How accurate is your watch?

peasant

I thought it might be nice to have a little stat collection and I'll start off with my two:

1) Orient CFH01001W0, movement Orient 46s, spec +/- 30 s/day
While I was wearing it, it was around -100/-110 s/week (bit hard to tell with the small hand), now that it lives in its box, being wound every day it has settled at ~ -40 s/week

2) Vostok Europe, Rocket N1, movement Vostok 2426, spec -10/+30 s/day
This watch has just pulled off its second week of +25 s/week, being worn daily, off at night

Wibbs

Good idea

1916 Longines, calibre 12.92 16 jewel Average gain of 10-15 seconds a week, if worn and wound daily.

1934 Zenith, calibre 15.1 with indirect centre seconds. Average gain of 5 minutes a week. Major it clearly needs a serious service. At one point a few years ago after some really expert tweaking and balance work it was pretty much on target every week. Gain maybe 2-3 secs a day and lose them at night. Most accurate wristwatch I ever owned in fact. Course I wore it all the time with no rest. Probably got a knock.

1967 Heuer Bundeswehr, calibre Valjoux 230(hacking and flyback chrono) precise gain of 5 seconds a day no change overnight so very consistent. It's more like a quartz that way. If I could get those 5 secs regulated out I reckon it would be mad accurate.

1980 Seiko Quartz calculator (no idea of movement) 1 sec a day gain.

Haven't precisely timed my other ones. My Kreigsmarine Alpina from 1941 is scarily clean in the movement and looks to have had little or no work done to it runs for 40 hours+ on a single wind and while I haven't checked it to the second looks pretty close to bang on.

My various Longines dress watches all run under 30 secs+/- off a day.

foxyboxer

Speedmaster Pro loses 3 seconds per day.

Seamaster quartz, considerably less, about 1 second per week loss.

foxyboxer

Wibbs wrote: »

1916 Longines, calibre 12.92 16 jewel Average gain of 10-15 seconds a week, if worn and wound daily.

Wow, incredible accuracy for a 94 year old watch :cool:

Wibbs

foxyboxer wrote: »

Wow, incredible accuracy for a 94 year old watch :cool:

That's what I used to think, but I read a report by an American watchmaker who reckoned that the better makes and calibres from that early wristwatch time could, with expert tweaking, get to a second or two per day. I think there was a webpage I'll have a root around. I'm sure I saved it. When you think about it pocket watches from the high end guys were regularly winning observatory trials for timekeeping, long before Rolex and others thought of adding superlative chronometer to their dials. The Ball spec US railroad watches(pocket and later wrist) of the late 19th/early to mid 20th centuries were very accurate. In original condition they would fly through the later chronometer tests. Plus we're talking serious quality and finishing among the big guys back then. Mid range quality then was broadly equivalent to very high end quality today.

Trampoline

Citizen World Perpetual A-T, syncs to the Atomic Clock by radio signal every night

BengaLover

Glad I found this thread, I bought hubby an original SEiko automatic self winder a few years ago, a vintage one, and it kept perfect time up until a few weeks ago when it started losing time and is currently 10 mins or so behind!
We got a quote for a service and were told it would have to be sent to UK and price for it would be 150!
Currently for sale on my adverts, if anyone has any opinions as to where else we can go for repair that would be great, but we have no one local that will do it.

Wibbs

TBH BengaLover 150 quid is pretty fair price for a service on a mechanical watch. I've seen local(Dublin Jeweler) services being quoted at well over double that. I really doubt you're going to find cheaper.

BengaLover

Thank you, sorry for thread-jacking!

bogmanfan

My Villemont is running at +4 per day. I only know as I'm selling it, and timed it for the sales listing
Will check my others and report back.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

Haven't precisely timed my other ones. My Kreigsmarine Alpina from 1941 is scarily clean in the movement and looks to have had little or no work done to it runs for 40 hours+ on a single wind and while I haven't checked it to the second looks pretty close to bang on.

Well spurred on by this thread I tried the above today. It's just one day, but that Alpina is currently not losing or gaining at all.

