Speed Up or Slow Down an Automatic Wind Watch 

You're welcome!

Good luck. I hope it helps!

Thanks. It might not surprise you that my day-job is being a director of photography for film and video. Even when it's just a little video like this, my brain can't turn off the idea of trying to make it look pretty. ;)

You're right about that. VERY tiny touches are required.

Good luck with it! :)

Thanks so much for letting me know this helped you. That's great to hear! :)

No worries. I'm glad this video helped you out!

I'm glad you found it useful. Good luck doing the fix for yourself!

You're welcome. It's pretty easy to do if you try it out.

@@PraxisPrepper I watched your video very carefully.Thank you very much as I am very interested in watch repairing.Please stay safe.Wish you all the best and hope that you will upload more simple videos in future.

You're welcome! :)

De nadaaaaaa!!! ;)

Based on how my hands look most of time (dirty and cut up), I'm not sure whether you're joking or not - but I'll take it as a compliment. I DO at least still have all my fingers. ;)

Mine has 3 and a half min per hour :)) No kidding! Will try to adjust it ! But I’m quite sure it will ended up on watch service :)

Thanks Demitrius! And thanks for writing the comment. As I understand it, leaving comments helps the video to be seen by more people. :)

That's a tiny TINY nudge. Take it slow - and don't worry, if you overshoot it, you can always nudge back. Good luck!

My kit arrives tomorrow. I plan to mark the current position with a sharpie marker, and take a picture, then make very small changes, and confirm the timing with two apps.

It's very much my pleasure to be able to share the technique with you. Best luck!

@@PraxisAdventures 🍻 For the price my local mall charged me to replace the battery in my watch ($15), I bought the kit to open any watch back, and now I get to appreciate the microscopic machine on my wrist, and zero it up. 👍

@@OutsideTheTargetDemographic It's really a great feeling to be able to DIY things. I DIY'd my own house, and (in addition to saving me a ot of money), it gave me a real feeling of accomplishment and achievement that is hard to match. DIYing is great for the soul!

@@PraxisAdventures I hear you. I bought a foreclosure on 2.5 acres, 1100 sqft house, the grass was up to my shoulders when I bought it, and I used an 18" deck push mower to cut it all. Wood burner with wood to cut and split, garden, shooting range, I've learned a lot and we are better off for it. I now have two kids, who will never be bored in their formative years. 👍🇺🇸 Education ends when you choose for it to end. Learn every day.

@@OutsideTheTargetDemographic The world needs more people like you OTD! Awesome work!

Most welcome. :)

You're welcome.

It sounds like you have developed a cool work around to doing this adjustment. Thx for sharing!

That's pretty ingenious.

So from gaining 4s to losing 5s, you have a 9s range with around 0 deviation. The guy in the video is losing 80s per day so for situation like that he will need to adjustment the hairspring to get his 9s range back to what's acceptable.

I'm glad it was helpful!

I can't get my wrist wind up watch to work at all and I promise a lady that who has taken off her wrist and gave it to me and now it doesn't work anymore because i had spilled some pop on my wrist when I was just going outside and the pop has gone into it and I was very unhappy that

For some people it's critical to only have professionals do tasks like this for them. But for a lot of us, this is very achievable. As long as you keep things clean and be cautious with what you touch, you should be good.

Sorry for the delay in replying to you. I'm not sure about any levers aside from the one I'm discussing here.

I double checked the video to be sure and yes, counter clockwise slows it down. Good luck! :)

Given how this lever works, I suppose a drop (or more specifically a sudden stop at the end of a drop) might have been able to jar the lever in the "add 5 minutes per day" direction. That's a VERY small move, so maybe it's possible. If you go for the fix I demo here, you should be able to tweak it back to better time keeping. Just be sure to make very VERY small adjustments, then wait a few days to see the effect, and as you go in and out, be sure to do it in a very clean environment to as to not introduce dust into the watch. Good luck!

That's a pro tip! Thanks for that. I havent had any issues with the gasket bunching up or anything, but your solution sounds like it would bring that chance even down from not common to absolutely won't happen (which is a certainty probably worth the small cost of the grease). Thanks for that.

I wasn't aware that the recommendation was to replace the gasket every time. I can say that I've opened and closed my watch many many... many times and there's never been any evidence that the gasket was losing it's functionality when I have the watch in water (which I do frequently). So the recommendation may have less to do with necessity and more to do with selling more gaskets. I'm sure a new gasket is "better", but my gaskets having been reused many times haven't failed to keep out water.

