Adjusted movements
When a movement is engraved with "adjusted in 4 positions", how relevant does this become as the watch ages?
It's almost akin to a car engine being blue printed for higher performance. 30 years later it's an irrelevance.
Once a watch has had several services at the hands of unknown persons, surely the engraving becomes pointless?
Although at point of sale, the inference is that the movement is of higher quality. Being cynical, it may be "adjusted" , but there is no guarantee of accuracy. I could adjust an Nh35 to 4 positions, which would be a truth, but not guaranteeing accuracy.
I have enough old watches to realise that what a timegrapher indicates for accuracy, compared to wrist time can vary a lot. These are all old, cheap watches in their day, made with less precision, and worn, probably never serviced (yet)
Some of my watches are far more accurate than the timegrapher would lead me to believe. Has anyone else experienced this? I recall one YouTube getting random results and wondering if the timegrapher was picking up an echo!
This post was originally just going to be aboutc"adjustment", now I've strayed into timegrapher. 😂
Slightly eccentric, wicked sense of humour. Self confessed watch cheapskate, who tinkers with watches. Love motorbikes, to date, I've ridden about 250,000 miles, 113,000 of which are on my BMW 1150GS....
There are a number of questions in this post, so let me address them one by one:
a) You can adjust a Seiko in a number of positions. It doesn't make the watch more accurate, meaning that the construction of the watch has to support consistent timekeeping in a number of positions.
b) You can however adjust watches for real-time watch wearing habits. If the watch runs 10 seconds fast during daily wear, you can adjust the watch for -10 seconds on the timegrapher, and ignore the absolute value of the spd reading.
c) A high-quality movement experiences less friction, and there are different ways to adjust the angular inertia of a balance. Set screws as part of the balance tend to be more stable in that regard than adjusting the effective length of your hairspring, which is what the adjustment lever does.
d) Yes, sometimes the reading on a timegrapher is horrible, and does not reflect real-world accuracy. But that is a good indicator in my experience that something else is off, and creates some sort of noise that is throwing off the timegrapher.
Set screws... Witchcraft 😂
If a Seiko was out by 20 seconds in one position, but far better in the others, and this 20 seconds coincided to the position it sat on the wrist for most of the time.
Surely correcting this would improve accuracy? But, that takes us back to wrist time.
I love a watch with set screws, just adds to the delight of looking at a movement.
I love this Waltham.
Set screws... Witchcraft 😂
If a Seiko was out by 20 seconds in one position, but far better in the others, and this 20 seconds coincided to the position it sat on the wrist for most of the time.
Surely correcting this would improve accuracy? But, that takes us back to wrist time.
I love a watch with set screws, just adds to the delight of looking at a movement.
I love this Waltham.
Yes, it does look nice, and in comparison to a regulation lever it is indeed witchcraft. If you are mostly sitting at the desk, then face up is most likely the most relevant position. That being said: Nothing beats real-world numbers.
Servicing an old watch is far different than repairing one, as I've found out. I'm in awe of YouTubers and their repairs, balance wheel repairs, etc.
I love this post but I hope the “precision guy” doesn’t show up. Every time I say something is accurate this cat jumps up and says nope, it’s precise. Still haven’t settled that one but I like your post sir.
I love this post but I hope the “precision guy” doesn’t show up. Every time I say something is accurate this cat jumps up and says nope, it’s precise. Still haven’t settled that one but I like your post sir.
The word that sets me off is quality, it gets bandied about too often.
The word that sets me off is quality, it gets bandied about too often.
Thank you for the pic! That’s a great explanation and I agree on quality, I’m on a two year waiting list to get another Helm watch because of the quality.
Thank you for the pic! That’s a great explanation and I agree on quality, I’m on a two year waiting list to get another Helm watch because of the quality.
OK, you've set me off now.
Over 20 years ago I enrolled on a diploma course on quality. Cue, blow my own trumpet. I am an Associate of the Chartered Quality Institute.
The lecturer asked asked, "What is Quality? " 15 in the class, almost 15 answers. The lecturer is a Fellow of the Institute, guessing he knows his stuff.
By definition: Quality is a product or service that meets or exceeds a customer's expectations .
Ergo, billionaire buys a Bentley, having owned numerous high end cars, his expectations are set very high. He may not regard the car as quality.
Guy buys the cheapest new car that he can afford, after owning old knackered cars. He is very happy, and it exceeds his expectations, as his previous cars were not good. He thinks it's high quality.
So, the word quality is ambiguous.
There, I said it 😂😂
Awesome! Helm watches definitely exceed customer expectations!
OK, you've set me off now.
Over 20 years ago I enrolled on a diploma course on quality. Cue, blow my own trumpet. I am an Associate of the Chartered Quality Institute.
The lecturer asked asked, "What is Quality? " 15 in the class, almost 15 answers. The lecturer is a Fellow of the Institute, guessing he knows his stuff.
By definition: Quality is a product or service that meets or exceeds a customer's expectations .
Ergo, billionaire buys a Bentley, having owned numerous high end cars, his expectations are set very high. He may not regard the car as quality.
Guy buys the cheapest new car that he can afford, after owning old knackered cars. He is very happy, and it exceeds his expectations, as his previous cars were not good. He thinks it's high quality.
So, the word quality is ambiguous.
There, I said it 😂😂
However, isn't there always a "However". Just did the Google search, so many different definitions, which perhaps proves what an ambiguous word it is.