The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I picked up one of my manual wind watches that had run down and stopped and carried it around the house to shoot some photos. When I got where I was going, I noticed it had started running again and ran for maybe 10 minutes and then stopped.

I tried it with some of the others and the did the same thing. Weird.

uummm you sure its not an automatic?

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-RJ

When the mainspring runs down in a manual watch the reason that the watch stops is that there is not enough power to keep the balance in motion. That's not necessarily the same as there being no power left in the mainspring - especially if the watch is out of beat. When you walk around with the watch then you are causing the balance to vibrate through motion and because the movement is so efficient that movement itself is often wnough to run the watch for a short while. It can also help to get the last remaining power out of the mainspring.

If you end up with hours of extra run time then it's likely an indication that the oil in the mainspring barrel is breaking down and not providing sufficient lubrication of the spring, but a few minutes is fairly normal.

That was my theory too. You can see a similar thing with simple wind up toys.