# I Need Some Advice Regarding My New Vostok...



## dtoddmiller (Sep 29, 2005)

I hope someone can help me. I've owned a Poljot mechanical chronograph for years, and recently bought my first automatic Vostok.

It is an automatic/hand wind model, in the new Kirovskie-reproduction style, with a small, off-center second hand. (It's the 60th anniversary edition for the Soviet victory in WWII). I've never owned an automatic before, and need some information on how it is supposed to work.

Per the instructions, I hand wound the watch 25 turns when I first received it. However, despite the fact I wear the watch all day, it inevitably stops after a few hours. As an experiment, I hand wound the watch about 50 turns, and it ran for a whole day with no stoppage (and near-perfect timekeeping).

My question is, can one overwind an automatic? I wind my Poljot mechanical until I meet resistance, but I never meet any resistance when winding my Vostok. I'm afraid that I'm going to damage the mechanism.

Forgive my ignorance if this is an elementary question. I truly appreciate any responses.


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## Griff (Feb 23, 2003)

You cant overwind a Swiss or Japanese auto, and presume the same of Russian


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

Welcome to the forum dtoddmiller.

No, you can't overwind an automatic watch and, generally speaking, 40-50 turns on the crown when manually winding it is quite sufficient to ensure that the mainspring is as wound-up as it can be. Generally speaking again, you should find that the watch runs for 36-48 hours from a full wind. I generally find the officially quoted running times are quite conservative.

When wearing an automatic watch it rather depends on your day-to-day activities as to whether the watch stays wound or not. The movement contains a rotor which spins around as you move about and this winds up the mainspring which drives the watch. Thus, sedentary activities will obviously not keep the watch wound-up as much as more animated ones.


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## Polo_Step (Aug 24, 2005)

rhaythorne said:


> Thus, sedentary activities will obviously not keep the watch wound-up as much as more animated ones.
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My buddy the hand drummer will probably receive his surprise gift Amfibiya (the "jaunty nautical" one) in the mail tomorrow, so I imagine we'll know all about that soon.









Actually, I've told him in the enclosed note not to wear it for that action, not wanting to tempt fate.


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## Polo_Step (Aug 24, 2005)

rhaythorne said:


> The movement contains a rotor which spins around as you move about and this winds up the mainspring which drives the watch.
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Do you know if the 2416b weight winds in both rotational directions, or one? I was reading something about this in the watch books the other day and wondered.


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

My guess is that it winds in both directions, but I don't know for sure.


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## dtoddmiller (Sep 29, 2005)

Thank you rhaythorne. I'm glad to know it's not a defect with the watch (or my imagination).


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## Xantiagib (Apr 22, 2005)

I can confirm its rotor is Bi-directional in winding.


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## johnbaz (Jan 30, 2005)

hi there

it could be that the rotor is slightly tight,on some watches (auto) that i've looked at for friends,especially seikos for some reason,the rotor seems reluctant to drop when the watch is turned,and has to be vigerously shaken to get the rotor to spin,on two occasions all that was needed was very slight oiling of the ballrace of the rotor,the power reserve on both the watches is now considerably better









regards,john.


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## USEDMODEL (Mar 26, 2005)

Griff said:


> You cant overwind a Swiss or Japanese auto, and presume the same of Russian
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You cannot overwind any automatic movement as the mainspring is not fixed in it's housing. Once fully wound, the mainspring just slips.


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