I recently received my Vaer Heritage C5. A really nice field watch. One issue though. The second hand is not hitting the indices. On one side of the dial the second hand falls halfway in between the indices, less so on the the other side of the dial. You can see an example of this in the pic below of the better side.

I have contacted Vaer about this issue and have not heard back from them yet. While I was on their webpage I came across this information.

https://www.vaerwatches.com/blogs/journal/watch-second-hand-not-aligned

I have a feeling that Vaer will tell me what you see is what you get.
I am hoping for some feedback from the forum. Are my expectations for alignment unrealistic?

 

Yep

 

Oh goodness!

 

Would you elaborate.

 

The information in that link is mostly BS, designed to do exactly what you suggest, give them an excuse to sell watches that the hands do not line up properly on.

There are really three things that determine how the seconds hand lines up around the dial:

1 - the ability of the watchmaker installing the hand. There is some skill involved, but it is nothing that requires automation to do accurately, as they suggest.

2 - the alignment of the dial in relation to the movement. If the dial is not aligned properly, the hand will not hit the marks all the way around. A small subset of this problem are dials where the printing might be off.

3 - a movement that has features that make accurate alignment possible. Cheaper movements will have backlash that makes hitting the marks vey difficult, even if everything else is done correctly. To use an example, the original version of Omega’s Cal 1538 didn’t hit the marks very well, so one of the revisions that Omega did was to reduce the backlash. But that still wasn’t good enough, so a magnet was added to the underside of the bridge that helps stabilize the hand position, and getting these to line up is not difficult at all.

So on your watch, hold the watch vertically so the crown is painted to your right, and watch the hand as it goes around the dial. If it hits the marks say on the 3 side, but not on the 9 side, turn the watch 180 degrees so that the crown is now pointed to your left. Watch the hand again and see if it now lines up on the 9 side, but not the 3 side. If so, the issue is backlash. It may be taking up the backlash going “downhill” but isn’t when going “uphill” or vice versa.

I don’t know what movements they are using, so I can’t say if the movement is capable or not as a start. But touting this as a sign of hand work is pretty sad in my view...

Cheers, Al

 

I think it's quite reasonable to expect good alignment. I think Vaer's "explanation" you linked to is full of fog and BS, trying to justify sloppiness in a watch that's built to a price. I don't believe robots are relevant: Rolex hands are set by humans, and every OysterQuartz I've seen has perfect alignment; many Seiko/Citizen watches--built by robots--are off.

 

Yes, that seems to be the idea they want to communicate to you in the article on their website.

Their explanation for mis-aligned seconds hands seems counter-intuitive -- that because they don't use robots to assemble their watches, they are less than perfect. I'd think in real life, a person would keep fiddling with a watch on the assembly table until they got it right, whereas a robot would just let it go.

 

Thanks Al. I can't find the specs on the quartz movement. They call it a Swiss made quartz movement.

 

Actually ... Timex will take a watch back and do their level best.

 

Funny that you mention Timex. My Timex Indiglo Field watch hits the marks all the way around. One of the reasons I am questioning Vaer on this issue.

 

Timex had a bad run of the Q when it was red hot. They made good.

 

Here's my own experience with a couple of quartz watches, mainly for entertainment purposes.

When Omega was selling this watch it was the most expensive non-precious metal watch in their catalogue, coming in at about 6x more expensive than a Speedmaster. I'd venture to guess that much of the assembly was done by hand since they didn't make very many of these (or sell many, either -- most were eventually liquidated by selling them to Omega employees at a 90% discount). But by golly, the seconds hand alignment is dead-nuts on, at all times, anywhere on the dial. As you'd expect, given the price and expectations for precision.





On the other hand, there's this watch. I don't know how much the M.O.D. paid CWC for these, but I'm guessing not more than the equivalent of $US 50...and maybe a lot less. The seconds hand lands all over the dial, and in fact, seems to be doing its best to evade those pesky minute markers.

 

@Archer Al! you nailed it. The watch either hits the indices or comes real close on the uphill side. Crown left or crown right, the second hand is more accurate on the left side of the dial (uphill) and off, up to a factor of 50% on the right side of the dial (downhill).
When held level it does not hit the indices at all (360deg) Off by 50% all the way around.

 

Ha! I just tried the @Archer experiment with my CWC. Except that the seconds hand on my watch only hits the indices when it's going downhill. But if I'm interpreting correctly what Al said, the issue [pun intended] is still backlash. So all I have to do is keep rotating my watch to keep the seconds hand headed downhill, and all's well

 

@Archer Al, in your opinion is it a movement issue or an second hand install issue? From my point of view, if the second hand/watch is in a level position and the alignment is off by 50%, doesn't that indicate installation error?

 

Is it under a tad on the uphill and over by 50% on the downhill? If over 50% and under 50%, that sounds like an ideal allignmet for the limitations of the movement. Otherwise we're talking about a 1/4 sec adjustment. I would let it go, but that is just me.

 

I think it's performing about the way you'd expect for a relatively inexpensive quartz watch.

 

There in lies the problem.The watch is not that inexpensive. A Timex watch @$40 US hitting the marks and keeping extremely accurate time or an aesthetically more desirable and less precise watch, that is not as "relatively inexpensive" as one might guess at $200 US?

 

I'd personally still rather go for the Vaer as you did, it's a very aesthetic watch imo.

Also I only really expect high end quartz watches like the Citizen Chronomaster,0100 and Grand Seiko watches to hit all the indices all the time, since these can readjust the seconds hand when they detect that the hand is no longer aligned, without a mechanism like this all it takes is one hard bump and the alignment is gone even if it's good from the factory.

 

Lots of nice words, mostly fluff and bluff I feel.

The things that made me wince........



And the "hand setting phase"



Not a hand setting tool in sight (I like the Rodeo stick though ).