Are gold watches less susceptible to magnetism?

[Zio Di Roma]

As per another thread. I have just bought a JLC Master Control in stainless and it is hugely susceptible to magnetism. Even my Logitech keyboard has it magnetised in minutes.

I am assuming the reason it suffers more than my sports watches is that it is quite slender and fine.

If I were to swap it out for a gold dress watch, would it be less likely to become magnetised?

[Zio Di Roma]

Hang On said:

No. Not much in it but a gold watch is more likely to become magnetised than the same watch in steel. The steel watch case provides at least some shielding but the Gold watch case provides none.

Really? I am no metallurgist but I imagined that gold would be a form of shielding.

This isn’t just an excuse to upgrade to a Calatrava…

[Zio Di Roma]

gregs656 said:

I am am amazed you are having this problem from a keyboard.

Gold case won't help as mentioned above.

It gets magnetised if I even look at it for too long!

I demagged it this morning and put it in a watch roll in my briefcase, by lunchtime it was magnetised.

If I put a compass on my desk, and present the keyboard to it, there is significant deflection. So I can see how it may be to blame.

All of my watches become magnetised. But the JLC is in a league of its own.

[Zio Di Roma]

I have spoken to the seller of the watch and they are happy to have it back, if I am unhappy.

However, will I experience the same problem with any other dress watch I buy? Whilst my Rolexes do all get magnetised, it is an occasional thing and they still work fairly well.

I might speak to a watch repairer locally tomorrow, to see what they think.

[Zio Di Roma]

Lord Marylebone said:

As far as I am aware, I can't say I have ever had this issue, with any watch, ever.

I'm guessing the telltale sign is a watch running noticeably fast or slow, as in a couple of minutes or more per day?

No. None of mine run more than 10-20 seconds a day wrong when magnetised. All of them run well within COSC when not magnetised.

Test your mechanical watch with a compass, if you have one. Wait for the needle to become still and lower the watch over it. If the needle deflects noticeably it's magnetised.

I think magnetism is far more widespread than people think. Before anti-magnetic mainsprings, watches WOULD run very fast if magnetised. Nowadays, other components still become magnetised and cause less noticeable deviations. That may be a loss or a gain and often only a few seconds.

Every mechanical watch I have owned in recent years has become magnetised at some point. Some are worse than others. My Sub is fairly immune and then actually runs BETTER when magnetised. I had a Sea Dweller than magnetised easily and ran poorly.

[Zio Di Roma]

944 Man said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254954222476?chn=ps&amp...

I've got one of those. Used it at 08:00 yesterday. By 18:00 the watch had lost 5 seconds as was very magnetised.

I would add that the JLC Master Control is a watch that is sold on its "1000 hours" of attention to its finish and accuracy.

[Zio Di Roma]

Lord Marylebone said:

Zio Di Roma said:

Lord Marylebone said:

As far as I am aware, I can't say I have ever had this issue, with any watch, ever.

I'm guessing the telltale sign is a watch running noticeably fast or slow, as in a couple of minutes or more per day?

No. None of mine run more than 10-20 seconds a day wrong when magnetised. All of them run well within COSC when not magnetised.

Test your mechanical watch with a compass, if you have one. Wait for the needle to become still and lower the watch over it. If the needle deflects noticeably it's magnetised.

I think magnetism is far more widespread than people think. Before anti-magnetic mainsprings, watches WOULD run very fast if magnetised. Nowadays, other components still become magnetised and cause less noticeable deviations. That may be a loss or a gain and often only a few seconds.

Every mechanical watch I have owned in recent years has become magnetised at some point. Some are worse than others. My Sub is fairly immune and then actually runs BETTER when magnetised. I had a Sea Dweller than magnetised easily and ran poorly.

I’ll be honest, if any of my watches only lost/gained a few seconds per day then I wouldn’t notice there was a problem.

I don’t think any of them are particularly accurate from that perspective. Could be their age, could be a knock/bump they’ve had, maybe they need a service, maybe they are magnetised…. Who knows.

