Archenemies
As we mentioned above, the mortal enemies of a mechanical watch are moisture, shock and magnets. Fortunately, modern timepieces are pretty good at resisting all three. Synthetic gaskets, screw-down crowns and tight tolerances keep water out of a watch — assuming they’re all in good shape. Most watches, even dress watches, are rated for water resistance to at least 3 atmospheres, which is equivalent to roughly 30 meters. That may sound deep, but it’s nearly the minimum rating for a watch, so though your Patek Calatrava will probably survive a dunk in the pool at a bachelor party, we don’t advise taking it for your daily morning swim. (For that, stick with a timepiece rated to at least 50 meters.) While screw-down crowns are the best insurance against moisture, even some 200-meter rated dive watches use robust double-sealed free-spinning crowns. Regardless, if you spend a lot of time in the water (by choice or by accident), it’s a good idea to have your watch’s water resistance tested annually, and to have gaskets replaced.
Mr. Twain’s Watch Woes
“The watch averaged well, but nothing more. For half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting, that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance; and as long as it held out, there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end of twenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judges’ stand all right and just on time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch…” – Mark Twain, “My Watch — An Instructive Little Tale”
While the Incabloc and Kif shock absorbers in watch movements do a decent job of fending off life’s unexpected blows, keep in mind that you are wearing a delicate precision mechanism on your wrist. We’re known to subject our watches to a fair amount of punishment, but there are limits. Splitting wood, freeing a frozen bolt or golfing are activities for which a mechanical watch is not ideally suited. These occasions are perfect opportunities to strap on that quartz watch you’ve been neglecting and to leave the Speedmaster on your dresser — no matter how much testing NASA did.
Magnetism can cause the spirals of that delicate hairspring to “stick” together, shortening the spring and causing the watch to run very fast. Watch companies are making great strides in protection against magnetism, but the hairspring in most affordable mechanical watches remains vulnerable. Televisions, speakers and iPads all contain magnets that can effect the precision of your watch if you keep them in close proximity. If one day you find your normally reliable Breitling running five minutes fast, odds are it got zapped. Fortunately, demagnetizing is an easy fix, and one a watchmaker can do in less than five minutes. Still, preventing magnetism is even easier.