Getting down into the nitty gritty part of things, the movement inside (also called the calibre) is what ticks away at the centre of every automatic. This is what gives the watch the power or energy to move the hands, change the date, day, month and moonphase. The movement itself is made up of a series of perfectly placed springs and gears that turn energy into precisely regulated movements. This allows the watch to run with exceptional efficiency, and display the time as accurately as possible. Once you have wound the crown up for the first time, so long as you keep wearing the watch the watch will continue to tick away and work. This is because it has a rotor which is free to spin round either uni or bi-directionally as you wear and move around with the watch on your wrist. The rotor is what allows the watch to convert kinetic energy into the spring which will then slowly unwind itself, giving power to the calibre. Because of the addition of a rotor, automatic watches tend to therefore be thicker than a manual wind movement.
HOW DOES A MECHANICAL WATCH WORK?
Many of us became far more curious about the world of horology after discovering mechanical watches. The idea that pieces of metal aligned together can tick away perfectly to tell you the time. Some, show you the date, month, year, position of the moon and even a leap year! Looking into the back of the watch display case back (if it has one) can truly be mesmerising and for the haute-horology pieces it is simply a display of portable art work. However, very few of us actually understand the basics of how a mechanical watch works, what the key parts are and how it all comes together. So, today we are going to have a look at how a mechanical watch works
Abraham-Louis Perrelet, the creator of the contemporary Perrelet watch brand, is credited with creating the first effective automatic winding method in 1777. Soon after, a French inventor by the name of Hubert Harton enhanced Perrelet's invention. Abraham-Louis Breguet then improved his version, creating the first self-winding watches that were offered for sale to the general public in 1780. However, because of their erratic dependability, these Breguet "Perpetuelle" pocket watches (see below) lost popularity around 1800. Keep in mind that pocket watches weren't worn on the wrist, so they couldn't benefit from a steady stream of dynamic wrist motions to wind the rotor. When wristwatches started to replace pocket watches around the time of World War I, automatic movements experienced a resurgence: British watchmaker John Harwood submitted the initial patent for a self-winding wristwatch in 1923, and this design has remained popular ever since.
PRODUCTS FEATURED IN THE ARTICLE
And there you have it, a quick look at how a manual and automatic watch works. It still remains an impressive feat of engineering for metal pieces all aligned together to perfectly tell the time. There are many different variations of manual and automatic movements but this is a comprehensive high-level overview of how they work. ZEALANDE has spent years dedicated to perfectly engineering the perfect luxury rubber watch strap which, like a watch movement, is designed to function perfectly for many years. If you are in the market to add a pop of colour to your watch then ZEALANDE has the solution for you.
James Talbot