My pleasure! Here's another tip on seiko that I just learned. Be wary of their customer "service" department. The second hand fell off my watch well within the warranty period and they essentially refused to honor the warranty because I didn't keep the original box that they'd sent the watch to me in. Watch still runs though... the second hand just lies there.

You can easily fix the second hand. Open up the caseback. pull the crown out all the way untill a little round lever pops out. hold down the lever with a small tool and pull out the crown. once the crown is pulled out the movement and dial should come out of the watch in one peice. then use tweezers to pick up the seconds hand and gently place it on the little metal stick in the center. gently apply some pressure with your finger on the seconds hand untill it fits into place. Don’t get any fingerprints or hair inside the watch. Put the watch back into the case making sure everything is aligned properly and gently reinsert the crown into its socket. Gently wriggle it in, don’t use force the crown in because that could damage the movement, it should click once it’s in. Screw down the caseback and voila Good as new🎉

It is for adjusting beat error (symmetry of left- and right swings). If you mess it up you need a timegrapher to readjust it.

I'm definitely not an expert on all watches, but if your watch has a similar +/- structure inside it as mine does in this video, it might be worth a try for you to do the adjustment that I demo here. But (again), I'm no expert on all watches, I'm just familiar with the one I have here.

That sounds like a plausible concern. All I can offer is that I've opened this watch up a number of times to fine tune the adjustment, and also used it heavily in water and I've never had water incursion into the watch. Perhaps there's some forgiveness in the the gasket to allow for a good seal even with imperfect alignment.

I don't know for sure since I don't have that watch, but the tool for opening watches seems pretty generic amzn.to/2Fg4NMC and is probably worth a try. Even if the adjustments inside your watch aren't exactly like they are in this Seiko, they're probably fully ABLE to be adjusted if you can get inside. I know that's not a clear yes or no answer, but I hope it helps.

@@PraxisPrepper I will give it a try. Thank you for your reply.

be carefull it might explode

Very fast rates are often a sign of magnetisation.

I'm not familiar with your watch, but once you get into it, look for a + and - symbol and it might help you to understand which way to rotate to correct the speed. Good luck.

Praxis Homesteading and Survival Skills I’ll probably rotate a notch to - direction, but the 50-55minutes is so much to compensate. In this case, I need to know which notch is for this high amount of calibration, either top or bottom

@@egehandorum7128 When I made this video I think my watch was running about 5 mins off per week, and you can see that it was an incredibly tiny adjustment. If I were in your shoes, I'd just push it maybe 1/8 of the way toward the negative and then see how it goes for the next day. Take notes so you can remember how much of a turn seemed to have how much of an impact. After a few days of various tweaks, it might be hard to recall how much turning did what on which day. I'm sure with patience you'll get it figured out!

Praxis Homesteading and Survival Skills that makes sense and sounds great. I’ll try this, thanks for your help

your watch is probably magnetized, you need to demagnetize it

I've never done those things and it's never seemed to cause any issue over the many many times that I've tweaked my watch, but I'll freely admit that I don't know everything there is to know, and in some cases, skipping steps that don't always cause a problem when skipped, might sometimes cause a problem.

But isn't the technique demo'd the service that the watch needs? This technique fixed the issue my watch was having anyhow.

I'm not an expert on all the mechanisms in there, so I'm not able to answer that question with any authority. Sorry. Don't want to pretend to knowledge that I don't have and possibly mislead you.

The other lever adjusts the beat error.But you need a time grapher to do that.

@@mrd7051Got it - thx!

I've never seen any evidence that such a thing has ever happened, but you're right that it moves easily. Perhaps the fact that the dial has so little mass avoids it shifting during movement changes.

I understand your hesitancy, but it's really a pretty simple job. If you have the right tool to open it up, and take care to move the level shown in this video very lightly, I think you'll be fine. As for a "demagnetizer", I don't know what that is, and I know nothing about it. But this watch uses tension, not magnetics for it's motion, so I'm not sure what something called a "demagnetizer" would do for you.

That's a good tip. I tried using one of those, but it seemed unable to hear the ticks to determine the speed. If people can get those apps to work, yeah that's a great way to go.

