First, isochronism is the ability of a watch to maintain constant time independent of the influences around it. Some of the things that affect isochronism include: magnetism, external shocks, friction, and poise of the balance and hairspring. Magnetism is one that you will certainly notice right away.

This week I had a customer’s watch come in that I had serviced about 6 months ago. He said it was losing 15-20 minutes a day. It always makes me nervous when a watch comes back in, but this one was an easy fix. I put it on the timing machine and verified that it was in deed running slow and the amplitude was very low. I didn’t see any immediate issues so I put in on the demagnitizer. — Back on the timing machine: running well again. Magnetism can cause your watch to run fast or slow by even hours a day, I have even seen it bring a watch to a stop.

So, how does your watch become magnetized? If you work around medical equipment it can be a comon occurrence for your watch to become heavily magnetized, but there is a culprit that most of us use that we don’t really think about. You see, all electrical devices produces a small magnetic field. The closer you are to them, the stronger the field. Do you rest your wrists on a laptop when you type? If you do, that could be a cause. Speakers, cell phones, magnets. There are lots of things that can magnetize your watch, unless you get one of these:

Photo courtesy of wristwatchhaven.com

Your watchmaker can take care of the problem without even opening your watch, so if you have noticed a drastic change in your timekeeping, it might just be that electromagnetic enemy: magnetism.

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