A Beginner's Guide to the Anatomy of a Watch Part 2

In our previous article on the anatomy of watch, we briefly touched on the basic outer parts of a watch. This time, we’ll dive a little deeper and discuss the differences between the various watch movements as well as the components that make up these movements.

Movements are mechanisms that are housed within the watch’s case that keep our watches alive.  Movements can be grouped into 3 main categories: quartz, mechanical and automatic.

 

Quartz

The first Quartz movement emerged in 1969 and was developed by Japan’s Seiko company. In a Quartz watch, electricity from the battery is passed through a piece of synthetic quartz known as an “oscillator”. This oscillator vibrates every time electricity is passed through it, which explains why quartz watches have a ticking seconds hand, rather than a seconds hand with a fluid sweeping motion.

The steady oscillations in a Quartz watch lead to very minimal time loss, resulting in Quartz watches being a lot more efficient in keeping time as compared to watches with automatic or mechanical movements. Additionally, Quartz watches are also more cost-effective to produce and hence make up over 90% of the watches sold in the markets today.

 

Mechanical Watch Movements

Mechanical watches are charged by manually winding the crown on the case of the watch, which in turn winds up the mainspring. The mainspring stores this energy and slowly releases this energy to the escapement which regulates the energy release to the balance wheel. The wheel then draws power to the dial train which powers the hands of the watch. Depending on the caliber and kind of functions, power reserves can last from 2 to 10 days. 

 

Automatic Watch Movements

As its name suggests, automatic movements are charged automatically. Unlike mechanical movements which need to be charged by winding the crown, automatic movements can be charged by the natural movement of your wrist. Every time you move your wrist, the oscillating rotor within the watch swivels and charges the main spring. Similar to the mechanical watch, the main spring then transfers this energy to the escapement that regulates energy transfer to the balance wheel. Because automatic watches are charged by movement, they need to be worn regularly for the watch to maintain its power reserve and function reliably. As such, some people purchase watch winders that keep these watches charged, but the downside of watch winders is that the constant winding causes wear and tear in the gears and pivots of the watch, meaning that you would have to service your watch a lot more frequently.

Mechanical/Automatic watch parts

Now that we’ve gone through the various kinds of watch movements, let us dive deeper into the individual parts that make up the movement

1. Escapement

An escapement is one of the most important parts of any mechanical watch. It is responsible for regulating the flow of power from the mainspring and ensures that the mainspring doesn’t release all of its power at once. 

 

2. Jewel

Jewels refer to the bearings used in a watch movement. Originally jewel bearings were made out of naturally occurring gems such as diamonds, garnets, ruby, and sapphires. These days however, most jeweled bearings are made out of synthetic sapphire or ruby. Because jewels are small, light, have predictable friction and temperature stability, they are frequently used in watch movements and precision instruments as they help cut down on maintenance costs and frequency.

 

3. Main Plate / Base Plate

The main plate is the primary piece of metal that holds all the other parts of a movement together. Each part is mounted into the main plate.

 

4. Mainspring

The mainspring is a coiled spring giving power to the gear train. They are either charged through manual winding or automatic winding, and unwinds to create movement.

 

5. Rotor

The rotor is the oscillating part of an automatic watch. This moving part winds the mainspring, which allows a watch to be wound automatically, rather than having to manually wind the watch. It is the main difference between a mechanical wind watch and an automatic watch. 

 

6. Balance wheel and Hairspring

A balance wheel is a weighted wheel that received the stored energy from the escapement. It rotates back and forth and it returned to its initial position by a hairspring. Each rotation of the balance wheel is called a ‘tick’ and allows the gear train to advance which in turn causes the dial train to move.

7. Tourbillion

A tourbillion is created by mounting the balance wheel and escapement within a rotating cage.  The purpose of the spinning Tourbillion is to counteract the negative effects of gravity on the watch movement, increasing the accuracy and timekeeping ability of the watch.

 

That’s it for now, we hope you learned a thing or two about the various watch movements and their parts. Do keep an eye on our blog for more of our content.