserve.

To not fully wind a Rolex is the equivalent of using a bathroom and not emptying your bladder fully.

[Mr Ben]

Originally Posted by Guppydriver

I only have one manual wind. A 3861 Speedy.

Anecdotally, I can tell you when I fully wind the Speedy I can skip my arm workout. There definitely seems to be a difference.

How do you tell when it’s fully wound? (I specifically mean in this movement.)

On my Rolex, I give it a dozen turns and throw it on and forget about it and it’s always been fine.

On the speedy, it winds very smoothly - not too much effort but I tend to stop once I’ve hit about 40 turns. Or I’ll just give it a dozen turns twice a day. There never seemed to be a point where the resistance changes - unless I’ve never fully wound it of course…

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by Mystro

Is this for real??? If you already unscrewed the stem, then wind it up fully. I mean fully like 60+turns as you can’t over wind a Rolex. Accuracy is always optimal at the top of the power reserve.

To not fully wind a Rolex is the equivalent of using a bathroom and not emptying your bladder fully.

That’s always been my take on it as well. Interesting to hear differing opinions.

Whenever I change out a watch, I give it 40 full clock wise turns of the crown.

[Krash]

The difference is that if you fully wind a manual watch more than you should, it will break. It literally will break. But you can’t overwind an automatic Rolex (or Omega for that matter). So I’m not sure I’m buying it.


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[KatGirl]

Originally Posted by brandrea

That’s always been my take on it as well. Interesting to hear differing opinions.

Whenever I change out a watch, I give it 40 full clock wise turns of the crown.

Brian, that is EXACTLY the same thing I do. Figures!

Kat


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[brandrea]

Originally Posted by KatGirl

Brian, that is EXACTLY the same thing I do. Figures!

Kat


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Great minds

I think I read it in the owners manual


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[Cassian739]

Originally Posted by brandrea

That’s always been my take on it as well. Interesting to hear differing opinions.

Whenever I change out a watch, I give it 40 full clock wise turns of the crown.

Same, if it's fully stopped, I give it 40 full turns. If I haven't worn it in a few days, but it is still running, I give it 25 turns. Rolex website:

"Before being worn for the first time, or if it has stopped, a Rolex watch must be wound manually in order to function correctly and precisely. To wind the watch manually, unscrew the winding crown completely, then turn it several times clockwise (turning in the other direction has no effect). A minimum of 25 turns is required for adequate partial winding. Carefully screw the crown back down against the case to ensure waterproofness. The watch will then be wound automatically as long as it is worn on the wrist."

https://www.rolex.com/en-us/watch-ca...for-your-rolex

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by Cassian739

Same, if it's fully stopped, I give it 40 full turns. If I haven't worn it in a few days, but it is still running, I give it 25 turns. Rolex website FAQ:

"Before being worn for the first time, or if it has stopped, a Rolex watch must be wound manually in order to function correctly and precisely. To wind the watch manually, unscrew the winding crown completely, then turn it several times clockwise (turning in the other direction has no effect). A minimum of 25 turns is required for adequate partial winding. Carefully screw the crown back down against the case to ensure waterproofness. The watch will then be wound automatically as long as it is worn on the wrist."

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[Kevin of Larchmont]

I’m in the 40-turn club from stopped and I let my wrist do the rest until I need to reset it or I take it off and it stops then I do it all over again.

[Dirt]

Do as you please.

But being that i'm a fairly practical sort of person.
I'll happily stick my hand up as geing a fully paid up member of the official Rolex Primer Club.
That is unless i have a specific reason to go to the trouble to fully wind my watches.

After all, why have a dog and bark yourself?
Especially as my watches are fully wound on my wrist from an absolute dead stopped condition in as little as 6-8 hours whilst on my wrist on any given casual kind of day.

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by Mystro

Is this for real??? If you already unscrewed the stem, then wind it up fully. I mean fully like 60+turns as you can’t over wind a Rolex. Accuracy is always optimal at the top of the power reserve.

To not fully wind a Rolex is the equivalent of using a bathroom and not emptying your bladder fully.

I'll tell you what i find absolutely incredulous.

