June 13, 2007
Mechanical Watches
What is a mechanical watch, and why should I care?
A mechanical watch is one which uses an intricate set of springs, gears and other tiny parts to move its hands around the dial . Collectively, this set of tiny pieces is known as a mechanical movement. Watches featuring mechanical movements don’t have batteries to replace and can last decades if serviced every six or seven years.
How are quartz watches different from mechanical ones?
Quartz watches are battery powered and can be readily identified by second hands, which move around the dial in a series of discrete ticks. In a mechanical watch, the second hand sweeps across the dial more smoothly.
Quartz watches offer the attractive combination of low price and high accuracy (often to within one or two seconds per day). As a result, they dominate the bottom segment of the market, accounting for the vast majority of sub-$500 watch sales. For everyday timekeeping, quartz watches are hard to beat, but in terms of heirloom suitability and value on the used market, they suffer in comparison to mechanical watches.
Are more expensive watches more accurate?
Within the realm of mechanical watches, more accurate movements tend to carry a price premium. However, the correlation is not perfect, as the use of precious metals and the addition of special features (called complications) add to a watch’s price without increasing its accuracy.
To make matters worse, when you include quartz watches in the mix, the relationship between price and accuracy is turned on its head. In fact, a $100 quartz watch can readily outperform a mechanical watch costing 10, or even 100 times as much.
Somewhat defensively, mechanical movement advocates claim that unless you are a train conductor or a scientific researcher, being 15 to 30 seconds early or late will make virtually no difference. As a result, there is little need to focus on minor difference in watch accuracy.
What different types of mechanical movements are available?
Generally speaking, there are two type of mechanical movements—handwound and automatic.
Not surprisingly, the wearer of a handwound watch must periodically wind it by turning the crown, a ridged disc of metal on the side of the watch, several times in order to put tension on the mainspring. The mainspring then acts as the watch’s power source, storing enough energy to power it for one to two days.
Automatic watches also have a mainspring, though it is wound through the natural movements of the wearer’s wrist. As a result, if worn everyday it should never lose power.
What do I need to know about watch crystals?
A watch’s crystal is the transparent material that protects its face. Most watch crystals are made from one of three substances:
Acrylic : This material scratches fairly easily, but is quite shatter-resistant. Fortunately, a jeweler can buff scratches out of acrylic with little trouble.
Mineral glass : Perhaps the most common material among mainstream watches, mineral glass is less likely to scratch than acrylic but more prone to breakage.
Synthetic Sapphire : Thin slices of synthetic sapphire are a supremely durable material for watch crystals. Sapphire is extremely hard, rating a nine on the Mohs scale (which tops out at ten for diamond). Sapphire is more prone to shattering than mineral glass or acrylic, so keep this in mind for sports-oriented watches.
Some watches have numbers written around the outside of the dial. What purpose do they serve?
In many cases, these numbers are inscribed on a rotating ring called a bezel. For example, bezels on diver’s watches show elapsed time, which is essential for calculating the air remaining in a SCUBA tank.
Other popular bezel types include supplemental twelve-hour scales to track secondary time zones, and tachymeter markings, which allow the wearer to quickly calculate speed or pounds of fuel burned based on elapsed time.
What’s the difference between a chronograph and a chronometer?
These two words are similar in spelling but have very different meanings.
A chronograph is simply a watch with a built-in stopwatch. In most cases, a couple of extra crowns flanking the standard winding crown control the stopwatch.
A chronometer is a mechanical watch movement meeting a high standard of accuracy set by a Swiss organization called contrôle officiel suisse des chronometers (abbreviated as COSC). Interestingly, though movements certified by COSC are held to a higher standard than standard mechanical watches, their accuracy still falls short of many quartz watches. For more information on chronometer certification, check out www.timezone.com/library/wbore/wbore631733384647656250.
Does the number of jewels in a watch determine its value?
The jewels used in the manufacture of today’s watch movements are synthetic and have no value as gemstones. Because they are more durable than metal, watchmakers use them to reduce friction between moving parts. A standard mechanical watch with an automatic movement uses 17 jewels. More complicated watches (such as those with chronograph functionality) use additional friction-reducing jewels.
Historically, a watch with more jewels tended to be of higher quality than one with fewer jewels (thus costing more), but that is not necessarily the case today. In fact, some manufacturers add
superfluous jewels in an effort to boost the marketability of their watches. As a result, it’s probably wise to avoid placing too much weight on the exact number of jewels in a mechanical movement, so long as it has at least 17. For more information on jewels in watches, see www.timezone.com/library/workbench/workbench0025.
Is hacking good or bad when it comes to watches?
A watch movement that hacks is one in which the second hand stops moving when you pull out the crown to set the time. Many inexpensive mechanical watches have non-hacking movements, which make them harder to set to the exact second. For most watch wearers, a hacking movement is helpful, though not essential.
Resources
Timezone: This site contains a vast amount of watch-related information, along with several brand-specific discussion forums.
Watch-u-seek forums: The forums at watch-u-seek (a commercial site) are lively and offer great information for the watch novice.
Top 20 List on the Poor Man’s Watch Forum . This guide provides images and descriptions to some of the best values in men’s watches (80% of the watches on the list cost under $500).
Posted by moetting at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)