How to distinguish the quality of a mechanical watch movement？
February 04, 2022The movement of a mechanical watch is relatively unfamiliar to ordinary people. The reason is that we usually only pay attention to the appearance of a mechanical watch, but do not care much about the movement used inside it. Let me introduce step by step how to judge the structure and composition of this mechanical watch movement and its quality.
Firstly, when you get the movement of a mechanical watch, we firstly observe its appearance, the front and back details, and then carefully examine whether the processing level of each splint and each transmission part is fine and whether the decorative lines are symmetrical. In this way, you can know whether this movement is a fine product from the appearance, and from this, you can judge the design concept and the fineness of processing and manufacturing. On the contrary, if the parts are rough, even distorted, and the appearance and quality are not good, the corresponding watch performance is not very good.
Secondly, when the movement is in the stopped state, you can first turn the stem to wind the movement, and observe the balance spring system and escapement at the same time. When you make a maximum of three revolutions, the balance spring system and escapement will start and run. This step is to test the performance of the main drive train of the movement. If it cannot start normally, the main reason is the machine. The quality of the core main drive wheel is not good.
Thirdly, we need to make sure that the balance spring system and escapement are activated in time and functioning normally. You can continue to turn the stem to wind the movement, and there are several points that need to be paid attention to. First of all, your winding feel should be comfortable and not very strenuous and uneven. Second, you should pay attention to the sound when listening to the winding. There should be no teeth gnawing sound. The last thing to note is that the number of winding turns should not be too many, usually around 20 turns. This step is to test the performance of the winding gear train of this movement.
Finally, the last step is to check the performance of the automatic gear train of this movement. The easiest way is to pay attention to the position of the automatic rotor's natural droop, and then turn the movement vertically. If the automatic tour always keeps this position unchanged, it means that the automatic tour wheel system is flexible, and this is the most important point for the automatic part.