Is the fact that people buy an Automatic winding watch and pay some serious money for them.
Only to not take full advantage of that function

I literally couldn't be bothered in the least, but i suppose i'm a bit old school in that my first experience with Automatic wound movements was with watches that literally couldn't be manually wound anyway

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by amphr1

Definitely make sense. I've bent my crown stem and had to have it serviced because I was too rough on my watch. So avoid it when you can. But I would go as far as how you do with old Seiko where you prime it by walking around the house while wearing the watch and them set it once it gets going.

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There is that aspect.

Let's look at it in totality.
One highly estemed Rolex watchmaker from the past on this forum had stated that it's obvious some people are somewhat over obsessed with manually winding their Rolex when the movement is broken down due to the fact that more parts are needed to restore functional reliabilty in the manual wind component of the mechanism.
So there's that.

Then there's the fact that Old Hans wanted to develop the most reliable water and dust proof and fully functional and robust wrist watch and then went on to incorporate an Automatic wound movement as part of achieving his aims and objectives.
Then to cap this right off, it was against the backdrop of the waterproofness and security provided by a Screwdown crown.
To give further context.
Rolex has said to simply prime the watch by winding it to a reasonable kickstart condition with a number of turns then set and forget and put it on your wrist to do the very thing that's it's designed to do(assuming reasonable activity levels).

The only instance that i can recall where anybody is genuinely required to fully manually wind their watch, is to ascertain whether it's actually functioning correctly as a diagnostic function.
Though i note that Rolex does give technical information to that effect where approximately 40 full turns of the winding crown are deemed sufficient to achieve a fully wound condition.
To that. Simply wearing it on the wrist is in fact more than sufficient to get the exact same result(fully wound) assuming the watch is mechanically sound and reasonable activity levels are achieved by the end user.

Now, why on earth would one waste their time unscrewing, then "fully"manually winding the watch to the nth degree and screwing the crown back down and regularly incurring unnecessary extra wear and tear on the mechanism and potentially compromising the water proof/dust proof integrity that Hans himself wanted to design into and maintain with the ultimate wrist watch design?
Unless it was stopped for an unknown or uncharacteristic reason

Hense the beautiful synergy of an efficient bi-directional Automatic winding mechanism and a highly waterproof Screw down crown system that's intended to maintain the integrity of the watch

[ArtNouveau]

Meh…I wind mine fully when I switch to one that’s stopped and have never had any issues.

[HogwldFLTR]

My watches can go weeks and months without being worn. I’ve no concern about winding to get them going. I will use the rachet approach as opposed to going in one direction.

[Mystro]

Originally Posted by Mr Ben

How do you tell when it’s fully wound? (I specifically mean in this movement.)

On my Rolex, I give it a dozen turns and throw it on and forget about it and it’s always been fine.

On the speedy, it winds very smoothly - not too much effort but I tend to stop once I’ve hit about 40 turns. Or I’ll just give it a dozen turns twice a day. There never seemed to be a point where the resistance changes - unless I’ve never fully wound it of course…

It’s very easy to feel or even hear when you are at the top of the wind. With Rolex you will feel an ever so slight “tick—click” every 3/4 turn when you are at the top. You can even hear it “tick—-click” as you slowly wind next to your ear. It is the mainspring slipping past a grove that is there to prevent over winding. Some movements like an Omega or Panerai makes a slightly louder click but Rolex movements either 31 or 32 have an audible and feel to them you can’t miss. This is another way to train your sense of feel when you do wind you learn approximately how many winds it actually does take with your fingers to fully wind a movement from it’s stopped position. That is why we say between 40-60 winds because every ones fingers are different and you don’t know how many times the crown rolls between their finger and thumb pad.

[Mystro]

Originally Posted by Dirt

Do as you please.

But being that i'm a fairly practical sort of person.
I'll happily stick my hand up as geing a fully paid up member of the official Rolex Primer Club.
That is unless i have a specific reason to go to the trouble to fully wind my watches.

After all, why have a dog and bark yourself?
Especially as my watches are fully wound on my wrist from an absolute dead stopped condition in as little as 6-8 hours whilst on my wrist on any given casual kind of day.

