In addition to professional waterproof watches, other replica watches are life waterproof watches. Professional waterproof watches have a water resistance of 30M. But they do not recommend swimming or taking showers with them. Taking the replica watches underwater will revoke their guarantee.

We receive this question almost daily, and the answer is not simple.

There are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Mechanical watches are water resistant and not waterproof.

2. Swimming presents challenges to mechanical watches other than just water. These include the effects of salt, chlorine and other chemicals.

3. The strap may be damaged by exposure to water.

Our rule of thumb is to not swim in a mechanical watch unless it is rated to a depth of 200 meters or greater. Next, if swimming in a mechanical watch, rinse it off after the swim (do not use soap or other cleaning products).

If the watch will be used for diving, even casually, we recommend a minimum water resistance of 500 meters.

All of the watches we make are water resistant but we do not guarantee them being waterproof. You should not wash your hands with one of our watches on or take a shower, bath or swim with them on, as this will revoke their guarantee.

An automatic wristwatch is a mechanical wristwatch with a self-winding mechanism. In other words, one does not have to wind the crown periodically to keep the watch running. A manual or manual wind watch must be wound by hand, using the crown, usually every day, to operate continuously.

If one were going to own only a single watch, and wear it every day, an automatic would be a good choice, since the watch will be worn consistently enough to stay wound – the owner would never need to manually wind the watch, and would only need to adjust the time to compensate for drift and at changeover to daylight/summer time and back. (In fact, several early automatic movements dispensed with the crown and moved the time-setting mechanism onto the back, under the theory that the mechanism would only be accessed infrequently. This turned out to be a marketing flop – people liked the look and easy accessibility of the crown.)

For this reason, most commonly seen watches with more than a simple date window use automatic movements – this includes “triple date” calendars, annual calendars, perpetual calendars, and any of these combined with moon phases. With few exceptions (oddly enough, these seem to be more expensive watches), most manual wind watches have simpler calendars, although they may include other complications like chronographs.

One caveat about automatics – if you have more than one watch that is worn regularly, the automatic winding advantage is lessened – the automatic may stop if not worn often enough. With some calendar mechanisms and other complications this can add an inconvenience factor to resetting the watch.

Finally, since frequently worn automatics are usually at or near a full state of wind most of the time, one may get the impression that they can be adjusted to be more accurate and consistent over the course of many days. This, in fact, is not necessarily the case, as a manual-wind watch that is wound consistently once per day can be tweaked so that the day to day variation is very small. In short, there is no definite performance advantage to an automatic – it is mostly a convenience.

Polished Stainless Steel

1. For fine scratches, we’ve found that nothing beats a jewelers’ cloth, like the Pioneer/Shino Polishing Cloth available from most watch suppliers. It is a double cloth. The inner cloth is impregnated with a red polishing powder (ferric oxide or rouge).

The outer cloth protects your hand from the nasty red stain and is also used to give the final polish. These jewelers polishing cloth works even better on gold.

You may also use Sylvet washable or the double-sided jewelers cloth typically sold in drug stores. The only other tools you need are elbow grease and common sense.

2. For deep scratches, use Never-Dull, usually sold in drug stores and hardware stores. Never-Dull is cotton impregnated with a strong cleaner/polisher.

It has an unpleasant smell (like the polishing compound for cars) but works fast, leaving behind only faint scratches that can be removed with a jeweler’s cloth. And presto, you’ve got a mirror finish!

CAVEAT: You will always leave microscopic scratches on a highly polished SS (or gold) surface. These ultra-fine scratches are visible only in bright light and from a certain angle.

The only perfect finish is a factory finish. Even jobs done by jewelers are still inferior to the factory mirror finish.

Brushed Stainless Steel

1. To remove fine scratches, use a jewelers cloth. Be GENTLE or you will put a shine on the finish, which will not quite match the brushed look. If that happens, you can put the brushed finish back on by following Step 3 below.

2. For scratches over a small area, use a fiber-glass brush. It looks like a mechanical pencil with a bundle of glass fibers instead of lead that can be dispensed from the tip.

You brush this glass-fiber tip on the SS surface to remove the scratches and to create a new brush finish. We would not recommend using this tool over a large area because the brush strokes tend to be uneven, especially around curves, though you can get better with practice.

WARNING: The broken fiber glass on your skin can cause unpleasant itches. Wear a thin latex glove and use a brush to remove fiber-glass debris from your watch after repair.

3. For scratches over a large area, use a Styrofoam block made for polishing finger nails (sold in beauty supply store). Each block is about an inch thick and 3 inches long. Its surface is impregnated with a very fine abrasive material.

Brush gently with the grain to remove the scratches and to blend the new brush strokes with the original ones. I prefer this Styrofoam block to sand paper or steel wool as it is easy to grip and to maneuver.

The soft Styrofoam also conforms to curved surfaces and is very forgiving.

With patience, you can even remove deep dents and reshape small parts safely with this Styrofoam polisher.

Final Comments on Steel

Above tips are for repairing minor scratches which are annoying to you but not worth a trip to your local watchmaker/jeweler, or shipping out the watch.

If you are careful and patient, the results can be very satisfying.

But to restore the whole watch, often a necessity when you dabble in vintage watches, We have found it best to send the watch out to professionals with the right tools and skills for the job.

Gold or Platinum

For gold filled or gold plate, we would recommend that you leave them alone – you don’t want to remove any more of the finish than already exists!

Many times, but not always, the watch suddenly starts to be very fast. For example, you may notice that it has been advanced by one hour or more in one afternoon. In other cases, when the exposure to magnetic force is small, the timing may not “reach the standard.” The only truly known method is to degauss the watch and record an immediate improvement in the timing rate.

The simple answer is yes, in some cases it is easy. Many watch repair centers will quote magnetism as the number one source of watch timing problems.

The good news is that in most cases, the degaussing process and the cost of mechanical watches are small, and regular demagnetization can prove to be a useful maintenance program for the home.

Mechanical watches may be magnetized by various sources. Although the culprit cannot be fully listed, the following is a summary of the types of items and/or equipment that can generate a magnetic field sufficient to magnetize a mechanical watch:

Electrical equipment rooms
Frequent flying (exposure to higher altitudes)
IT and other large computer/data center equipment
Large audio and video equipment
Large monitors used for video, IT, diagnostic
Large speaker systems (or close proximity to smaller speakers)
Larger microwave ovens
Medical diagnostic equipment
Most equipment in a medical setting
Patient care and transport equipment
Security systems (including at airports)
Telecommunications switches and equipment
Very close and frequent proximity to cell phones, laptops, hard drives