When you’ve started your watch collection longer than you can recall, it might actually date back to the time when a watch was just another piece of accessory to wear. Maybe your first watch was a watch you acquired when you graduated, when you didn’t really know why, or how to wind a watch properly. But with the growth of your interest in collecting watches, there will naturally be questions in regards to taking care of your collections properly. One of the most basic know-hows is indeed the mechanism of how to wind a watch. But why do you need to know how to wind a watch? Can’t you just let your watches keep on ticking by itself?
The answer to this is fairly simple, a collector must understand how to wind a watch because there are two types of watches: manual winding, and automatic watches. Manual watches need to be kept wound manually to keep the movement running, while automatic watches are powered by the kinetic energy or the movements of your wrist. Without further ado, let’s get into the step-by-steps of how to wind a watch.
To start winding an automatic watch, you’d want to take it off your wrist and lay it on a smooth surface with its dial facing up. Once it is securely positioned, you’d want to locate the crown, which you will be winding next. The crown is the part that sets the time, date, and other functions of your watch. Once you’ve determined which level of the crown sets which function, carefully pull on the crown and then proceed to turn it clockwise until you feel some resistance. While you wind, keep eyes on the face of the watch to ensure that you are winding the correct components. Once you get to your desired setting, you can push the crown back to its original position, gently. Et, voila!
For manual watches, the mechanisms are pretty much the same. The only difference on how to wind a manual watch is that a manual watch would take from thirty to forty crown rotations before you’d feel the resistance that will let you know when it’s best to stop winding the watch. Be careful not to overwind a watch, as it can put strain to the watch or break its mechanism.
Now that you know how to wind a watch, you can wind your watch with confidence and keep your collection in its best condition!