Deep Thought

How are ye measuring it ?

peasant

Deep Thought wrote: »

How are ye measuring it ?

I use this http://time.is/ as a reference

Wibbs

foxyboxer wrote: »

Speedmaster Pro loses 3 seconds per day.

Seamaster quartz, considerably less, about 1 second per week loss.

Did the latter go to the moon? It did not. 'Nuff said.

That little Alpina KM of mine 48 hours later is still under a second or two behind. :eek: Mad. Probably the cheapest/lo end watch originally of all my watches and yet it's firing them all two fingers with its accuracy

peasant

peasant wrote: »

2) Vostok Europe, Rocket N1, movement Vostok 2426, spec -10/+30 s/day
This watch has just pulled off its second week of +25 s/week, being worn daily, off at night

13 days after last setting it, it has now gained a total of 35 seconds ...so +2.69 seconds per day on average.

Not quite good enough for a ships chronometer ...but pretty decent for a cheap, mass produced and pretty crude looking Russian movement

Wibbs

That's pretty damned impressive P. Well within the so called "chronometer" description of a lot of wristwatches out there.

Monty Burnz

Is there any way to get a cheap timing machine? I know there was an app for the iPhone, but I don't have an iPhone, I have an Android...

I have too many watches (15 or so I think, mostly old ones ) to be able to track how accurate they are, even though I'd like to.

Wibbs

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I have too many watches (15 or so I think, mostly old ones )

Clearly my twin, separated at birth.

Monty Burnz

Wibbs wrote: »

Clearly my twin, separated at birth.

I think the old ones have more character, and they are cheaper

My g/f just found out the other day that my Damasko DA36 and Omega SMP GMT were not acquired for €100 (at some point I must have told her most of my watches cost less than that)

peasant

peasant wrote: »

13 days after last setting it, it has now gained a total of 35 seconds ...so +2.69 seconds per day on average.

Not quite good enough for a ships chronometer ...but pretty decent for a cheap, mass produced and pretty crude looking Russian movement

31 days after last setting it, it is currently 17 seconds ahead of time.is.

Tomorrow morning, after resting on its side, it shall be about 27 seconds ahead or after resting on its back about 32 seconds and in the evening after wearing it, it will have lost about 10 seconds again.

So, within 12 hours it may lose or gain about 10 -15 seconds, but over a month it is very much spot on (still wouldn't want to have to use it as a ships chronometer though)

The way things are going, I will next have to touch it on April 30th to advance the date by one day

peasant

So, the end of April has come and gone, but I also had to set the time one minute forward.

Over the last two weeks the watch has slowed down a bit. It looses about 3 -4 seconds while being worn and only gains about one second (if anything
) while at rest, which left it 20 seconds behind time.is by yesterday. So from now on it looks like it will be about 20 - 30 seconds slow per week

This slowing down happend after I had brought it on a plane journey, apparently it didn't like the sudden changes in pressure or perhaps the x-ray or whatever.

A wagging dog tail also swiped it off the night stand last week and it landed with a clang, but that hasn't affected it either way.

Makes me wonder though what the accuracy would be like if it was only spinning on a watch winder for months

Wibbs

That's bloody impressive P.

peasant

I've come to boast again :D:D

The Vostok Europe has now settled down to a fairly constant -6 per day / + 0 per night ...which means once every ten days or so I need to advance it by a minute. I can still live with that.

But what is really amazing is that the little Raketa, in the four days since I first coaxed it into life, has lost all of two seconds.

Not bad for a little old 18.000 bph handwind movement ...but exceptional when considering that this movement has been lying around who knows where as unloved NOS for about ten years or more(!!) before it was more or less lovingly united with other miscellaneous parts from the bin to make this Frankstein watch.


It has two more endearing qualities:
- it is noisy . No need to hold this thing to your ear ....you can listen to its relaxed, slow beat from a good 15 cm away

- it defies the (Father Ted) law of small & far away ...right close up, in front of your face, the "mighty" 34 mm diameter looks dinky, almost laughable on my 19 cm wrist ...but hold it at arms length and it seems to grow in stature and fills that wrist space like it owns it. Don't ask me how that works, it just does.