How to Maintain Your Watch

If you notice your mechanical watch is running too quickly it may be because it has been magnetized. This can occur if your watch is too close to an object with a magnetic field that its movement cannot withstand. The magnetic field emitted by such an object may affect parts in the watch that regulate the timing, preventing it from displaying the time accurately. Magnetism can occur gradually with repeated exposure to small magnetic items usually causing minor damage. That being said, solving this issue can be quick and easy however, when greater damage is caused, the process can be more complicated. In day-to-day life, objects that may have this effect on your timepiece can be your cell phone or laptop and, if you’re travelling, the magnetic field from an airplane can cause this too.

Newer watch models have become more equipped to resist magnetism. Recent Rolex or Hublot models can resist the magnetic fields we may pass through every day while other watches, such as those containing the Omega Master Co-Axial movement, have a sillicium hairspring that cannot be affected by magnetic fields of even 15 000 gauss. This is a magnetic field strength thousands of times higher than one would usually be exposed to in daily life, making the aforementioned movement, as well as others containing silicon escapements, virtually anti-magnetic.