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Manual Winding Causes Premature Wear?

vesnyder
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Any truth to this? I brought in an ETA 2892 movement to to be rebuilt and the watchmaker told me that winding an automatic movement will cause premature. Of course, the movement I brought in showed none of this type of wear despite having manually wound it for a lot of it's 25 years. I had never heard this before and wanted to run it by the forum.
Edited:
 
M'Bob
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If the watch has not been worn for a while, most major manufacturers recommend at least 15-25 turns to get the mainspring wound. Can’t see how this can be avoided, unless you never let the watch run down.
 
JwRosenthal
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I have had a couple watches (eh-hem, zodiac) where the winding pinion broke teeth or got sloppy- but that from people grinding on them quickly or pushing in while turning and setting etc- basically man-handling roughly- and those are known to have issues. Otherwise, never had an issue.
 
Donn Chambers
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If you nervously wind the watch many times a day, then yes, you might have premature wear. But under normal circumstances, where you wind it when it has stopped or once a week or so, then you are fine. Sounds like your watchmaker is trying to get you to service your watch more often than it needs it.
 
JimInOz
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There may be some truth to his statement.

For example, Seiko were so concerned with premature wear on the manual winding components that they designed a number of their movements so that they could not be manually wound.

😉

Edit: I forgot to put a winky thing in.
Edited:
 
Dan S
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JimInOz JimInOz
There may be some truth to his statement.

For example, Seiko were so concerned with premature wear on the manual winding components that they designed a number of their movements so that they could not be manually wound.

And ironically, many of those movements don’t have jewels in the autowinding mechanism.
 
Foo2rama
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JimInOz JimInOz
There may be some truth to his statement.

For example, Seiko were so concerned with premature wear on the manual winding components that they designed a number of their movements so that they could not be manually wound.
Many?

I’d say the bulk of thier automatic movements from the late 60’s until about 2 years ago in the lower priced models.


Although I’d argue it was cost savings and them trying to argue the magic lever winding system that was super efficient at automatically winding a watch and they did not need anything as prosaic as manual winding.
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JimInOz
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Dan S Dan S
And ironically, many of those movements don’t have jewels in the autowinding mechanism.

Well the ingenious "magic finger" winding system needs very few jewels.

All those that I'm familiar with have ball bearings on the rotor axle, a jewel on the magic finger pivot and upper and lower jewels on the final component, the transmission wheel.

I will admit though, Seiko were a bit stingy with their jewels and could have used another two on the upper and lower barrel arbor pivots so I wouldn't have to keep replacing the bush and worn plate hole with jewels.
 
Dan S
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JimInOz JimInOz
Well the ingenious "magic finger" winding system needs very few jewels.

All those that I'm familiar with have ball bearings on the rotor axle, a jewel on the magic finger pivot and upper and lower jewels on the final component, the transmission wheel.

I will admit though, Seiko were a bit stingy with their jewels and could have used another two on the upper and lower barrel arbor pivots so I wouldn't have to keep replacing the bush and worn plate hole with jewels.

Yes, that's been exactly my experience when I have those movements serviced. I've sent several watches to a watchmaker in your neck of the woods who specializes in vintage Seiko, and he always recommends installing jewels, since he has had so many bad experiences with poor auto-winding otherwise. And with these watches, you really notice if the auto-winding is inefficient.

To be fair, I've had exactly the same experience with several low-jeweled US-import Rolex and Omega movements. I'm always a little nervous when I see "17 jewels" on a rotor. But at least you can wind them manually. 😀
 
JimInOz
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Dan S Dan S
.......... I've sent several watches to a watchmaker in your neck of the woods who specializes in vintage Seiko, and he always recommends installing jewels, since he has had so many bad experiences with poor auto-winding otherwise. .....................

A @ VTA?
 
jaguar11
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Your best bet would be to wear and enjoy your watch!
 
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