Calibrating a mechanical watch?

[Quattro Pete]

Have any of you successfully recalibrated your mechanical watch to make it more accurate?

My Orient Mako gains about a minute a day, and I'd like to correct that. I've watched some youtube videos and I've got a Clock Tuner app on my phone and read about the flash strobe trick to use as a guide. Still, it seems you have to be extremely careful making the adjustments as even the tiniest movement of the adjustment lever will make a big difference in accuracy. I don't want to make things worse than they already are.

 

[HemiHawk]

Have you looked into the various regulating positions? Like at night you can set the watch face up, crown up, crown down, etc. Most of my mechanicals are fairly accurate, but I know in the manuals for each they state different positions to regulate the time + or -.

 

[Trav]

Take it to a watchmaker, they have a special machine and can calibrate it in more than 1 position.

 

[KGMtech]

I collect watches, the exact number is a classified secret, but it's over 40. Mostly mechanicals.

I have 11 Orients, and have the Mako and Mako XL. The movement is straightforward to adjust, and as you state a movement of the arm by " . " will have a big impact. Make small nudges, wait to see how the timing is affected for about 12 hours, adjust again as needed.

Make certain the watch is FULLY wound before you make any adjustments! The Mako - if it is not within 3 months old - all need the swinging motion to wind, no manual winding by the stem on these. So wear it while you hand saw 4 pieces of 2"x 4" SPF and it will be fully wound and your arm will be tired.

Or you can spend $150 and get a Weishi 1000 from China and do it all electronically. The phone apps are not so good because the microphone is not sensitive enough to capture the acoustic signature of the ticking - some work, but it's hit-or-miss.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: KGMtech
The phone apps are not so good because the microphone is not sensitive enough to capture the acoustic signature of the ticking - some work, but it's hit-or-miss.

I've tried it already. The mic seems to be picking it up fine. It's telling me my watch is about 40s fast per day.

 

[KGMtech]

What you might not get from the phone app is if there is a beat error. There are 2 adjustments on mechanical watches, the rate and the beat.

Beat is the time for the tick versus the tock. These should be the same, beat setting is done at the factory and usually never needs adjustment. The rate is adjusted by shortening or lengthening the effective length of the hairspring. Moving the rate adjust arm farther away from the beat arm will shorten the spring and speed up the watch. For a fast running watch, to slow it down you want to move the rate arm closer to the beat arm.

If your phone app works well, let the watch stabilize for 4-6 seconds after touching - it takes time for the hairspring to stop its funky oscillation movements (from changing positions, slight movements of the watch) and then check the rate - adjust again as needed.

Most mechanicals will run fast with dial up or dial down, with crown up most will run slower. YMMV.

I've always been able to get my Orients and Seiko's to perform within +10/-10 Seconds per day, so don't accept +40 secs!

 

[Jim K]

I buy only cheap quartz watches. They have held up well and keep within 10 seconds or less per month.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: KGMtech
I've always been able to get my Orients and Seiko's to perform within +10/-10 Seconds per day, so don't accept +40 secs!

Yeah, when the Mako was new, it was about +5 seconds per day. It has gotten progressively worse over the years. It's about 7 years old now.

Quote:
What you might not get from the phone app is if there is a beat error.

It has a field called "Beat Error" but what it displays there is the +40s that I mentioned before.

Sadly, this app is not free. It was working fine yesterday, but today it's asking for money... LOL.

Looks like this...

 

[ecotourist]

I have an old Orient Kingdiver. It's a nice watch. I've had it since 1971.

I had a master jeweller replace the crystal and adjust the time keeping calibration and it now keeps time to within a couple of minutes a month. I don't use it all that often so I can't be more precise than that.

 

[TreyB]

If you have a watch kit (see Amazon) and are able to remove the caseback from the watch you will see the +/- screw indicating the direction to turn for speeding it up or slowing it down.

It's pretty simple to do with trial and error over a number of days. Make minor adjustments to begin with and dial it in from there.

