#Intime watch repair how to#

The mainspring is wound, as the name suggests, by turning the watch’s crown a few dozen times. A hand-wound watch is the purest form of the mechanical timepiece, which is part of its appeal. That coiled mainspring will only provide power for a day or two (or sometimes longer) if you don’t keep it wound. One of the beautiful things about a mechanical watch is that it requires interaction with its owner to function.

#Intime watch repair how to#

The pivots of the gear wheels ride in the center of these rubies, which are polished smooth to provide nearly frictionless surfaces.ĥ0 Terms Every Watch Lover Needs to Know How to Wind and Set a Watch Those red shiny discs you see in the bridges of a watch are rubies, formerly real ones, currently most often synthetic ones. Friction is mitigated by regular lubrication and smooth “jeweled” bearings. But, as you might guess, friction and external shocks are archenemies of the mechanical watch movement. With all of these meshed gears and delicate springs, it’s a wonder these contraptions are as precise as they are (though a well-adjusted chronometer-grade movement can keep time to a 99.999% accuracy). Most modern hairsprings are made up of a metallic alloy that compensates for temperature changes, and some are made from silicon, which is immune to magnetism. The precision of the watch depends largely on the tension of this hairspring, as well as its resistance to temperature changes and magnetism.

The hairspring is the heart of the watch if you’ve seen a mechanical watch movement running, you’ll appreciate that metaphor, as the hairspring “beats” back and forth at a steady rate anywhere between 18,000 and 36,000 times per hour. Instead, the power that drives the hands around the dial, and also drives any additional complications like a date function, a moonphase or a chronograph, comes from the unwinding of a tightly coiled flat spring. Unlike a quartz watch, a mechanical timepiece doesn’t get its energy from a battery. The basic architecture of almost every mechanical watch for the past three centuries is the same, proving what a truly ingenious and efficient machine it is. These are the pros of a mechanical watch.īut before you reap the benefits, there are a few things to keep in mind that will help keep that watch running flawlessly until you pass it on your offspring one day. Whether you wear it just for special occasions or it accompanies you during all of life’s significant moments - and whether you paid a week’s salary for it or a year’s - it should serve you well, running trouble-free for many years. That makes you the rightfully proud owner of more than just a timekeeper: that little disc on your wrist is an emblem of the culmination of art and science, a salute to man’s ingenuity. Congratulations, you bought your first mechanical watch.