The Breitling Watch Source Forums

With the wealth of experience in this Forum, can any one advise me about watch winders. I have heard conflicting stories about them being Brilliant or that they can over wind a watch.
As I am about to pick up my Evolution, (which i will only wear at weekends/ special days) in a day or two, so I do not want to do the wrong thing by over winding it. Really love coming on line to this forum, I am learning so much about Breitling watches, so much so that I know that My first one will not be my last. I must start saving for it immediately!

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AlphabetABC

Rolex Daytona TT
Omega Planet Ocean Chronograph
Breitling Navitimer 01 Red Gold

Correct me if im wrong but what i have learned on the Web is that there is a protection mechanism in a Breitling watch for overwinding your watch.

I got this info from the main page from breitlingsource (http://www.breitlingsource.com/articles_faq.shtml) :

Is it possible to overwind my Breitling watch?
You do not have to worry about over-winding your watch as there is an overwind protection mechanism in your watch, unless it is a vintage peice then it may stop winding when it is fully wound. Just don't force it after it has stopped or you may damage the mainspring.

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There is a great article on the subject of winders here.
http://blog.breitlingsource.com/2007/03 ... -whatever/

And as Poes187 says you should not worry about overwinding. Your watch is not a vintage piece so it is impossible to overwind. You do however want to limit the time your watch moves on the winder to avoid overuse and wear. The proper winding direction for your watch can be found under the Breitling model page on the BS site, and a list of turns per day can be found on Orbitas web site.

http://www.orbita.net/pages/17100.htm

It's not the age of the watch that dictates whether it can be overwound, it's whether it's manual or automatic. Automatic watches cannot be overwound as they have a slip clutch for the mainspring.

There are a lot of topics on here about watchwinders, just use the search function, but bottom line is that you have three choices - ridiculously expensive which will probably be fine but may break or become noisy as soon as it's out of warranty, cheap (Chinese) which is almost guaranteed to fail in under a year but is priced as a consumable, or the winder that lives at the end of your arm.

As I have said before, I have winders as I have quite a few automatics, but I also have a number of manual winds that I keep running and it only takes about 30 seconds a day to keep each one wound.

Thanks everyone. I must have heard rumours that are not true about winders over winding watches. Hi Roffensian....Much as I would love to wear My Breitling every second of every day,
I am afraid in my business (Construction) it would be ruined in no time. and at 11500 pounds it deserves more respect than that. I have my trusty Rado for that purpose which is totally un-markable. So I will get a winder. Has anyone heard of Rapport winders they are made in London, are they any good?.

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AlphabetABC

Rolex Daytona TT
Omega Planet Ocean Chronograph
Breitling Navitimer 01 Red Gold

That brings up an interesting thing for me that I have still yet to find a definative answer.

Is it OK on a regular basis to manual wind an automatic, for instance in one does not wear it for a sufficent time each to keep it fully wound, would it be ok at the end of the day to wind the crown as you would do a manual with my manual wrist watch I wind it everyday at the same time? I actually like doing it!
Is there some deep dark thing in an automatic that is not like a manual and will implode if manually wound every day?
It seems nonsense to me that an automatic movement cannot be manuall wound each day if the wearers habits dictate it, is the connection from the crown to the movement weaker in an auto, is that why?
I would love an answer to this as sometimes I do not wear my watch for 8-12 hours in a day

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All the best.
Ian

I think you missed my point.

I'm not talking about wearing it all the time, I'm talking about winding it by hand - it's a lot cheaper than a winder!

It's perfectly fine.

There is an argument that says that you will wear out the winding mechanism, or the screw down threads on a screw down crown, which is true I guess - eventually, but not really a practical problem. The winding mechanism can certainly take it - with modern materials and production methods the winding train is generally stronger than on vintage manual watches.

That is really valuable info Roff, thank you, it really made no sense to me that it could not be done on a regular basis!

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All the best.
Ian

If you only have one (or just a few) automatic(s) to wind it may not be an issue. But a cool winder that looks the business is just nice to have

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I'd rather have the cash in the watch fund.

It seems no-one has answered this this afternoon, so I will! Yes I used to own a Rapport. Nicely built and did the job, but it was quite expensive considering that it became very noisy after a few months. Eventually it had to go back for a repair (under warranty fortunately), but in a few more months it was becoming noisy again. I sold it soon after that, as £300 for a 2-way that couldn't stay silent even after a warranty repair, was just not on as far as I was concerned. In my opinion, they're not worth the cash, but as you will see if you do a search on here for watch winders, buying any winder is a total minefield. Sometimes you can pay a fortune and get a piece of junk, or you can pay relatively little and get great value for money.

Personally I use an Official Time Van Gogh series 6-way, and considering that it was less than £350 when I bought it, it's been great. In fact I'm considering buying another matching one! Obviously I may have just been lucky as they are made in Hong Kong so probably don't have the very best quality internals, but the ability to wind 6 watches for that kind of money was too good to resist................., and thus far it's been absolutely superb. It maybe slightly more noisy now than it was when it was new, but it's not intrusive at all. And the quality of the box itself (solid grey oak) is exceptionally good.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Is it me or is it funny that the Breitling Caliber 13 can only be wound Clockwise...

Is this true what im reading?

Can somebody like God... or anyone on this forum explain why some watches can wind clockwise and counter clockwise, and some watches just don't.

Poes.....

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All watches have to be manually wound clockwise due to the ratchet system in the winding train.

The clockwise / anti-clockwise / both indication is for the rotor winding and is based on how the gearing to translate the rotor motion to the mainspring.

Nowadays they are usually set up for either, but remember that the Valjoux 7750 is a fairly old design and unidirectional winding is a simpler engineering exercise.

This is why this is such a great Forum. You are such a knowledgeable bunch of guys, but on top of that you are so helpful and willing to share this knowledge, knowledge that money cannot buy.
I have learnt so much in a very short time, Thank you.

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AlphabetABC

Rolex Daytona TT
Omega Planet Ocean Chronograph
Breitling Navitimer 01 Red Gold