Quick question for the "watch guys" on the Hide here...

[LuckyDuck]

Hi Hide,

I recently got into automatic watches- I personally find the mechanics behind them to be absolutely fascinating. This should be a quick an easy question but for those that have more experience than I do with automatic watches- what has been your experience with their accuracy as compared to an atomic clock. Granted I know that a quartz movement is going to be be more accurate but it just lacks the 'nuances' I'll say that I feel is so interesting with this particular animal.

If it's of any help- I'm happy to share what brands/models I'm playing with here & my experiences... They're both Hamilton's... from what I can tell both using the same Swiss movements, one field watch with a titanium housing, the other a more... dressy watch with what I'm all but sure is a stainless steel housing. The more dressy watch has a date box (so maybe a minor difference in the Swiss movement that they use).

I've been playing around with the field watch almost exclusively trying to nail down the accuracy and my longest test has been a day or two over 3 weeks and if I'm doing my math correctly I'm running fast just about 8 seconds a day.

I know that different brands have different tolerances but I was just curious what other's experiences were using automatic watches. 8 seconds a day (one way or the other) might not sound like a tremendous amount but the compounded effect can be... rather interesting I'll say. Likely this is just the 'nature of the beast' with mechanical timepieces but is +/- 8 seconds a day what you're seeing and if you use mechanical/automatic watches in your daily life- do you have an established protocol of when/how often you re-sync your watches to keep you moving forward?

Thanks in advance.

-LD

 

[category_theory]

Get one of these. https://a.co/d/6TUFWtI

 

[Bullfrog08]

Watch ya say, we cunt finger it out?

 

[chevy_man]

If they're not keeping time get them serviced. A cleaning and lubing, checking jewels, and springs.

There's a few good YouTube channels. But like everything else you need the tools. One of the areas I decided I didn't need $3k worth of tools to save $100 every few years.


Every movement is different. A decent watch guy will be able to tell you how often it needs wearing or winding when he has it apart.

 

[db2000]

Rolex recommends winding an automatic watch 30 seconds or so weekly. I have a Yachtmaster II and it runs consistently 3-4 seconds fast per day. Rolex acts like 2-3 seconds is “normal”. From my limited research others have reported similar. You can chase 1-2 seconds with frequent cleaning, lubing, etc but there’s no uniform consensus how long that accuracy will last. So ultimately it depends how OCD you want to be over it. Not sure about Hamiltons specifically.

 

[cas6969]

Don't wear them if you're going to use the sawzall for an hour straight.

Expensive lesson, pretty obvious, but didn't even realize I was doing it.

 

[roostercogburn98]

There’s a whole thread on timepieces already. Plenty of smart post there and talk about them

 

[lonegunman762x51]

No mechanical watch is ever going to be as accurate as a $4 dollar quartz watch, EVER. A Casio G-Shock will be tougher. But mechanical watches have a beauty all of their own and the mechanical watch movement made accurately navigating the planet possible and safer. +/- 8 seconds a day is not really all that bad. Over time, you should adjust the time and wind the watch a little and you will not have any problems.

Wearing a mechanical watch while using a Sawzall or sledgehammer is not the best idea, try and not do that.

 

[jpjulian]

My Seamaster runs about a minute or so slow per month. A watchmaker friend says that's good to go. He wears a Hamilton btw......

 

[Jefe's Dope]

I have three Citizen Eco Drive watches. One of them is the atomic version that updates daily using a signal to an atomic clock. I've synced them all to see how the others compare. I'm amazed that after one year, the other two are only about three seconds faster than the atomic version. As stated above, an automatic will never be as accurate as a quartz watch. Quartz watches really hurt the classic watch business when they came available.