Automatic, Mechanical, Hand-Wind – What’s the Difference? A Special Report By Keith W. Strandberg
Automatic, Mechanical, Hand-Wind – What’s the Difference
By Keith W. Strandberg
You hear the words bandied about all the time, mechanical, hand-wind and automatic.
But what do they really mean?
A mechanical watch is a watch without a battery that is powered by a movement made up of solely mechanical parts (no electronics, no battery). A mechanical movement can be either hand-wound or automatic.
A Little History
When watches were first introduced, back in the 1500s, they were all hand-wound mechanicals. Energy to power the watch is stored in the watch’s mainspring, and early watches had to be wound via the crown or using a key. The turning of the crown or the key put stored energy into the mainspring of the watch, and then that energy was regulated by the movement to tell the time.
The downside of hand wind mechanical watches is that if you don’t remember to wind them, they will run out of energy and stop.
In 1770, Abraham Louis-Perrelet invented an “automatic” system, similar to a pedometer, where if the owner of the pocket watch walked around, a movement of a weight in a vertical plane wound the mainspring. According to records, walking the watch around for 15 minutes was enough to wind the watch for several days.
When wristwatches became popular, in the early 1900s (the date of the first wristwatch is lost in the fog of history, but it was sometime during or shortly after World War I), Englishman John Harwood filed a patent for an automatic system in a wristwatch that used a weight that swung back and forth with the movement of the wrist, which wound the watch automatically. Harwood’s system (which was manufactured by Fortis Watch Company in Switzerland) swung back and forth, hitting springs on each side, and as a result these kinds of watches are called “bumper” or “hammer” watches.
The advantage of Harwood’s system is that any movement of the arm wearing the watch wound it, so wearers didn’t have to walk the watch around, like in Perrelet’s version.
In the 1930s, Rolex improved on Harwood’s design, making the oscillating weight, now called a rotor or oscillating weight, able to rotate in a circle, which is more efficient.
The Automatic Watch Today
Today, the automatic watch reigns supreme. Due to its convenience, most mechanical watches are automatics. There are different kinds of rotors – regular, mini, rotors on the front of the watch, peripheral and even linear rotors. Though automatic rotors are convenient, they cover up the back of the watch (except, with peripheral and mini-rotors, and rotors on the front of the watch), which can be an annoyance when you are trying to admire the beautiful finishing and complexity of your mechanical movement through an exhibition caseback.
Hand-Wind Renaissance
For aesthetical reasons, there has been a renaissance of hand wound movement watches. These beautiful watches evoke a bygone era and really showcase the beauty of the finishing of the movement. Turn a handwound watch over and you can admire the amazing mechanical movement powering it without any encumbrances – it is completely visible on full display.
In addition, thin is definitely in again – and an automatic rotor adds thickness. Many watchmakers, in the quest to reduce thickness, make hand wound watches to save the space. Piaget has been a pioneer in thin watches, holding the record for thinnest hand wound mechanical and thinnest automatic mechanical watches.
“The automatic movement has all the additional parts of the winding system and the rotor, which makes it obviously thicker,” Pierre Guellier, product manager, Piaget, explains.
Master watchmaker Ludovic Ballouard, owner of his own eponymous brand, prefers hand-wind mechanical watches. “They are pure timepieces,” he says. “All my watches are hand-winding. With automatic watches, you can forget that you are wearing a marvelous mechanical timepiece. A hand-wind watch demands your interaction – it becomes a part of your life.”
Vintage Revival
Recently, vintage designs have become extremely popular throughout the watch industry. Companies looking to make authentic, vintage-inspired watches are choosing to use hand-wound mechanical movements as they are what was used in the original designs.
In addition, some companies are taking it one step further and using vintage movements in limited edition watches, and the majority of these are hand wound as well.
One case in point is Zenith’s new Pilot Montre d’Aero nef Type 20, a limited edition 57.5mm timepiece introduced this year which uses the famous Zenith 5011K hand-wound mechanical movement. These vintage movements were found in storage in the Le Locle, Switzerland-based Zenith manufacture by company president, Jean-Frederic Dufour, and completely refurbished for this 250 piece limited edition.
The Future of Mechanicals
Thankfully, mechanical watches are here to stay, whether hand wind or automatic. Whether you choose an automatic watch or a hand-wind timepiece really depends on personal taste. Whatever you choose, enjoy!
Box 1: The Magic of a Hand-Wind Watch
Nick Stellino, celebrity chef and bestselling author: “My most precious watch is my oldest one, my father bought it when I was born. When questioned by my mother about the reason for such an extravagant purchase, especially at a time when every penny was needed, he answered to her that he wanted to memorialize this milestone in his life and the promise he had made to his family. That watch, to him, represented what he wanted to become.
Later in life, he always used to come, late in the evening, into our bedroom, to kiss me and my brother goodnight, he would let me wind his watch and say: ‘If you wind my watch, good and tight, I will always know what time it is and I will always come home for your goodnight kiss.’ He always did!
Box 2: How a Mechanical Watch Works
Every timepiece has four requirements:
1. A power source
2. A way of transmitting the power
3. A way of regulating that power
4. A way of indicating the power so you can tell the time.
For mechanical watches, the power source is the mainspring. The mainspring’s power is transmitted through a series of gears called the “gear train.” The balance wheel, which is the part of the watch that turns back and forth at a changeable rate, is where the power is regulated. The indication is done by the hands: hours, minutes, seconds.
All these things combine to make the watch what it is and determine how well, or how poorly, it keeps time. In its simplest terms, a watch is very similar to a wind-up car – you turn the key to give it power, it has gears and the number of teeth in the gears determines how fast it will go across the floor. In a watch, you wind up a mainspring, supplying power to the gears. Instead of going across the floor, a watch applies that power in a different way, to turn the hands of the watch.
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