Placing your watches on a Watch Winder

A true watch winder is an engineered device which maintains the torque of the watch mainspring. Particular attention has been given to its parameters when designing such an instrument, such as, the motor’s RPM, tilting angle (winding angle), winding controls (TPD/Direction) and of course the aesthetics.

For a watch winder to deliver its preset TPD, as it’s been designed for, a watch must be placed fully resting on the watch holder/pillow.

Whether its a single or a double slot, watches need to be placed flat. As for those watches fitted on a double turntable slot, they usually can't fit large dials. For some reason (space, aesthetics or otherwise), they were designed too close together. The watch pillows/holder are also too narrow. In this case, watches with dial diameters of below 35mm find no problem’s fitting into. But when the dial diameter gets larger than that, sellers intelligently place the watches on the two slots with crowns on opposite ends and tilting the watches upwards so they lightly brush each other but managed to fit both in. I have no qualms about watches placed with crowns on opposite sides; they eventually would be placed flat on the watch pillow and get the correct TPD.


The way watches are placed in the following pictures are totally wrong. The watches will not stay wound.

Here's another perfect example of a wrong placement.


Your watch winds on a powered spindle and will rotate on an axis coincident with its center. During such rotations, the rotor inside the watch will hang downward (due to gravity) and is stationary while the watch turns on this axis. But “propping up” a watch on the turntable totally defeats the purpose and design of the winder making the rotor of the watch somehow static. This simply means watches would not be properly wound. Your winders would not serve its purpose!

So do you wear a helmet this way? It'll serve no purpose too. (Photo taken from STOMP)

Labels: Watch Placement