What's better, a few seconds fast or a few slow??
If I hold the watch dial against the palm of my hand while holding my hand with my palm out, and quickly rotate clockwise and then counterclockwise (right, left, right, left, etc. hard and quick)the second hand will fast forward. I'm twisting the watch so enertia is making the second hand go in the direction that it moves during it's normal running. To accomplish this the twisting has to be, lets say, rough or almost ferociously.
Now, I wasn't trying to break my watch, but just trying to keep a whole lot of watches running by winding them quickly. But I discovered that this process was causing irregular timekeeping, running fast. This twisting for 10 seconds moves the second hand forward about 2 seconds.
I find that it's easier to fast forward a slow running watch then it is to do a Seiko Hack to slow it down.
I don't think that either is good for a movement, But, which one in your opinion is the lesser of two evils?
Answer:
When you shake the watch like that you are probably causing the balance to knock which causes the watch to run fast. This is pretty hard on the watch at best, at worst you can crack the roller jewel and end up with a non-running watch. On my watches I usually set them to run slighly fast then use the hacking trick to set them back once in a while.
For some good explanations on knocking search the wathcmaking list on this site for "knocking" or "overbanking". Ed Hahn has some good posts on the subject. - Larry Loesch
"The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents." - Nathaniel Borenstein
Answer:
Then a fast shake is not good so I better cut that out. But what about that hacking trick......what damage if any will that cause?
Answer:
lloesch: Does "hacking trick" mean stop the movement? A magnet works on many watches, but then magnetizes some componenets? Bad idea I think.
Do you mean "hack" feature that stops the movement? That sounds a lot more kosher.
Overall a fast watch is better, you get there early.
Answer:
Sorry about that! I should probably have mentioned the link for hacking a non-hacking momement: Hacking the 7S26
My understanding is that this is not overly hard on the mechanism. Here's a here link mentioning the wear. It's regarding an Omega, but the principle is the same:
Post by "The Professor" on wear of non-hackers with this trick
- Larry Loesch
"The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents." - Nathaniel Borenstein