You’ve finally got your hands on the mechanical watch of your dreams but now you’re wondering how best to look after it. One of the most important things to understand when owning a mechanical timepiece is how often is needs to be wound. This way you can keep it fully powered, keep the components inside moving and the watch fully optimised.
There are two key methods to winding up a mechanical watch and which one you do will depend on the type of watch you have. If you have a manual winding mechanical watch, then you can manually wind up the rotor by turning the crown situated on the side of the case. If you own an automatic mechanical watch, you can choose between turning the crown or you can simply wear your wear your watch and allow the movements you make spin the rotor inside.
How does winding a watch work?
Inside a mechanical watch, there are several key components that help keep the watch powered and it is important to know about these in order to understand how winding your watch works.
Step 1 – As you wear the watch and begin to make movement, a component called the oscillating rotor begins to spin around inside the watch. As this spins, it begins to wind something called the mainspring. The mainspring can also be wound by turning the crown.
Step 2 – The energy collected into the mainspring is then passed through a set of gears into the escapement
Step 3 – The escapement is the component which provides energy at regularly intervals to the balance wheel
Step 4 – The balance wheel oscillates at a set pace which then allows the hands begin to move around the dial.
How often do I need to wind my automatic watch?
Now that you know how a mechanical watch works, it is easier to explain how often you need to wind it. This depends largely on the type of watch you have and how often you wear it.
Every mechanical watch has a set power reserve which is usually somewhere between 38-240 hours. This gives you an idea of how often you will need to power your watch. If you have an automatic watch and you wear it daily, it is highly unlikely that you will ever have to wind it since the movements of your wrist will keep it powered. However, if you like to take your automatic watch off for several days at a time, you may eventually need to wind it back up if the power has run out. You can do this by turning the crown or giving the watch a shake to get the oscillating rotor spinning again.
If you own a manual winding watch, it doesn’t matter how often you wear it. The power reserve will run out eventually and you will have to manually wind it back up by the crown when it does. Some mechanical watches are equipped with power reserve indicators so you can see how much power you have left through a handy feature on the dial.
For those with automatic watches, you may want to look into purchasing a watch winder to keep your timepiece moving and wound when you are not wearing it. You can find some highly reputable watch winders on our website that suit almost any type of automatic timepiece.