@@PraxisAdventures yes it depends a lot of the microphone of your phone as surrounding sound, but it surely works

Cool. I'm glad it worked for you. :)@@84Justino

Many people seem to be thinking that this is more of an issue than it actually seems to be. That's fine, but that sort of thinking keeps many people paralyzed and kept from taking care of pretty simple things on their own. It's on a "never drive a car because you'll be in a car accident" level. You could be... but worrying about it as much as some people seem to do (with watch repair) seems unjustified by experience.

That's a VERY fine adjustment. Do what I do in the video, but push that lever the absolute smallest amount that you practically can move it, and see how it runs. Be prepared to slightly move it back and forth a few times as you hone the accuracy. Good luck!

@@PraxisPrepper thanks

Well done

Hey, I'm the guy that made this video (different account sign in). Yeah, I think you can improve that a bit over time. You're losing about a minute a week. That's pretty darn good, but if you play VERY GENTLY with that lever, I think you can get the time slip down to even less. Although... you could also over do it and make it so you're suddenly gaining MORE than 5 minutes a month and it may take a while to get it back to being as good as you have it now too... so I guess it depends on your personality. Are you the kind of person who keeps tweaking even when things are essentially totaly fine because the idea of "perfect" gets you excited (like I am)? Or are you happy with "totally good enough"?

@@PraxisPrepper well i am a guy who wants everything perfect. Losing minute a week is usually unnoticeable but everymonth fixing time is kinda annoying but since its mechanical watch , i should have patience. Actually i am scared to open this watch, i think i will make a mess plus my sis gave this watch to me as gift. She can be super angry on me lol. But in future if watch will lose more time than i iwll try to fix it. Your video is great and very helpful. Keep the good work up. Cheers

@@madelinedrew I totally understand that sense of apprehension. Obviously, I can't make any guarantees that if you go in , you won't mess anything up. But I CAN say, that I popped into my watch maybe a dozen times when I was tweaking it and even with popping in so many times, I never had any issues. If you DO go in, just be sure you're in a very clean environment, your hands are clean, you're not having your face float over the open watch where you might get anything from you face or nose (by breathing) into the watch back. If you DO drop something in, don't try to blow it out with your mouth. As a camera guy, we know that when people try to blow something off a lens, we damn-near always blow a little bit of spit out at the lens while we're trying (makes you think about all those birthday cakes you at after someone blew out the candles). So if you do get anything in there, a can of compressed air is best. Camera people often use these things for blowing dust off lenses too. amzn.to/3Dwuy5x And last, when you're closing the watch up, just be sure the rubber gasket ring sets back into its channel and doesn't get closed up out of alignment. But overall, just take care, take your time, and keep the environment clear and if you're anything like me, you'll be fine. Like I said, I've been in a dozen times without issue. Good luck!

@@PraxisAdventures so far , this month , still 2 days left , my watch has lost 7 minutes.

Not knowing what wrong lever you moved, the best I could suggest is to move it back as best you can, but even that might be bad advice if there's some lever that only moves in one direction. Try to do some research about what you altered before you make any further changes.

That sounds like a good idea - taking some sort of record of the starting position. But one thing to consider is that for the most part, the degree (literally) of change we're talking about here is SO minute that a sharpie line might be fatter than the amount of move. I only mention that to emphasise how little of an adjustment most watches will require. Mine was losing a few mins per week (maybe 5), and my adjustment was down at that level.

@@PraxisAdventures Sure, but for someone like me, where I am losing 3 minutes a day, the change might be bigger.

@Riki P. I won't say it was the most detailed, expansive video, but it got me in the right direction. My watch is now -0.4/day.

Good luck on it. This solution works for the speed, but I've had 3 of these and they all ended up having their second hands fall off inside, and then the pendulum fall to pieces soon after. I really like the idea of these watches, but I'm personally done buying them. I hope yours works better for you than my three did.

I'm not sure how the video gave the impression that you took away from it. But you're correct. Towards + speeds it up. Towards - slows it down.

@@PraxisPrepper I may have miss interpreted it. Thanks for clarifying. Great video 👍👍

@@chrisvassos9929 no worries. I've been known to misspeak as well. I'm always finding myself saying things like, "...after you drive past the library, take a left... and by "left" I of course mean "right"." ;)

R1Willem OG course it’s adjustable, just send it back to the original manufacturer and they’ll adjust it for you.