I just accept that part of the fun of owning a mechanical watch is that I will likely have to adjust the time once a week or so. If all my watches only lost or gained 1 minute ish a week then I would be pretty happy with that.

Equally I accept that other people may demand that their watches remain accurate constantly.

For entertainment, get a cheap compass and test them.

[Zio Di Roma]

gregs656 said:

If I was checking my watches regularly during the day for magnetism, I'd sell them and move on.

I don't. Only when they are new and I am trying to find out how they run.

[Zio Di Roma]

Lord Marylebone said:

Zio Di Roma said:

gregs656 said:

If I was checking my watches regularly during the day for magnetism, I'd sell them and move on.

I don't. Only when they are new and I am trying to find out how they run.

I would ask what the point of checking them is?

If you buy watch you like, then does it really matter if it is getting magnetised or not? You wouldn't sell a watch you really liked just because it was getting slightly magnetised.

You would just live with it, and accept that mechanical watches can be slightly inaccurate for all manner of reasons. It's just a factor of ownership.

I check my new watches to ensure that they are operating within acceptable parameters. If that is an accuracy range stated by the manufacturer, or COSC, that is what I expect to be the case. Otherwise, I expect quality watches to run within 10 seconds / day which is a generally accepted reasonable standard.

After that, I just check occasionally to ensure that the watch is running correctly and not magnetised. It isn't a regular thing.

With regard to your other comments, you're speaking for yourself there, not me.

[Zio Di Roma]

I ran the JLC into a watchmaker today. He said “If you wear a watch like that, expect magnetism”.

He then offered to make me a gorgeous hand wound gold dress watch for a shade shy of £70k…

He also said that a gold case won’t help much in terms of magnetism.

[Zio Di Roma]

DJP said:

Lord Marylebone said:

As far as I am aware, I can't say I have ever had this issue, with any watch, ever.

I'm guessing the telltale sign is a watch running noticeably fast or slow, as in a couple of minutes or more per day?

Me neither.

However, my youngest has managed to magnetize any watch that I've ever given him except for the G-Shock that he wears now.

And no, I have no idea how he does it only that I never do.

Out of interest, do you test your watches for magnetism, or are you just going by the fact that they keep time OK?

[Zio Di Roma]

bordseye said:

Fascinating - never thought this could happen and am as surprised as the writer above that it happens with a keyboard.

FWIW anthing with steel / iron in it can become magnetised - only austenitic stainless is largely immune. What is magnetising your watch is a DC current flow but it should be tiny from a keyboard. Just waggled a compass over my keyboard and the deflection is about 5 degrees which suggests a very weak magnetic field highly unlikely to put any significant permanent magnetism in your watch

But to answer your original question changing the case to gold would not make the slightest difference apart from making it prettier and costing you twice as much. If the effect you are noticing really is magnetic then its likely to be magnetism affecting internal steel components but TBH I dont believe it.

Edited by bordseye on Saturday 25th September 16:26

Edited by bordseye on Saturday 25th September 16:29

Well the watchmakers I spoke to yesterday, and they are proper makers of watches, said that magnetism is pretty much a guaranteed situation with a skinny dress watch. Which is a conclusion that I was coming to myself.

[Zio Di Roma]

944 Man said:

Zio Di Roma said:

944 Man said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254954222476?chn=ps&amp...

I've got one of those. Used it at 08:00 yesterday. By 18:00 the watch had lost 5 seconds as was very magnetised.

I would add that the JLC Master Control is a watch that is sold on its "1000 hours" of attention to its finish and accuracy.

Is it you? Some people suffer from this far more than others.

Well I DO have a magnetic personality.

[Zio Di Roma]

Here is an interesting thing (maybe).

I've been wearing the JLC magnetised, watching it losing an average of 5-10 seconds per day. It was quite well magnetised.

I haven't demagged it, but just tested it again and it is not magnetised. At all. So it has lost its magnetism.

