Spartan wrote: I am thinking of taking my Seawolf to:
1- 25 minutes in the sauna
2- 10 minutes in the steam room
3- jacuzzi
Will it be up for the task
Has anyone else tried something similar to this ?
I think it should be OK
Personally (and in contrast the other comments so far, apart from U-Boat's) I'd suggest not subjecting your watch to at least 2 of those. The sauna should be a no-no in my book, followed by the steam room. The jacuzzi is probably the least damaging provided you wash your watch in fresh water after, but if you weren't wearing your watch for the others it'd make little sense to put it back on for that!
My first reason is that rubber expands under heat, which means that the gaskets around the crown and caseback will expand. When they contract again, they may deform, so potentially compromising the water resistance of the case. Additionally heat (and chemicals like chlorine in the jacuzzi) will, over time, degrade the rubber faster, again potentially compromising the water resistance. And also lets not forget that sweat also degrades rubber over time - and you'll be doing a lot of sweating in a sauna.
Extremes of hot and cold also affect the viscosity of the lubricants in the movement, which can have an adverse affect on wear and also affect the accuracy. Additionally you need to remember that different metals expand and contract at different temperatures, so the different metals used in the movement may expand at different rates - so potentially affecting accuracy again. By way of example I have cribbed this particular line off the net - "Ferdinand Berthoud found in 1773 that an ordinary brass balance and steel hairspring, subjected to a 60°F (33°C) temperature increase, loses 393 seconds per day, of which 312 seconds is due to spring elasticity decrease". That's quite a change in accuracy, although nowadays more advance metal alloys make this less of a problem.
So while your watch won't fall apart on you by undertaking those activities, you'll almost certainly be reducing the amount of time between services, and also increasing your bill when you do as more parts will need replacing. Oh and if the WR fails as a result of knackered gaskets, you'll have a BIG bill! So IMO, you'll be best to take your watch off for all those activities........ but it's up to you.
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