Everyday Use
Can i get my watch wet?
It all depends on how wet the watch was made to get. Typically, splashes are O.K for a WR30m watch, light swimming without extended immersion for WR50m, swimming for a WR100m watch, and diving for WR200m. Where you get your watch wet is also critical. Try to avoid dunking even depth rated watches in hot water, like in the bath or shower; the heat can twist seals and soapy detergents can hurt your watch. The chlorine in swimming pools isn’t the best chum to look at seals either; it’s best to totally rinse off your watch in water after swimming in a pool. Likewise after swimming in the sea, used clean water to wash out all that salt!
What about heat and sunlight?
Heat from the sauna can be damaging, especially if you go into icy waters right after. Rapid contraction happens in quick hot to cold changes like that, and the seal might have softened from the heat, which can lead to damage. Also, moisture will remain in the watch due to the air inside, and rapid cooling will make it condense and it might stain the crystal.
If you live in a hot area of the planet, heat cannot be avoided. However, if at all possible, avoid leaving / wearing the watch in direct robust daylight; firstly the watch is going to get extraordinarily hot which will not do the lubricants much good; secondly, direct daylight like that can prematurely age dials and cause dial lacquers to lift or micro bubble. This doesn’t suggest you should keep your watch under your sleeves when it’s sunny! It’s simply a case of using commonsense and trying not to fry yourself or your watch!
Shockproof?
It could be shock-resistant but it is best not to check its capability to withstand shock; mechanical watches are always fitted with certain shock soaking up devices nowadays but despite this, don’t show your watch to unexpected shocks, vibration, dropping for example. There is a limit in the toughness of mechanical watches; exposure to grim shock could cause mechanical failure at worst and affect timekeeping at the very least.
On the back of my watch, it asserts anti-magnetic.
Watches are antimagnetic to a certain depress - meaning, timekeeping will not be adversely influenced because they’re made to stand exposure to limited magnetic fields. However, high magnetic fields can only be withstood by expert watches. So, for our common-or-garden automatic what should we avoid. First, remember that there are masses of metal within mechanical watches, and each element interact with the others. It any of these delicate components is magnetized, the watch may stop altogether, or run very erratically. This is not something the general public have to worry about.
Try to not get too paranoid about it, try and avoid getting your timepiece too near to magnets, stereo speakers, PC monitors…even the rubber magnetized seal round the fridge door. All of these are a potential source of trouble.