It's crazy how much people charge for services these days. I often find that it's cheaper to buy literally all the tools needed to do something that hire someone to do it. I had to cut 5" holes in my foundation for some piping to pass through. Same thing, except in that case, it was actually WAY cheaper to buy all the tools, and even less hassle on my end because the company required that I prep the area in a way that was way more work than me just doing it DIY. It's crazy really. I think the only reason prices are like that is because most people have been convinced that they can't do anything themselves so are willing to pay anything for someone else to do it.

@@PraxisAdventures That's what I did. 😇

I'm not a big fan of "Let somebody that knows what they're doing mess with this stuff." In my experience, I have a lot more luck taking care of things myself as a layperson than I do hiring "professionals". There are a LOT of incompetent professionals out there... a lot of good ones out there too I'm sure. But I tend to only have a 50/50 chance of getting one of those good ones whenever I go with the "pros". "Let somebody that knows what they're doing mess with this stuff." is (IMO) a slogan created by the marketing teams of companies to try to get people to hire their high-priced services instead of taking care of things on their own. Lay people are a lot more capable than those marketing teams (and your comment) would have us know... though that said, there are a lot of incompetent laypeople out there too! ;)

@@PraxisPrepper Hi, I understand your reasoning. I am simply pointing out what works for you may be bad advice for another. It looks like you are encouraging folks to adjust a timepiece that may not be regulated properly to begin with. I suppose this could be a good thing for people that make professional repairs, you know, fixing these "home-adjustments" after the real problem surfaces. Not trying to give you a hard time. You impress me as a smart, capable guy.... But we are not all like you.

@@kurtschlarb9762 I get what you're saying. I do. And I agree that there are a lot of people out there who could mess up their watches if they try to DIY it. I just also feel that there's so much messaging in our culture telling people to NOT try. That I like to try to remind people that they're capable of doing a lot more than they think... at least many of them are. But I agree - there are plenty of human being out there who max out their brain capacity just trying to tie their shoes. I'll acknowledge that this video isn't for those people. You sound like a smart guy yourself - so don't YOU forget to DIY it a bit here and there in life. It's a good feeling!

@@PraxisPrepper Well said. You take care now.

Do you have a frame number where you see this happening? I don't see it. Also the watch never seemed to suffer from any issues related to this fix.

@@PraxisPrepper -suite yourself! When the watch case was opened !

@@solstar4778 This seems more like an empty trolling vs. an attempt to help. I asked if you could point me at when it happened, where you saw it etc. because I'm wondering if I did get dirt inside or not and you're just replying with passive-aggressive phrases with all exclamation marks as punctuation and (in true troll fashion), you even were sure to use the wrong word when you meant to write "suit", but wrote "suite". Is this a serious comment? If so, please let me know and if you could, point me at where the dirt fell in. If I messed up, I'd like to get to see it so I can avoid it in the future.

It's a nice feeling when you find out that don't need someone who isn't treating you very well. :)

I presume you mean minimum? You'd want to push the pin towards the - sign (not the + sign). If so, then it sounds like your issue is beyond this tweak. Best luck!

Go get it serviced mate.

@@rhazes84 sold it and got a quartz instead...

I'm not a watch expert, but what i can say is that if this technique will work, you'll want to pish the lever towrds the minus sign. It'll take a number of dives in to test and see how much each tweak fixes it.

Only for those who are only her because they don't know the difference between a + sign and a - sign.

@@PraxisPrepper 🤣🤣🤣

@@muffemod Yeah, I'm a big fan of giving people the whole story so they can adapt and make their own good decisions if circumstances ever change - which they always tend to.

your math is off 😂

@@james6yearsago599 i rounded you retard

@@scubaseppy but 5 seconds a day is 35 seconds that’s a big difference than 1-2 minutes 😭

@@james6yearsago599 one half! You smooth brain.

@@scubaseppy nah 😂

I agree that a watch with a speed setting that's not right isn't great. But the only thing that really matters is whether it's fixable - which it is.

Thanks for the tip. I've been corrected a few times and corrected my own pronunciation since. I don't really watch any television or video advertising, so had only seen the name in print and never heard it spoken. Although, even the spelling suggests the correct pronunciation with the "ei" combination. So my bad here. :)

Thanks for the tip. I've been corrected a few times and corrected my own pronunciation since. I don't really watch any television or video advertising, so had only seen the name in print and never heard it spoken. Although, even the spelling suggests the correct pronunciation with the "ei" combination. So my bad here. :)

That DOES sound frustrating. This technique should help you bring that divergence way down. Good luck!