PMWF 1st Half Year Contest

The Competition

Dear All

I just decided to give away another Seiko T-Shirt, I will draw a lucky winner amongst the wrong answers and amongst those entries with no answers because I appreciate all your posts!

It was on December 14th when the idea of PMWF was realized. Charles McCoy from Denver (cwm) was my first visitor and he encouraged me to keep going...and he was right...PMWF has established itself as a friendly watch forum with exciting posts every day.

This time it is not just a "Post your name contest" what would be to simple, because the prizes are quite tempting:

1st price: Orient Automatic with large date window sponsored by Greg Heath (Heat) who is currently buried by lots of work
2nd price: A Crystal Clear Kit from http://www.watchpolishing.com also including a strap revitalizing lotion called REVEAL, value USD 29.90 (this price will be shipped to you by watchpolishing.com directly
3rd price: a Seiko "See Through" T-Shirt

Here are the questions:

1. Question: One should not shake a mechanical watch. The shaken watch could trip off the the escape wheel when
A. The watch is shook in half frequency (1/2 beats per second, bph)
B. The watch is shook in double frequency 2*bps
C. The watch is shook in resonance with the frequency = bps

2. Question: An increased effect of this shaking "mystery" will occur if
A. The main spring is almost unloaded
B. The main spring is fully charged
C. The charge state of the main spring has no influence at all

Please post the two letters into the subject line, I will pick the winners tomorrow and the prizes will be mailed out by Monday.

Good luck everybody and a BIG THANK YOU to all you that made PMWF HAPPEN!

Best regards

Reto
 

The Answers

Dear All

I hope you had some fun. About the solutions:

 1A: please read the "Shaking Watch Mystery" article on this website or also Walt Arnstein's "Does Faster Mean More Accurate?" article in TZ Classics.

Basically shaking the watch in half frequency can obviously bring the balance wheel into resonance and thus trigger gains of seconds. I never observed losses.

2A: an almost discharged main spring will favor the instabilities because the watch is in a less stable state.

Reya is now with me and will draw the lucky winners, will announce them shortly.

Best regards

Reto

 

The Drawing

The Winners

1st Prize: Orient Automatic: Michel Honoré

2nd Prize: Crystal Clear & Reveal Watchpolishing Kit: fishtek

3rd Prize: Seiko T-Shirt: Vu

4th Prize: Seiko T-Shirt: redhamlet

Congratulations to all winners!