Obligatory Wristwatch Thread

[Jason F]

One thing to never do (with just about any mechanical watch) is try to change the date through the quick set date system (which I believe is pulling the crown to the second position on the Datejust) between the hours of 10 pm and 4 am, it would ruin the movement.

Interesting, i'd never heard or known that. Is that just a Rolex movement thing or is that a standard best practice for all mechanicals?

[Up1911Fan]

Interesting, i'd never heard or known that. Is that just a Rolex movement thing or is that a standard best practice for all mechanicals?

Any auto.

[Wondering Beard]

Interesting, i'd never heard or known that. Is that just a Rolex movement thing or is that a standard best practice for all mechanicals?

Any auto.

Correct.


I am no expert on mechanical movements, but as I understand it, it's because, at those hours, the movement is in the process of making the date change and if you use the quickset date capability, you are in effect forcing gears (really tiny gears) to do something they don't want to do quite yet. Thus you can break the movement.

It can be a pain. For example, my GMT is meant for intercontinental travel, but if I take an early evening flight to Europe, I either need to change the hour (and date) before the flight or wait (since I'll arrive at about 2 am US time) for many hours. This sort of negates the utility of the watch in part, but if I wanted a purely efficient time piece I wouldn't buy a mechanical watch. Also, I get to play with the rotating dial to show US time and Europe time until I get to change the time on the watch, which is a tiny delight in fidget spinner way.

Nowadays with all our digital equipment, we are used to things happening immediately. Mechanical watches are from another era, when the programming didn't work on '1s' and '0s' but on continuously moving gears that one couldn't just move to accomplish something without consequences, often bad. That's both the attraction and the irritation of those timepieces.

[HeavyDuty]

I’ve always done date changes in the early afternoon - I have to advance past 12 to see which side of the clock it’s on.

[scjbash]

Interesting, i'd never heard or known that. Is that just a Rolex movement thing or is that a standard best practice for all mechanicals?

Some good info about watch care.

[Wondering Beard]

To add to the above:

[perlslacker]

Correct.
It can be a pain. For example, my GMT is meant for intercontinental travel, but if I take an early evening flight to Europe, I either need to change the hour (and date) before the flight or wait (since I'll arrive at about 2 am US time) for many hours. This sort of negates the utility of the watch in part, but if I wanted a purely efficient time piece I wouldn't buy a mechanical watch. Also, I get to play with the rotating dial to show US time and Europe time until I get to change the time on the watch, which is a tiny delight in fidget spinner way.

The upside of a traveler GMT is that you can just click the hour hand forward or backward without worrying about this.

The downside is that none of them (that I've seen) have a quick-set date so you have to jump the hour hand a bunch to set the date in short months.

[Crawls]

Here's something different. The wife gave me this as a an anniversary gift last night. It's a Seiko SBBN040 1000M "1978 Golden Tuna 40th Anniversary Reissue." I've been lusting after this watch for a while. It's got a ton of history, old school tech and modern materials in a unique package. As a JDM watch fan and a fan of Bond movies this knocks it out of the park.

[theJanitor]

Haven’t worn this guy in awhile. I think I want a leather strap for it

[HeavyDuty]

Forgive me Brothers, for I have sinned… I carry lust in my heart for the Apple Watch Ultra.

One of Kelly’s docs wears one, and was showing me the display. It would be a great EDC watch on an aftermarket titanium bracelet. I wear a Series 7 now, and generally only wear an automatic on date night or when I’m dressing up.