The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi, just wondering if anyone here uses a mechanical watch winder for their mechanical Breitlings and if so which one. There are plenty of nice automatic watch winders which are very useful for automatic watches but not absolutely necessary, surely mechanical watch winders would be even more useful for watches like the vintage Navitimer, anyone?

A good example of one is here

http://orbita.com/the-collection/programmable/sempre-1/
http://orbita.com/the-collection/programmable/sempre-2/

Absurd in the extreme.

Cruvon
why do you think a watchwinder would be beneficial on a non-automatic watch ?
the only thing it does is turn the watch, but as its not automatic nothing happens with/to the movement ?

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

there may be SOME sense for these with complicated perpetual watches that are a pain to set, but on a Navi 806 without even a date the risks far outweigh the benefit of not just quickly setting the time after a short wind. Most of us give their manuals a full wind once a month, that is all it takes.

Unless you're missing your thumbs, this is ridiculous.

Second thought, even without thumbs.....ridiculous.

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Breitling Navitimer: Black Dial
OMEGA Speedmaster Professional
Steinhart Nav.B-Chrono II
Elgin-Hamilton 37500 (Aircraft Clock)

I've got about 10 million things to spend my money on before these get to the top of the list.

I got some manual crown stem winders in a job lot of watchmaker tools once (tubes with a pusher at one end and spring loaded 'fingers' at the other to grip the crown, you then turn the tube to wind the watch) and I didn't like those either. Fingers work better and are a lot cheaper.

Question chaps, as I am not intending to wear my vintage 806 day to day, am I right in thinking I should wind it up about once/month to keep things ticking over? (see what I did there , damn I've still got it)

as I wrote I try to wind my (relevant) manual watches approximately one full wind per month, although modern lubricants should actually make that unnecessary - but better safe ...

Plus to add the vintage Bs with the automatic movements particularly the caliber 11-15... You don't want to put extra stress by putting them on the winder... Parts are hard to come by...

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"I don't got the bright watch I got the right watch" -Jay Z

Yeah, but that wouldn't apply to these manual winders - same mechanical stress as using finger and thumb.

Well guys, guess my example of the Navitimer was not a good reason why would require one. As pointed out by some, the complicated watches with perpetual calendar/moonphase and/or other complications would be best served by this mechanical winder I guess. Just imagine having to set the moonphase,month, day, date etc. manually everytime the watch needed to be used and where automatics are better. I guess the beauty of this winder esp if one had a complicated watch is even if was left for a month without use it would still mechanically wind the watch using it's motors and be ready for use after a month having thr moonphase, day, date etc. perfect.

Personally I've found the 30 seconds a day that it takes to manually wind works very well an my fingers have never over wound the watch, broken down or made too much noise in the middle of the night. They also work in a power outage and they cost considerably less than the $3,000 (yes, three thousand dollars) that the single one lists for.