zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

Joseph,
It has often passed through my mind that we hear of watches, like your 561 was that are a few seconds fast or slow per day. In reality they are probably 2.034829374 secs fast or maybe 1.9834826 secs slow. I suppose therefore that there is nothing at all to prevent a watch being 0.0000secs fast or slow - it's just another number. Granted, it's a quite remarkable number, but nevertheless, a number.

Tell us, now it's running like a quartz, would you swap it for a quartz to ensure the same accuracy? Or do you find the odd second gain or loss (that you used to have) mildly satisfying. I know I feel quite involved when adjusting the time on my old Seamaster every now and again. As someone else around here said, "A quartz watch is an appliance, a mechanical watch is a pet" - has your pet become independent?

Gary

Hi all......just thought i would relay to
: everyone a recent VERY pleasant experience
: with one of my 18k Connies with the Cal 561
: movement. I had decided to wear one of them
: on a regular basis,as this is a prestine
: example heavy cased with intregal lugs and i
: was fortunate to find an unusual and great
: looking Omega thick and heavy 18ky woven
: braided band!(NOT the typical
: "mesh" band.)The combo weighs in
: at 140 grams!!! WOW!!

: Not knowing when it had been serviced last i
: decided to have it cleaned at a local
: Jeweler who has a Rolex trained watchmaker
: on staff. He does nice work and the wait is
: only a week or so if parts are not needed.

: Anyway......got the watch back and it ran
: "ok" timekeeping wise, but i felt
: the watch was more that capable of bettering
: the 15 seconds fast a day it was doing quite
: consistantly. Most watchmakers time to a
: machine and slightly "fast" to
: prevent the customer being late
: anywhere........but they can't know the
: specific watch wearing habits of each
: customer. So they rarely get a watch timed
: in as closely as someone actually wearing
: the watch with a little knowledge of
: finetuning!

: Having been in the jewelry business 32 years as
: a bench jeweler i've fussed a bit with watch
: over the years......and decided to get this
: one tightened up a bit. So off came the band
: to allow access to the screw off back. Using
: my case opener the back followed and i
: looked over the goose neck regulater to
: figure out which way to go to slow down the
: time a bit. It's not marked like on cheaper
: watches but after looking it over i already
: knew that to slow down you needed to
: increase the effective length of the
: hairspring and vise versa. I didn't know how
: much that equated to but i carefully turned
: the adjusting screw on the gooseneck
: regulator 2 full turns clockwise! I then
: gently blew out the watch of any dust with
: my bulb blower and put the back and band on
: and watched it for a few hours against a
: quartz watch. It didn't take long to
: discover i had gone WAY too much with the
: adjustment......as i was now loosing a
: second an hour or so!

: Later that day the back comes off for the 2nd
: time and i then went counter-clockwise 1 1/2
: turn of the adjuster to remove most of my
: previous attempt to finetune this puppy.
: Watched it a bit longer(well into the next
: day) and found it was much better but still
: loosing a couple seconds that day. Had it
: been gaining those few seconds i would have
: left it alone.......but don't want to be
: late so off the back comes a 3rd time! Guess
: what they say about "3rd times a
: charm" really is......because i moved
: that screw counter-clockwise not more that a
: flea's hair thickness and blew it out a
: final time and waited for the result.

: Well.......i've timed it to a nice quartz watch
: AND to the www.time.gov government time site
: (only use it when i get .5 sec or less
: accuracy on the site or else i reload till i
: do!) and i've now watched my Omega for 3
: full days. Timekeeping over that period of
: time while wearing all the time save for
: showering has been better than ANY watch
: i've ever had! Even my Rolexes of the past
: and long since sold haven't bettered it!

: IT HAS NOT VARIED MORE THAN ONE SECOND OVER
: THREE FULL DAYS!!!!! I can't even say if the
: watch is off even that, as on the
: www.time.gov site is rarely accurate to
: atomic clock time closer than .4 or .5 sec,
: and it's pretty hard to guage parts of a
: secong on a mechanical watch hand anyway as
: it doesn't stop like on a quartz.

: All in all i'm extreamly pleased in the
: consistancy in this 1960's vintage watch has
: shown. I'm enjoying this one,..... and i'll
: try to remember to follow up with a longer
: guage over time as to it's ability to run
: like a quartz!