The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Last night I pulled my watch out of it's box and noticed it had stopped so I pulled out the crown and wound it not realizing it was the date and put it forward a day then set the time it was between the hours your not suppose to change the date so I left it on the wrong day, basically when and what way shpuld I wind it to put it right also does the watch know what month it is (the watch is a chronomat excuse me for my stupidity cheers


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I wouldn't worry about it too much, Ben. Sure you ideally shouldn't do it as it can cause damage, but I think most of us have done it at some point or other - I know I did once! If it works OK, then it's fine - just try not to do it again!

To reset the date correctly, I'd suggest winding the hands on well past the "danger zone" (i.e. past 3am) and then, once you are past that point, use the quick-set date to advance the date through to the date before today's date. Then pull the crown out again, and advance the hands through midnight (to get onto today's date) and then set the time accordingly.

Oh, and no your watch doesn't know what month it is. For that you need a watch with a much more complex perpetual or semi-perpectual calandar movement - such as the rather superb semi-perpetual Navitimer Olympus that I'm selling! Hint, hint! (Had to get that plug in!)

Anyway, hope this helps.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

oh and nice plug Driver

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D8 beat me to it so much of the same info!

First stop panicking! The "don't use the quick set date between 9 and 3/10 and 2" is good advise but you're not going to break your watch doing the odd time. I'm sure 99% of owners do it occasionally.

Not saying it's the best/only way to do it but when I need to change the date, I set the time to around 6.30 then advance the date to one day less than today. Then I advance the time to click over to today and keep going 12 hours if it's pm. It doesn't matter if the watch has stopped or is fully wound when you do this.

As for knowing the month, there are a few "complication" watches which can do this (some even know when leap years are) but not the Chronomat. You have to manually change the date to the first after February, April, June, September, and November.

Here's an example of a watch which knows the month, a Navitimer QP

And here's another one that can do the same thing (apart from leap years) -



And if you like it, take a mosey over to the For Sale section.....

OK I'll stop plugging it now.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

I thought it was okay to use the date any time. Turning the time backwards was the problem since the date change mechanism was already actively moving forward.

Same issue really.

The problems start because the teeth of the date change mechanism are engaged with the time mechanism. If the teeth on those wheels clash there is a danger of breaking a tooth and then you have problems. If you're gentle, then it likely doesn't happen, but if you are energetic then doing it once can be all the damage it needs.