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When most people purchase a luxury watch, they’re probably not thinking much about watch repair. After all, a luxury watch is meant to last you for many years, and if all goes well, you aren’t going to need to fix your watch for at least five or 10 years down the road — or perhaps even longer.
Unfortunately, many watch owners don’t know what they need to do in order to take care of their watch, especially if it’s their first time owning a high-quality watch. When you don’t take the time to practice proper care of your luxury watch, you’re going to need to know a quality watch repair specialist in Denver, CO, and you’re going to have to find them much sooner than you might think.
Luckily, a little bit of knowledge can keep you from doing unintentional damage to your watch and delay the need for you to find a repair specialist. These are the things you don’t want to do to your watch!
Overwinding Your Watch
This mistake is mostly limited to people who opt for vintage watches. Winding your watch is a good thing and a necessary part of maintenance, but if you wind it too much, you’re going to cause some damage to it.
Fortunately, modern watches usually have a mechanism that recognizes when the owner is about to wind it too much and prevents it from being wound any further. Older watches, however, don’t have this failsafe, so if an owner winds the watch too much, they can do real damage to the mainspring.
To prevent yourself from overwinding, limit yourself to winding the watch once per day. This will help the mechanical parts keep operating the way they should while preventing you from accidentally causing damage to them in your attempt to take care of the watch.
Underwinding Your Watch
Yes, failing to wind your watch can also cause problems. If you don’t wind your watch, the lubricants inside the watch can thicken and make it difficult for the mechanical parts to properly operate.
If you don’t plan to wear your watch for a few days, make sure that you’re at least winding it two or three times a month. Your watch isn’t made to sit for long periods of time without running, and if you make it do so, you’re going to end up in need of a watch repair sooner rather than later.
Exposure to Magnets
This has become a much more common problem as electronic devices have taken on a greater role in our daily lives. The simple fact is that the mainspring and hairspring in a luxury watch really doesn’t like being around magnetic objects, and if you’re not careful, you can unintentionally cause real damage to your watch simply by having it around one of these items for too long.
In order to avoid an unnecessary watch repair it’s a wise idea to keep your smart phone in the opposite pocket from the wrist on which you wear your watch. By keeping them separate, you can avoid accidental exposure from putting your hands in your pockets. You’ll also want to keep your watch away from laptops whenever possible, as they can also contain magnets that can mess up your watch’s springs.
Changing the Date at Odd Hours
Because of all of the mechanical components of your watch, the time and date functions work in conjunction with each other. What that means for your watch is that the date starts changing about two hours before midnight actually occurs. On some models, that process can take up to four hours before it’s completed.
So what does this have to do with watch repair? When you change the date while it’s already in the process of changing itself, you throw that conjunction out of whack and can bump one of the cogs out of its proper alignment. As you might have guessed, that can throw all of the mechanical elements of your watch out of alignment, leading to an improperly working watch or one that doesn’t work at all.
To be safe, only change the date and time when you wake up in the morning. Changing the time and date at the same time of the day means you won’t interrupt the watch’s natural function, which lessens your risk of an early watch repair.
Exposure to Water
This should come as no surprise, but luxury watches really don’t like getting wet. Even a waterproof model can still take on damage from water if it’s exposed to the element for too long, and if you ever submerge a non-waterproof watch in water, even the best watch repair team in Denver, CO probably won’t be enough to save it.
If you know you’re going to be around a swimming pool or hot tub, do yourself and your watch a favor and take it off before you head to the aquatic area. Unless it’s a matter of rescuing someone who fell in the water, there’s no reason you should ever have your watch on while swimming.
Substandard Watch Maintenance
Taking care of your watch is the best way to make it last for years to come, but having the right watch repair team take care of your watch is critical. When you trust your watch to someone who isn’t experienced in your watchmaker’s work, you can end up with substandard work and a worse situation than if you’d performed no maintenance at all.
Luckily, this is a simple problem to avoid. All you have to do is call a trusted watch repair team who specializes in working on your watchmaker’s products and you’ll be able to trust in their work. At Matheu’s Fine Watches, we’re proud to have earned the trust of quality watchmakers, and we’re here to help watch owners take care of their possession. When you’re in need of first-rate maintenance or repair, just give us a call!