How do you know they are fully topped off? Really the only way to tell is to take them off after that 6-8 hours and wind them up manually to hear the mainspring slip past to actually know in fact that amount of movement that day is enough to fully wind the movement.

The take away is not to wind every day arbitrarily but IF your watch is stopped and you have to unscrew the crown anyway, why not fully wind the watch?? It takes 15 seconds longer to do before you rescrew in the crown anyway. The act of unscrewing the crown is what most want to avoid but IF you have to unscrew the crown anyway, then fully wind the watch. It will also be more accurate right off the bat when you reset the time as the Rolex movements (especially) is always its most accurate at the top of the mainspring power.

We have had many reports of owners with sedimentary office jobs where their watch has stopped on the wrist from lack of motion. Then to find out all they do is give a few winds when their watch does stop only to report again their watch has stopped.

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by Mystro

How do you know they are fully topped off? Really the only way to tell is to take them off after that 6-8 hours and wind them up manually to hear the mainspring slip past to actually know in fact that amount of movement that day is enough to fully wind the movement.

The take away is not to wind every day but IF your watch is stopped and you have to unscrew the crown anyway, why not fully wind the watch?? It takes 15 seconds longer to do before you rescrew in the crown anyway. The act of unscrewing the crown is what most want to avoid but IF you have to unscrew the crown anyway, then fully wind the watch. It will also be more accurate right off the bat when you reset the time as the Rolex movements (especially) is always its most accurate at the top of the mainspring power.

We have had many reports of owners with sedimentary office jobs where their watch has stopped on the wrist from lack of motion. Then to find out all they do is give a few winds when their watch does stop only to report again their watch has stopped.

The fact is that i couldn't be bothered counting the turns or wasting my time.
If i was on the clock it would be a classic WOFTAM.

Who knows?
Some people may not be able to count that high even after they had a friend or three take their shoes off.

Seriously, as you note.
I prefaced my original comment by saying "Do as you please".
That was for a good reason.

This subject has been covered off extensively on this forum by the usual suspects, myself included.
Surely logic must prevail over personal obsessions at some point along the continuum? Then this is a Rolex forum

[Krash]

Originally Posted by Dirt

I'll tell you what i find absolutely incredulous.

Is the fact that people buy an Automatic winding watch and pay some serious money for them.
Only to not take full advantage of that function

I literally couldn't be bothered in the least, but i suppose i'm a bit old school in that my first experience with Automatic wound movements was with watches that literally couldn't be manually wound anyway

If you have a lot of automatics in rotation, it sort of becomes a moot point. My automatics are always winding down simply because I don’t where any of them everyday.

If you have one automatic watch, and that’s all you wear, then you’ll never have to wind it.


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[Old Expat Beast]

Originally Posted by brandrea

That’s always been my take on it as well. Interesting to hear differing opinions.

Whenever I change out a watch, I give it 40 full clock wise turns of the crown.

How about your SKX009?

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by Krash

If you have a lot of automatics in rotation, it sort of becomes a moot point. My automatics are always winding down simply because I don’t where any of them everyday.

If you have one automatic watch, and that’s all you wear, then you’ll never have to wind it.


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I take your point
It's definately a first world problem for some of us when it comes to that.
I've had watches on a rotation.
Maybe one watch a week or every few months for me where i was rotating through 6 or 7 Rolex interspersed with a splattering of others.
To be absolutely frank, i could be known to whip off a Rolex something else and slip on a Manual wind dress watch for a few hours with maybe 10-15 winds into it, set the time and go without any concern about it running quite well and fully fit for purpose and absolutely no concerns about achieving perfect Isochronism
Or switch one Rolex for another on any given day and switch back again(from black dial to white and visa versa) to the main daily wearer without any degradation in day to day timekeeping.
Even with a lowly old but well tuned pre 32xx movement under the bonnet/hood
Everybody's mileage will vary

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

How about your SKX009?

Oh god. You've done it now
I'm getting a hankering to wack on my trusty SKX173 now and with that old clunker 7s62 rattling away in there.
But then again, on second thoughts i couldn't tell how long i've got to sit there arcing and rocking it side to side in the classic finest Seiko fashion for an extended period only to spend the rest of my day wondering if it's fully wound or even winding to its fullest potential all by itself