Hand winding ETA/Sellita

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Bahnstormer_vRS
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

^^^^ A great piece of solid advice, as always, from Rich (@richtel); thank you.

To impart the benefit of my 'spin' on the subject is to say that I err on the ground of mechanical sympathy and avoid manually winding an automatic watch unless its necessary.

As a general remit, having selected a watch the night before, which will have likely stopped whilst in its watch box, I put it on my wrist 'as is' in the morning when I get dressed. Usually within no more than 10 - 15 minutes of moving around the house it will have started ticking; my SH21 CWs take a bit longer.

Once my watch is running, at a convenient juncture, I will take it off my wrist, set the date / time as required and am then ready for the day. No manual winding required.


An additional point about screwing in a screw down crown.

I have always adopted the method of winding the crown back, whilst exerting light pressure against the thread, until I feel the 'click' of the end of the screw thread, whereupon I reverse the direction to clockwise, engaging the screw thread and then screw the crown down.

In doing this I've found a couple of watches recently, especially my Breitling Cockpit Chrono, where due to the domed shape of the crown, the crown guards, and the crown being generally small, coupled with my 'fat fingers' I wasn't able to grip the crown securely enough to screw it back and then home.

As an alternative I found that by simply pressing the end of my thumb lightly on the crown I could exert sufficient pressure to 1. push the crown onto the screw thread and 2. exert enough torque to turn the crown. Overall I find this is a whole lot easier than trying to grip the crown between thumb and forefinger and have now adopted this 'press with my thumb' method for all my watches (that have a screw down crown).


Guy
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Leon O »

discoblade wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:40 pm All,

Apols if this is old news, but I have been advised that I shouldn't hand wind my C60 Trident Pro, as the mechanism is somewhat delicate and failure-prone...any input?

Stuart
Hi Stuart,

To get the most assurance on this topic, I reached directly to CW through the contact link and had an answer in my email the next day.

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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by tikkathree »

20220405_082655.jpg
C60 MKI, MKII, MKIII: "some",
C6 & C60 Kingfishers,
C600 Tritechs,
C63 "some",
C65 "some",
C4, C40, C8, C9, C3, C5, C20 & 23FLE
Some other brands
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by rkovars »

Bahnstormer_vRS wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 11:25 pm An additional point about screwing in a screw down crown.

I have always adopted the method of winding the crown back, whilst exerting light pressure against the thread, until I feel the 'click' of the end of the screw thread, whereupon I reverse the direction to clockwise, engaging the screw thread and then screw the crown down.

In doing this I've found a couple of watches recently, especially my Breitling Cockpit Chrono, where due to the domed shape of the crown, the crown guards, and the crown being generally small, coupled with my 'fat fingers' I wasn't able to grip the crown securely enough to screw it back and then home.

As an alternative I found that by simply pressing the end of my thumb lightly on the crown I could exert sufficient pressure to 1. push the crown onto the screw thread and 2. exert enough torque to turn the crown. Overall I find this is a whole lot easier than trying to grip the crown between thumb and forefinger and have now adopted this 'press with my thumb' method for all my watches (that have a screw down crown).


Guy
I second this. Cross threaded crowns are easily avoidable using this methods. I would only add that if it feels off don't force it. Back it out and start again.
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Catsteeth-CW »

This is the "internet gossip" I've heard about winding automatics.

The teeth on the winding train of an ETA 2824 are not heat hardened as it's an automatic. They don't need to be.
The teeth on the winding train of an SW200-1 are heat hardened. So you could wind it everyday if you wished.

Apocryphal? I have no idea.

As for mechanical chronographs.
I had heard that they were originally designed to last at least 300 actuations perfectly.
Whether that was a guaranteed number of operations before failure, or the recommended service interval. Again I've no idea.
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by JAFO »

300 Chronograph actuations? That's ridiculously low, surely.
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Catsteeth-CW »

Yes I believe originally with old Lemania's and such. In those days 300 faultless workings of a supremely complex and finely adjusted mechanism was considered good.
Also taking in to account how easy it is to clonk it and discombobulate so many minutely integrated parts.

But then I think three hundred is a lot anyway. I don't know anyone outside of sports, engineering, or laboratory situations for example, who would use one for even a fraction of that.
They'd use dedicated stop watches with higher specs. For standard wrist watch chronographs it'd be a small proportion of the buyers that'd get to 300 between services.
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Catsteeth-CW wrote: Thu Apr 14, 2022 3:03 pm I don't know anyone outside of sports, engineering, or laboratory situations for example, who would use one for even a fraction of that.
In the four years between buying it and retiring, I used my Speedmaster chronograph a lot. It was my go to work watch for teaching most of the time, and I was always setting short timed activities. I did keep a mechanical stopwatch in the top drawer of my desk but often used the Speedy instead.
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Robotaz »

I just hold the watch in one hand and rotate my forearm back and forth and start it that way. The movement winds and causing things to move around enough to start the movement.

There used to be issues hand winding those movements and I just don’t care to find out the hard way they still aren’t resolved.

People seem to hold their opinions on the issue very dear to their heart, especially on another forum out there.
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Catsteeth-CW »

Robotaz wrote: Fri Apr 15, 2022 4:21 pm I just hold the watch in one hand and rotate my forearm back and forth and start it that way. The movement winds and causing things to move around enough to start the movement.

There used to be issues hand winding those movements and I just don’t care to find out the hard way they still aren’t resolved.

People seem to hold their opinions on the issue very dear to their heart, especially on another forum out there.
Is that the same forum that every week or so gets its knickers so twisted in discussions about how minutely you can slice the distinctions between homage, copy, and replica? 😉

Or perhaps we should discuss Rolex ....
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Blackdog »

I think it is a good movement. Reasonably accurate, easy to regulate, very dependable. But PR is a bit low for today's standards, and some can develop that issue with the reversing wheels.

The way CW has refined and evolved every other aspect of their watches I would love to see them upgrade to the SW300 for the three handers. It is a higher class, more refined movement.
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Flef »

Completely agree.
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Thunder1 »

Dup post..
Ebels are a lot like women that lack a lowcut dress that zips up the side..neither gets the love that they deserve..
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Re: Hand winding ETA/Sellita

Post by Thunder1 »

Blackdog wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 8:02 pm I think it is a good movement. Reasonably accurate, easy to regulate, very dependable. But PR is a bit low for today's standards, and some can develop that issue with the reversing wheels.

The way CW has refined and evolved every other aspect of their watches I would love to see them upgrade to the SW300 for the three handers. It is a higher class, more refined movement.
+1..
Ebels are a lot like women that lack a lowcut dress that zips up the side..neither gets the love that they deserve..
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