Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Daily wear of the watch

Can I get my watch wet?
How wet you can get your watch depends on how wet the watch was designed to get! As a general rule, a WR30m watch is designed to be splashed, a WR50m is OK for light swimming but not really prolonged immersion, a WR100m watch is fine for swimming and a WR200m can be considered a diver's watch as such. These are the basics. More importantly is where you get your watch wet...try to avoid dunking even a depth rated watch in hot water, like in the bath or shower; the heat can distort seals and soapy detergents can damage them. The chlorine in swimming pools isn't the greatest friend to watch seals either; it's best to thoroughly rinse off your watch in fresh water after swimming in a pool. Likewise after swimming in the sea, used fresh water to rinse out all that salt!
What about heat and sunlight?
Heat in the form of saunas etc. isn't really recommended, particularly if you take a sauna and then enter the icy waters of the plunge pool! Quite simply, rapid hot to cold like that means that something may contract rather rapidly, if that something relies on a seal which has softened due to the heat then you are asking for trouble. Also, any watch will have some moisture in it simply because it has air in it; rapid cooling means this may condense, probably only to disappear again but it could leave a stain under the crystal or worse.
Heat in terms of wearing the watch in hot weather maybe can't be avoided, fair enough and as this is fairly constant compared to the above then shouldn't be too much of a problem. However, if at all possible, avoid leaving/wearing the watch in direct strong sunlight; firstly the watch is going to get very hot which won't do the lubricants much good; secondly, direct sunlight like that can prematurely age dials and cause dial lacquers to lift or micro bubble. This isn't to say that your watch should be kept under shirt sleeves whenever the sun is out! It's just a case of using common sense; don't fry your watch!
My watch is shockproof!
It might be shock-resistant but it's best not to test its ability to withstand shock; mechanical watches are almost always fitted with certain shock absorbing devices nowadays but even so, do not expose your watch to sudden shocks, vibration, dropping etc. Mechanical watches(Rolex replica,Porsche Design replica,Richard Mille replica,Zenith replica,Hublot replica and Ferrari replica watches)are pretty tough but there is a limit; exposing the watch to severe shock can at the least affect timekeeping and at worst will cause mechanical failure.
My watch says Antimagnetic on the back
Most watches are antimagnetic to some degree; that is to say that they will stand exposure to limited magnetic fields without timekeeping being adversely affected. However, it is only specialist watches which have been built to withstand high magnetic fields that should be exposed to such. So, for our everyday automatic what should we avoid. Firstly what needs to be remembered is that a mechanical watch has lots and lots of metal inside it; all these components are interacting with each other in some way; wheels meshed with pinions for example. If these or the even more delicate components become magnetised, then the watch at best will run very erratically or at worst will stop altogether.
Without getting paranoid about it, try to avoid getting your watch too close to magnets(!), stereo speakers, computer monitors...even the rubber magnetised seal around the freezer door. All these are a potential source of trouble. I was once fiddling with the back of a computer monitor, the power cable was a little loose; maybe a minute or two at most but that was enough to send the watch whacky. Fortunately, if something like this does happen then all is not (usually) lost; a competent watchmaker should have the equipment to demagnetise the watch and get it back to normal.

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