 

[EdwardC]

I've played with regulating my 7S26 powered Seikos. Previously I ran them for several hours and calculated the seconds per day difference, then adjusted. I've been using this free open source software on the PC to do it now, from a member at WUS: http://forums.watchuseek.com/f6/open-source-timing-software-2542874.html I don't pay too much attention to the beat error and amplitude since there isn't much I can do about it. If the amplitude was coming in super low, I'd consider getting it cleaned, oiled and adjusted at a watchmaker. The PC software is nice since you can use a separate mic to be able to change the position of the watch and see the effect.

I've found that you want to barely touch the regulation lever. If you saw it move, you probably pushed too much.


The watch in the screen shot is running a real +14s/day on the wrist, so the time grapher software is only so good, especially on a low end 7s26 that isn't adjusted in multiple positions. If I move the watch around, the error changes as expected for this watch.

 

[EdwardC]

BTW, my typical procedure is to first measure what the error is on the wrist the manual way over a period of a few days (use time.gov to compare). Then using the software, measure the error with the watch in a few positions (dial up, dial down, crown up, crown down). Then I take that info and ballpark a target. For example, if they all are some amount of positive time error (say +5, +10, +8, +12 seconds/day), I'll aim to measure in the crown up position and regulate it to be 0 seconds of error. Then I might measure them all again, or not. I'm really not that anal about my mechanical watches being that precise though.

Also, just to add to the fun, I've found that snap ring pliers to be a reasonable way of opening screw down casebacks, as long as they're not on too tight. I also take out the case back gasket/o-ring and lube it up with a super light smear of silicone grease (the Honda Shin Etsu grease).

 

[Quattro Pete]

Thanks for the link, EdwardC.

Originally Posted By: EdwardC
Then using the software, measure the error with the watch in a few positions (dial up, dial down, crown up, crown down).

Yeah, I'm finding that my results are all over the place depending on the position of the watch... very big differences indeed...

 

[EdwardC]

Oh wow, my Seikos don't have quite that much variation, the high-low range is usually 30-60 spd.

As you know though, ultimately, you want to regulate it to be close to 0 as worn on the wrist. It's nice to know the variation between positions so that you can use it to tweak the regulation. For example, if you know it runs a little fast on the wrist, you can leave it on its side crown up when you go to bed, knowing it'll slow down a bit.

 

[skyactiv]

I have a wind up and a few automatic watches. I bought a cheap watch repair kit on Amazon years ago. I use an atomic clock and patience to adjust time pieces. I have successfully calibrated my old Delbana watch shown. I did have it serviced years ago. I made it much more accurate after adjusting it. It gained 36 seconds per week after I adjusted and held steady. I did have a Seiko 5 automatic and I made it worse and gave up on it. That Seiko had two adjustments to deal with.

 

[Al]

One thing about BITOG..whetever your problem, thare some on this board that have taken it to the next level. I mean this in a good

way!!

 

[UncleDave]

I wont open up my swiss mechanicals to time them. Many require dedicated tools to open.

Pretty standard to see decently size deviations in relative positions.

The purpose of a tourbillon (a rare complication) in a movement is to average out gravities various effects on the accuracy of the movement.

 

[EdwardC]

I hadn't measured my newer watch on the software, a Hamilton Khaki Mechanical with a fairly low end ETA 2804-2 movement. It was very accurate on my manual timing, so I hadn't tried, but I just measured it out of curiosity. Wow, it is pretty fantastic, can't argue with that for a $230 mechanical.

 

[Quattro Pete]

That's great.

What does the degree measurement tell you?

 

[EdwardC]

I believe the degree measurement is the amplitude of the balance wheel. So a higher amplitude means the balance wheel is rotating back and forth further. Usually as the internals get more worn, or the lube dries out, the balance wheel may not swing as far, indicating it might be time for servicing. . I'm far from a watch expert, but I understand that most Japanese watches typically run at a lower amplitude.