How to Wind an Automatic Watch

How an automatic watch actually works

An automatic watch winds itself from motion. Inside it sits a half-circle weight that swings with every move of your wrist; that part is the rotor. As the rotor turns, it winds the mainspring and keeps the watch running. So as long as you wear it, the everyday use of your arm keeps it wound. There is no battery, just a spring that gets coiled and slowly releases its energy. Once that logic clicks, winding, setting and restarting all become intuitive.

Hand-winding through the crown

If your watch has stopped, or you have not worn it for a while, the cleanest way to start is to wind the crown by hand. If the crown screws down, first turn it anticlockwise to release it, then begin winding clockwise.

• Wind clockwise with the crown in its resting position, not pulled out
• About 20 to 30 turns is plenty; the watch will start ticking
• Wind gently and evenly until you feel light tension in the spring, and do not force it
• Then pull the crown to set the time and date, push it back in, and lock it again if it screws down

Hand-winding shares the same motion as manual winding; the only difference is that on an automatic the rotor does most of the work for you.

The overwinding myth

The worry I hear most often is, "If I wind too much, will I snap the spring?" On a modern automatic, no. In these watches the mainspring is connected to a slipping clutch that releases any excess once it is full. Past a certain tension the spring stops coiling tighter and simply slips. So you never hit a hard wall while winding; you just feel a gentle resistance and stop there. The one thing to mind: wind calmly rather than aggressively, as steadiness matters more than speed.

Keeping it wound by wearing it

With a watch you wear daily, you will often never touch the crown at all. Even at a desk, the motion of your arm is enough to feed the rotor. On days you barely move, the watch slowly winds down, and this is where power reserve comes in. Power reserve is how long the watch keeps running after you take it off before it stops. On a typical automatic calibre that is around 40 hours, so a watch you take off on Friday evening has usually stopped by Sunday morning. Everyday automatics like the Seiko 5 Sports and the Orient Mako 3 are built around exactly this cycle.

Restarting it after it has stopped

If the watch has stopped, there is no need to panic. First hand-wind it 20 to 30 turns, then set the time and date. One caution when changing the date: on most mechanical watches the date gears are engaged around midnight, roughly between 9 pm and 3 am, so do not change the date by hand inside that danger window. The safest habit is to move the hour hand into the afternoon and set from there. On a classic date watch like the Orient Bambino Version 7, this small habit protects the mechanism for years.

Not every automatic is the same

An important point: not every automatic hand-winds, and not every automatic hacks. Hacking means the seconds hand stops when you pull the crown, which lets you set the time to the second. Some older or simpler calibres allow neither hand-winding nor hacking; to start those you shake them for a minute or put them on and move around. You can find out whether a watch hand-winds or hacks from its calibre specs. For how these behaviours relate to upkeep, read the mechanical watch care guide. If your watch keeps running fast or slow even when wound, the problem is not the winding; I cover the reasons in why an automatic watch runs fast or slow. For anyone thinking of learning this on a Seiko 5 first, is the Seiko 5 worth it is a good place to start.