Astronauts wore Rolex GMT's and not just Speedmasters. Say it isn't so...

Archer · Feb 12, 2018

vintagestuff
I was clear that this was my own personal experience, and yes, the watches were serviced by Rolex (to the tune of 700 or 800 each time. (in the 90s) Would you prefer that I somehow take back what I wrote or tell you that it didn't happen? I stand to gain nothing by slandering Rolex mainsprings. I simply shared my disappointment in my experience with mainsprings in two of four Daytonas I have owned and used. Any reader here can take from that what he will. As a watchmaker who services chronographs on a regular basis, your experiences are clearly more valuable to someone conducting an empirical study. I am not disputing what you have observed in these "mid tier" level watches. I get it that around here you are one of the very few who can repair a complication, and I've heard good things about your work, but expressing to me that "if you want to believe there is more to it than just a bit of bad luck" is a tad condescending. I'm a grown man, public servant, military veteran, with a JD and a good bit of experience in all sorts of things. I've been handling "mid tier" watches for about 25 years now and repairing movements that aren't complicated for maybe 15. I'm allowed to state that I had watches that seemed too prone to breaking mainsprings. Can we leave it at that? If not, I'm afraid you'll have to continue without me.

Your experience is what it is. I've not denied that you had the experiences you did, only that they have lead to drawing conclusions that aren't warranted based on a sample size of 2 watches. There's no reason for you to take back what you said about what happened - I believe you. But to say this indicates that somehow these watches have mainsprings that are more susceptible to breakage just doesn't follow.

Coincidence

Correlation.

Is it possible that Rolex had a particular batch of bad springs from their supplier? Certainly. Is it possible that the watchmaker at Rolex inadvertently nicked the springs on installation, causing premature failures? Certainly. It is possible that you haven't mentioned that the watches were always kept on a winder, and that winder may have been set to more turns per day than was necessary to keep the watch wound, and that lead to premature failure of the springs through wear? Certainly. There are many scenarios that could have caused this - poor quality springs is only one of them.

I'm not making any accusations here to be clear, just pointing out that there are so many variables at play in this sort of situation that to make sweeping generalizations isn't terribly prudent. But as you say, YMMV.

I am going to reach out to a watchmaker group I belong to via an email distribution that covers 600+ watchmakers to see if anyone has observed any unusual failure rates on Daytonas that use the Zenith movement. It would still be a small sample size, but certainly more representative than 2 watches.

Cheers, Al

ScubaPro · Feb 12, 2018

From the Apollo 16 Mission Report, addressing the fact that Duke's Speedmaster failed on the Moon:

"The Apollo chronograph is a secondary timing device and is not critical to mission success or crew safety. There are no plans for corrective action."

This component of the mission failed (the second time at least that it happened) and they aren't bothering to fix the problem. I'd say they didn't care. And again, no agency when selecting a component of which literaly dozens of possible candidates are available would only test four, and they didn't even test multiple samples and anybody who has every tested anything knows that is best practice. We don't even know what models were tested exactly, where they came from, and why they wanted to test chronographs to begin with. A dive watch with a rotating bezel would have been far easier to read and manipulate when wearing heavy gloves on the moon. They also would have been better suited to be used in the event the astronauts got blown way off course during splashdown, where the functioning of the watch might become critical for navigation purposes. The Speedmasters of the period were notorious for not doing well when submerged, a very real possibility if they were to find themselves (temporarily) on thier own at sea. Did they even test the four candidates for waterproofness, because if they did I've never seen that aspect of the tests recorded anywhere. I really don't think it was a priority.

Archer · Feb 12, 2018

ScubaPro
Al,
One thing I've always wanted to know (and apologies if you've covered this), is do OEMs tend to make their own mainsprings? Unlike balance springs which are so much more complex in their delicate (but necessarily durable) construction it seems main springs are like truck diesel engines in that they just deliver power and must sustain millions of winding cycles, so their are tough, simple creatures. I've always though this is a part that manufacturers would feel find outsourcing to a reliable vendor. What's the reality?

