guys,

I recently acquired a nice Polerouter with this movement.
The watch runs 6sec slow a day and shows 270deg of amplitude, both look fine to me.
The only question I have is about the efficiency of the bumper automatic. On a normal day (lot of desk time...) it does not look like it provides enough energy to reload the main spring.
Not really an issue, I know it only works in one direction so it should be a lot less efficient than the rotor but I was wondering if you have the same experience or if there is something wrong with mine.

Thanks and have a nice day,

Laurent

 

There is a good reason why they left the bumper design in favor for the full rotor, and efficiency is key.
I think with an "inactive" day in the office, the bumper design might fall short of providing enough energy to the movement.
Normally I do not wear watches more than one day a the time, but I have seen my 138SS and also other bumper watches, get into problems if I fail to give them a few extra winds in the morning before use.

 

I agree! I had problems with mine at first also, but I have since fixed the problem, more about this later.

Since you're asking about the 138SS movement, I will add a question regarding the seconds hand.

I noticed that my second's hand was not as assertive as in other watches. It seems to wobble or take one step forward and two steps back sort of thing. Do you guys have the same problem?

I asked my watchmaker and he explained that these movements, like many older movements run at 18000 oscillation an hour (compared to 28000 oscillations for new watches) and that it's normal that the seconds hand is not as assertive on this model and that these bumper movements need to be a little more active to keep the mainspring loaded.

So what did I do to fix the problem about the energy storage? I started walking to work, 4 km one way.

 

That's how great watch collecting is. It makes people healthier [emoji3]



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk