Wearing your watch.... Does the way you do it effect the watch?

[PeteM]

I was wondering to myself if the way a watch is worn on the wrist effect the links, bars, strap etc in terms of its life span ..

I am no engineer but do recall stresses, turning moments etc... And I was wondering how much the linking parts of the watch are effected by the way you wear it...

And are some watches more effected than others..?

For example if you wear you watch loosely... Is there more stress on the spring bars or the leather of the strap... I could imagine a PAM with tubes being pretty resilient no matter how it's worn... But say a Hublot... Could that withstand the stress of being loose better than being tighter on the wrist?

I always remember reading a blog about how best to wear your watch to avoid soreness etc and the guy said to wear it properly you should be able to slip your small finger tip under the strap or bracelet to be wearing it correctly...

So if you take a top heavy watch like say the Breitling SA... How would that impact on wearing it loosely..ie moving about on the wrist... Or indeed even tightly so there is a constant pull on the spring bars etc..

Now throw into that.. The rep quality of say the spring bars or say the screws of a Hublot... Then is that effect even more detrimental...

I generally replace things like that anyway... But sometimes you can't as you cannot source the bits....

Any thoughts?

[seeaye]

Good question, but I do think that wearing it however you're comfortable will significantly overpower the potential issues you mention.

[vafarmer70]

Working in a shop, I would think you would want it snug as to keep it from hanging up on anything.

If they flop around too much, it would also increase the probability of it smacking into something if you are simply walking down a hall.

[hiker01]

You're over thinking this Mate....just wear it and enjoy and let things be as it may.....

[PeteM]

I never think... Just wonder!!

As a life long West Ham fan... Thinking has never been an option

[prb]

Typically you engineer things to a certain factor of safety; you overbuild it to be stronger than necessary in case you encounter unexpectedly high stresses. Not to mention the stresses are extremely low for the size of the parts. You have to make the parts big enough to make manufacturing and repair easy, even if that is excessively large for the forces experienced. Basically, I dont think durability of things like springbars (which are likely essentially commodities and really no different than the ones found in gens of all pricepoitns) and even the Hublot screws (where the forces are applied in a safe direction relative to the most likely modes of failure for screws) is an issue, at least in the sense that you wont be able to snap anything just by daily wear. More likely, gradually wearing down parts will cause failure.

Ugh, I just realized that's the clumsiest english ever... I hope it still makes sense. I keep wanting to use phrases like "transverse" and "normal" but it's too jargony.

Edited July 20, 2012 by prb

[PeteM]

Makes total sense mate.. Thanks

And I can see that with gens but I guess that same consideration doesnt follow with reps... exampling again say the Hublot screws... they just reproduce them to look the part rather than be the part...