Just to touch on balance springs first since you mentioned them...Swatch group (through Nivarox FAR) make somewhere around 90 to 95% of all the balance springs used in Swiss watches. This includes many big name brands you might recognize, including Swatch competitors clearly. Despite the whole ETA thing with Swatch being allowed to cut back supplies over time, the monopoly is even more strongly in Swatch's favour when it comes to balance springs. Right now they have been ordered to keep producing at historical levels, because very few companies have the expertise to bring on production of balance springs. Most of the industry would not exist without that supply, even if the brand boast of having so called "in-house" movements.

For mainsprings there are not many large makers left. Of course Nivarox FAR also make mainsprings, and this makes answering your question a little difficult. Nivarox FAR is owned by the Swatch group, and many mainsprings I use for Omega products are marked as such, like this one from an Omega Cal. 1120:

So is this produced by the "OEM" as you ask? Some would argue it is "in-house", and some would argue it is not. I'll stay neutral on the question - it's sort of irrelevant to me as long as I'm buying it from Omega, and it's what they say should go in this particular watch.

Here is one from a Cal. 1861 Speedmaster - you will note it is also made by Nivarox FAR:

So is a Nivarox FAR mainspring, in a Lemania Movement, inside an Omega, all owned by Swatch group all "OEM" or "in-house"? Not for me to decide.

Here's one from an Omega 55X/56X/75X series automatic movement - it is made by Generale Ressorts SA, so not part of the Swatch group:

Here's one for an Omega Cal. 3303 (F. Piguet based chronograph) - you can see it is made by Schwab-Feller SA, also not part of the Swatch group:

So the answer to your question is not really black and white, and not consistent across all products from a given brand.

Now about these being "tough, simple creatures" I can understand why someone would think this way about the mainspring. However even one movement caliber can use different springs. For example Rolex calibers tend to rebank (have too much amplitude, causing the impulse pin to come around too far and strike the outside of the fork horn) at relatively low balance amplitudes compared to many other brands. So because of this Rolex offers mainsprings of different strengths, so a normal mainspring, but also one weaker in case the normal spring causes too much amplitude.

Another way a spring can be different is the alloys used. If you look at the specific springs used in some ETA movements that come in various grades, the mainspring types can vary. For example Standard and Elabore grade ETA 2824-2 uses the Nivaflex NO grade mainspring. However the higher grades of this movement, so Top and COSC, use Nivaflex MN grade mainsprings.

The mainspring is the engine of the watch, and it needs to provide smooth, consistent flow of power to the wheel train for the watch to run really well. I'm working on a post that talks about mainspring and barrel lubrication to add to my watchmaking tips series where I'll show more about how these should be handled, but for now I hope this helps.

Cheers, Al

ScubaPro · Feb 12, 2018

Thanks so much. I'm realy glad yo're doing this, because with all the focus on escapements and the other aspect of watch mechanics I rarely see anyone go into detail about what's going on with the heart of the drivetrain. I will NEVER take my mainsprings for granted ever again, and apologize to any mainsprings I may have insulted with my naive "tough, simpll creatures' comment.

GordonL · Feb 12, 2018

ScubaPro
From the Apollo 16 Mission Report, addressing the fact that Duke's Speedmaster failed on the Moon:

"The Apollo chronograph is a secondary timing device and is not critical to mission success or crew safety. There are no plans for corrective action."

This component of the mission failed (the second time at least that it happened) and they aren't bothering to fix the problem. I'd say they didn't care. And again, no agency when selecting a component of which literaly dozens of possible candidates are available would only test four, and they didn't even test multiple samples and anybody who has every tested anything knows that is best practice. We don't even know what models were tested exactly, where they came from, and why they wanted to test chronographs to begin with. A dive watch with a rotating bezel would have been far easier to read and manipulate when wearing heavy gloves on the moon. They also would have been better suited to be used in the event the astronauts got blown way off course during splashdown, where the functioning of the watch might become critical for navigation purposes. The Speedmasters of the period were notorious for not doing well when submerged, a very real possibility if they were to find themselves (temporarily) on thier own at sea. Did they even test the four candidates for waterproofness, because if they did I've never seen that aspect of the tests recorded anywhere. I really don't think it was a priority.

