HELP! - Doubt about winding - Sturmanskie Gagarin - Poljot 2609

[Joma1099]

Hi, my name is Jose Grimaldo, and I AM NOT A WATCH HOBBYIST OR PROFESSIONAL.
 

To be honest I have never been interested in watches, but on a recent vacation to Russia, I came upon a wristwatch which I loved. It was love at first sight, so I bought it. It’s a Sturmanskie Gagarin Heritage - Copper version, which from my understanding, is based on a Poljot 2609 mechanism.

My question is not about watch repairing, but more about the winding of the watch. Again, this is my first watch, and specially my first manual mechanical watch. The first time I wound it, I did 30/35 clockwise rotations (which according to the manual, is about the number of rotations you should do) and everything was smooth and perfect, but the last couple of times I’ve wound it, I can only do maybe 8 or 10 rotations before the crown suddenly becomes very resistant (don’t know really how to explain this, it just becomes “springy”).

I just don’t want to keep winding after that, because it feels like if I continue winding after this tension suddenly appears, I might damage something…

Anyone has idea what is going on? Am I doing something wrong, or missing something?

Thanks in advance, hope someone can guide me in the right direction

 

Edited September 18, 2024 by Joma1099
Missing info

[AndyGSi]

Welcome to the forum.

How long is it running for before you try and wind it to only get 8 to 10 rotations?

[Waggy]

@Joma1099 This is a good question, one of the things I hear a lot is "careful you don't over-wind it" or I over-wound it and now it won't work. Even my wife an mother still tell me this after mannnnnnnny times of explaining.

In essence the spring has a 'stop' built into it, so when you are winding you can keep on going until you find the resistance abruptly change, even if you try you cannot wind beyond this point as the watch is designed to be wound to this point - obviously you could go further and break the watch, but this would take considerable effort.

There is one caveat to the above, this is for automatic watches, ie those that wind themselves from your wrist movement. These watches are built without a stop on the spring and once the maximum wind is applied the spring is designed to slip. So you can keep winding these forever as you should never feel a discrete sudden resistance.

In short - unless you are the hulk, wind away and don't worry about it

[AndyGSi]

13 minutes ago, Waggy said:

@Joma1099 This is a good question, one of the things I hear a lot is "careful you don't over-wind it" or I over-wound it and now it won't work. Even my wife an mother still tell me this after mannnnnnnny times of explaining.

In essence the spring has a 'stop' built into it, so when you are winding you can keep on going until you find the resistance abruptly change, even if you try you cannot wind beyond this point as the watch is designed to be wound to this point - obviously you could go further and break the watch, but this would take considerable effort.

There is one caveat to the above, this is for automatic watches, ie those that wind themselves from your wrist movement. These watches are built without a stop on the spring and once the maximum wind is applied the spring is designed to slip. So you can keep winding these forever as you should never feel a discrete sudden resistance.

In short - unless you are the hulk, wind away and don't worry about it

The Poljot 2609 is a Manual wind not and not an Automatic.

[nevenbekriev]

@Joma1099, several things to say here.

First, my 30 turns by the fingers will differ from Yours. There is no exact definition for '1 turn by fingers', at least unless You have put black dot with permanent marker on the crown and count real turns of it.

Then, when You first wound the watch, it has been fully unwound, after full discharge of the spring. Hope You understand, that the amount of turns will depend on the time between windings. If You have wound it to the end before 5 hours, then twice smaller amount of turns is to be expected than if wound before 10 hours and 4 times smaller if wound before 20 hours. The full amount of turns is to be expected only when the watch has stopped due full discharge of the spring, may be after 40 hours of work after full wind.

[Joma1099]

17 hours ago, AndyGSi said:

Welcome to the forum.

How long is it running for before you try and wind it to only get 8 to 10 rotations?

It runs for maybe 8 hours, then it stops, and then I wind it again, only to find I can only wind it about 8 rotations before the crown starts to feel tense. The crown tries to rotate back counterclockwise with strenght, that’s why I stop there.

[Joma1099]

16 hours ago, AndyGSi said:

The Poljot 2609 is a Manual wind not and not an Automatic.

Correct

[Joma1099]

14 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

@Joma1099, several things to say here.

First, my 30 turns by the fingers will differ from Yours. There is no exact definition for '1 turn by fingers', at least unless You have put black dot with permanent marker on the crown and count real turns of it.

Then, when You first wound the watch, it has been fully unwound, after full discharge of the spring. Hope You understand, that the amount of turns will depend on the time between windings. If You have wound it to the end before 5 hours, then twice smaller amount of turns is to be expected than if wound before 10 hours and 4 times smaller if wound before 20 hours. The full amount of turns is to be expected only when the watch has stopped due full discharge of the spring, may be after 40 hours of work after full wind.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I’m only winding it after it stops running, after that I wind it again, only to feel this strong resistance after the 8 or 10th rotation. The crown begins to try to rotate counter clockwise strongly between each click.

[rjenkinsgb]

Possibly its in need of a service and not running down all the way, due to dried or sticky oil in the movement?

How long does it run for after a full wind?

 

[AndyGSi]

Sounds to me like there's a problem with the click once there's tension on the spring.

You need to remove the back and see how the click works as you're winding it.

Edited September 19, 2024 by AndyGSi

[GPrideaux]

If it only ran for 8 hours or so then stopped there is definitely something wrong that has nothing to do with your winding of it. It should run for about 38 hours on a full wind. If you're lucky it may just need a service. The likely reason you can only give it 8 or 10 winds is that the mainspring is still about 3/4 wound and the real question is why is it stopping with so much power still in the mainspring.