Turns to wind a watch

[Rolexoman]

I had a friend ask me today about the automatic watches I wear and the question was how many turns do you wind a watch before wearing after it’s been in storage and I told him about 30-40 and then he asked does that change with a watch that has a longer power reserve and I honestly don’t know if having a longer power reserve requires a longer or more turns to start with so should I wind my watches with longer power reserves more ?

[Tools]

Doesn't matter.

Your watch will always wind down, or up, to exactly how much wind you put into it during the day with your activity.

If you wind it fully to a 72 hour reserve (or whatever your full reserve is), but you only put 40 hours of wind into it daily, it will eventually wind down to 40. Likewise, if you only put 20 hours of wind into it, it will self-wind up to that 40.

[Rolexoman]

Originally Posted by Tools

Doesn't matter.

Your watch will always wind down, or up, to exactly how much wind you put into it during the day with your activity.

If you wind it fully to a 72 hour reserve (or whatever your full reserve is), but you only put 40 hours of wind into it daily, it will eventually wind down to 40. Likewise, if you only put 20 hours of wind into it, it will self-wind up to that 40.

I normally wind all of mine the same amount of turns regardless of power reserve at approx 30-40 turns so guessing that’s enough

[Tlon]

Originally Posted by Tools

Doesn't matter.

Your watch will always wind down, or up, to exactly how much wind you put into it during the day with your activity.

If you wind it fully to a 72 hour reserve (or whatever your full reserve is), but you only put 40 hours of wind into it daily, it will eventually wind down to 40. Likewise, if you only put 20 hours of wind into it, it will self-wind up to that 40.

This is new to me, so I apologize if I'm being dense, but I'm confused by this.

If I wind my watch half way, so 36 hours, and then it starts to lose power, that during activity it will only ever wind up to 36 hours?

I would have thought that the automatic winding, with enough effort, could fully charge a watch. Is that not the case?

[Rolexoman]

So what does it take to put say 60 hrs worth of wind into a watch ? I’m guessing this is trial and error to determine what it takes to get to that full reserve.

[Tools]

Originally Posted by Tlon

. . .
If I wind my watch half way, so 36 hours, and then it starts to lose power, that during activity it will only ever wind up to 36 hours?

I would have thought that the automatic winding, with enough effort, could fully charge a watch. Is that not the case?

Your last sentence is correct; the key is "enough effort"
Your watch will always "wind itself up" to whatever activity you physically put into it daily.

A watch is continuously un-winding. Activity winds it. If your activity is equal to it's rate of unwinding, it will remain the same. If your activity is above it's rate of unwinding, it will eventually wind up.

If you start with 36hrs of wind, then you have to put into it, 36hrs of self-wind, every 36hrs, just to remain static.

This is why many of us have watches that stop overnight. We are only putting into it 8-10 hours of wind daily, and it winds down to that. We take it off at night and wake up to a stopped watch.

Of course, if you are active enough, your watch will always be winding itself fully, but that isn't most of us.

[Tools]

Originally Posted by Rolexoman

So what does it take to put say 60 hrs worth of wind into a watch ? I’m guessing this is trial and error to determine what it takes to get to that full reserve.

You have to start with a watch that actually has that high a power reserve, most of them are 48hrs.

There is a ratio of the self-wind mechanism that is not the same as the crown wind ratio. For a 3135 it takes about 650 turns of the auto-wind mechanism to equal the amount of power it uses daily. It only takes 20 turns of the crown for that same amount of power.

So, wind a stopped watch 20 full turns, you now have ~24hrs of power. Wear it for a week as you normally would, then take if off and let it run down, noting how many hours that takes.

If it lasts more than 24 hrs, divide the difference by the days you wore it to give you the approximate amount of self-wind you put into it daily, above it's used power. My guess is that most of us will have less than 24 hrs of power.

[Tlon]

Got it. Thanks!


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[77T]

Originally Posted by Rolexoman

I normally wind all of mine the same amount of turns regardless of power reserve at approx 30-40 turns so guessing that’s enough

The goal would be to turn the crown until the mainspring slips in its barrel. At that point it is fully wound. For a model like the modern Daytona that has a silky smooth winding resistance, you may not hear or feel it. But to operate at its maximum Power reserve of approximately 72 hours (regardless of your activity level) you could always just go to 60 turns.

But a ladies DJ with 50-ish hour reserve, or a vintage movement with 40-ish hours, may have its mainspring fully wound in as few as 30 turns from a completely depleted reserve.

With a smaller barrel you may feel/hear the mainspring slip easier than the larger ones.

Now, as a side comment and brief detour, counting the number of turns is part of the zen of mechanical watch caretaking IMHO.

The brief time spent while winding a mainspring is a physical connection between your motive power that enables the measurement of time passing and the rest of your time over the next two days (or more). It is an optimistic expression of faith that the 2 minutes spent turning the crown will bring you 2 more days of time on this Earth.

Philosophically, the best utilization of this seemingly mundane activity might be to elevate it to a higher order.

Reflect, breathe deeply, and feel the power transferring from your fingers into the taut cold spring steel that completes the physical man-machine (or woman-machine) interface with the movement.

...or just let the darn thing run down...


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[Rolexoman]

Tools and 77T you are both very wise men, I think will all that has been said I will give my watches approx 50 turns when I first wind them and set and just enjoy them.

I believe my 3136 DJII has a reserve of 48 hrs and my Tudor MT5602 has a reserve of 70 hrs and lastly my Omega 8605 has 60 hrs so I’m figuring 50 turns will be slight overkill for the 3136 but about right for the others

[edgware14]

Originally Posted by 77T

Reflect, breathe deeply, and feel the power transferring from your fingers into the taut cold spring steel that completes the physical man-machine (or woman-machine) interface with the movement.

Beautifully put!

[Futuristic]

Thanks