: I recently bought a Seamaster Chronometer Diver. I went in for a
: Tag Heuer Aquaracer and the sales person made me a very good
: deal on the Seamaster so I bought it instead. At the time I did
: not know the difference between a quartz and mechnical watch. I
: was diapppointed to find out that a mechnical watch is not as
: accurate as quartz watch. I wore the watch for a month an one
: day noticed that the watch had gained a minute or two. So I set
: it exactly to
www.time.gov and have noticed it may gain 10
: seconds one day, 1 the next, etc. I have monitored for about 2
: weeks now. Never really loses time. Is this normal for that much
: variation? I also set my 15 year old Tag a week ago and noticed
: it is still exactly in sync with
www.time.gov , seconds and
: all. Just wondering to if should get it adjusted. Seamaster
: minute wise it still accurate, however now that I know the
: seconds are off a little on this expensive watch it is kind of
: bugging me.
Chronometer standards are +6/-4 seconds per day. It seems that your watch is having some daily variations that are out of sequence, but overally probably still in the +5 per day range, which is on the high side of the standards, but not out of whack. The thing about mechanical watches is that no two really keep similar time. Some of the swings may be due to positional variance of overnight resting positions. Depending on how you rest it at night does matter. Face down, crown up, 9 up, face up, etc will cause variations up to maybe 5 seconds a night. Its just quirky. I would try resting it overnight a few days in a row in the same position and find what the best overnight position is for your watch. This will probably get you the performance you want. Also watches tend to perform different if they are at the end of their power reserve, which is about 40 hours from a full wind. You might want to fully wind it before you start this experiment (about 60 or so turns from dead stop). If the watch is partially wound, just wind it till you hear a loud click-click. This is the overwind protection meaning that your watch is fully wound.
Let us know how that turns out.