I do beg to differ on 2 of your points. I believe that the 4 watch models selected for test were the only 4 out of the many offered which met the basic criteria which NASA has set out. More than 4 were offered, but the others were discounted for various reasons.

And it is standard practice (indeed it is mandated!) that when "qualifying" a piece of equipment you carry out the qualification tests on a single "representative sample" of said equipment. As someone who has carried out very similar qualification tests on many pieces of military avionics equipment I know this to be the case.

Archer · Feb 12, 2018

ScubaPro
I will NEVER take my mainsprings for granted ever again, and apologize to any mainsprings I may have insulted with my naive "tough, simpll creatures' comment.

Mainsprings rule! 😉

I'll spare you a Mad Dog style pose with me holding up some mainsprings...but rest assured the mainsprings in my shop forgive you.

But yes, there is a lot of attention paid to the other end of the train at the balance, but you can do all the adjusting you want at that end and if the mainspring isn't providing what it should, that will be for naught.

Cheers, Al

Professor · Feb 13, 2018

Seems to me the design of the watches mentioned are geared toward keeping water out not holding air in when subjected to sudden drops in pressure.
To prevent crystals from popping out they would do well to put a relief valve on the case to allow pressure to equalize. A filter built into the valve would prevent dust being drawn in as pressure returned to normal after re-entering the craft.
A screw down cap over the valve would return it to water proof for use after splash downs.

A hard vacuum might cause lubricants to sublimate so the valve should allow at least some low pressure air to remain in the case.

A screw down ring to secure the outer circumference of the crystal would also be useful.

The older canteen cap divers watches were designed ground up for a very limited purpose. The same design philosophy should be extended to EVA capable watches.

SpeedyPhill · Feb 22, 2018

Pause this Apollo 14 CSM Kitty Hawk video at 0:29 ... wait I did it for You:
😁
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complete video:
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Professor · Feb 22, 2018

Looks like Omega did attempt to design a watch specifically for EVA use.

Check this video at the 10:09 mark.

SpeedyPhill · Feb 22, 2018

@Professor
Off-topic video but WatchFinder should do some research... not rocket hands but Gemini-capsule hands
And the "Alaska Project" red-colored outer cases and white dial watches were used in Space as these flew on Salyut 6 in 1977 and 1978

Seacow · Mar 3, 2018

I wonder if automatic rotor wind works in zero G environment?😲

Archer · Mar 3, 2018

Seacow
I wonder if automatic rotor wind works in zero G environment?😲

Did you take physics in high school? If so the answer should be obvious...

Professor · Mar 3, 2018

Inertia rather than gravity powers the system, like centrifugal force being used to produce artificial gravity.
Normal earth gravity should in fact slow down the rotor.

The normal process would be altered to some extent but it would still work. Some common wrist motions would not produce any movement of the rotor. Some winding tables I've seen would not work in zero gee.

SpeedyPhill · Mar 24, 2018

The more I browse my photo collection, the more I'm convinced that test pilot William "Pete" Knight wore a Rolex GMT during the test flights of a pink colored X-15 (N° 6671 = covered in ablative coating) rocket plane on October 3rd, 1967 to a record speed of Mach 6.7
👎
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SpeedyPhill · Mar 28, 2018

1970 official portrait of astronaut/naval aviator Scott Carpenter ...
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Professor · Mar 28, 2018

Is that some sort of additional instrument dial added to the watchband?

#nb · Mar 28, 2018

Professor
Is that some sort of additional instrument dial added to the watchband?

I think probably it's just a compass...

SpeedyPhill · Mar 29, 2018

Indeed, Carpenter trained as an Aquanaut for the US Navy SeaLab project and wore both Rolex Submariner and Rolex SeaDweller
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Professor · Mar 29, 2018

Could that be a depth gauge?

SpeedyPhill · Mar 30, 2018

April 1970... astronaut Charlie Duke, Apollo 13 Backup Lunar Module Pilot, got infected by his children with German measles...
Both prime & backup crew got exposed and as Apollo 13's original Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly was not immune, he was hastily replaced by astronaut Jack Swigert... Three days before the planned launch, so no time for a new WSS - White Space Suit crew photo but a crew photo in civilian clothes... Jack Swigert clearly wore a Rolex GMT wrist watch...
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