Can you wind a watch too much

When the crown is turned, the center of the spring turns and compresses, thereby drawing in the coils to store energy. The reverse process happens as the movement runs; the spring slowly unwinds as it doles out its stored power reserve. The red handle below illustrates that this spring would be wound counter-clockwise in order to store power,.

As the outer end is affixed, the wearer can feel the spring as it starts to tighten, letting them know that the watch is fully wound. Relying on this feedback becomes a problem when we are no longer looking at a manual watch. Creating an automatic movement means that we must be able to cope with constant winding and movement. Majority of mechanical watches have power reserves ranging from hours. This means that these watches can operate for those durations if wound completely.

There are automatic watch models that have a power reserve feature which allows users to see how much time is left before the watch stops running.

You can also check the specification of the watch and see the power reserve duration that you can expect from the model. However, you still need to manually wind automatic watches. Thus, it is essential to wind the crown of the watch around 30 to 40 times which is sufficient to wind the mainspring on the majority of watch models.

Automatic watches feature a mechanism that winds the mainspring each time its wearer moves about. However, this is only possible if it is not completely wound. Whenever the mainspring is wound completely, the rotor will stop turning in the course where the mainspring is wound.

Thus, overwinding an automatic watch is not possible. Automatic watches run in conjunction with our active bodies, meaning it operates when we move. Overwinding the watch manually is impossible as well. When the mainspring is fully wound, turning the crown of the watch will have no drastic effects on its functionality. As explained earlier, the automatic watch must be wound manually first before it automatically functions.

This is basically enough for a majority of automatic watches. By not winding it, eventually, your timepiece will stop working. An automatic watch has a mechanism that will automatically wind the mainspring for you. The movement of your arm and wrist, as well as the weighted rotor inside the watch, is what powers this process.

An automatic watch will give you around 38 hours of power, provided you wear it all day and only take it off at night. If the watch has full power, the rotor inside the timepiece will simply stop spinning. Have you ever bought a watch that was supposed to be over-wound? What turned out to be the actual problem? Privacy Policy. By Melvin Hollenberg. In Watch Basics , Watchmaking. There are two situations where the term over-winding might be used: 1.

You force and break the watch most likely the mainspring while winding it. Break a watch by winding it too much Hand-wound The mainspring in a manual wound watch is secured on both ends.