[Zio Di Roma]

bordseye said:

In which case it never had any magnetism.

That would be my initial response, were it not for the fact that I am pretty confident that it did!

A few days ago, the watch would significantly deflect the needle of a compass. Today, not at all.

It's weird I tell you.

[Zio Di Roma]

bordseye said:

how are you de magnetising them?

A demagnetiser.

[Zio Di Roma]

This subject is starting to draw me in.

I have been messing about with the compass and demag tool and discovered that the watch shows different degrees of magnetism in different aspects. So, it will show as magnetised dial down and not dial up, for example.

Also, I can demag the watch, leave it somewhere well away from magnets and it will again become magnetised.

My current working theory is that my demag tool is not fully demagnetising the watch and internal components are magnetising one another.

I have this morning ordered an Elma anti-mag tool and will try it with that.

[Zio Di Roma]

mikeveal said:

Zio Di Roma said:

This subject is starting to draw me in.

I have been messing about with the compass and demag tool and discovered that the watch shows different degrees of magnetism in different aspects. So, it will show as magnetised dial down and not dial up, for example.

Also, I can demag the watch, leave it somewhere well away from magnets and it will again become magnetised.

My current working theory is that my demag tool is not fully demagnetising the watch and internal components are magnetising one another.

I have this morning ordered an Elma anti-mag tool and will try it with that.

Well, partly you are correct.
The zero magnetic field that you appear to be chasing isn't practical or possible. You probably have a mixture of ferromagentic & paramagnetic materials. Achieving a lasting zero guass isn't ever going to happen.

I think your test may be flawed too. If a material is magnetic, it will distort a magentic field, even if it has no net field of it's own.
Electro-magnetic fields are essentially lazy buggers. If you offer them the choice of two mediums, they will always choose the easiest one.
So, if you offer the earth's magnetic field a choice between flowing through air, or a lump of completely demagnetised iron, it will divert from it's normal path and go through the iron as a shortcut.
What this means is, even a completely demagnetised magnetic material will deflect a compass needle. The bigger the lump (and the lower it's relative permeability) the more the needle is deflected.

I am still waiting for the Elma to arrive.

However, last night I spent quite some time demagging the watch. I found that by demagging it in one aspect, it worsened the magnetism in another. However, I eventually got to a position where I could not move the compass needle in any aspect.

Lo and behold, the watch gained a fraction of a second overnight, instead of losing.

I take your point that the compass test is not perfect, but I know when a watch is magnetised.

I cannot help but think the little JLC is going to spend much of its life magnetised, as it was when I bought it.

[Zio Di Roma]

bordseye said:

Finally got off my backside to try a simple experiment. I have two old style mechanical watches, both Omega as it happens and neither of chronomter quality. Anyway, wound them up and put both side by side into a sealed steel container to ensure no outside magnetic influence. Measured their accuracy over half an hour using the stop watch on my phone. Then repeated the same exercise after putting a strong magnet inside the box - it was in fact the magnet from a speaker. Repeated the exercise twice both with and without the magnet.

I should add that one watch is stainless steel whilst the other is a gold seamaster

To my surprise, the magnet did affect timekeeping causing both watches to gain at the rate of about 6 seconds per hour compared to what they did when there wasnt a magnet present. The gold case of the seamaster made no difference whatsoever - the gain was the same for both watches. Not really surprisng since the magnetic effect of austenitic stainless and gold are similar

Yes the experiment was a bit crude and could be significantly refined. But I did spend my university years in the physics lab so I am confident that the results are worth some consideration.

If I am understanding you correctly, the experiment didn't demonstrate whether your watches are magnetised. What you demonstrated was that your watches perform differently in the presence of a strong magnet.

Get a compass. Wait for the needle to settle. Move your watch close to the glass of the compass. Does the needle move noticeably?

If it does, your watch is magnetised and probably not working optimally. (No, the compass test isn't perfect but a noticeably deflecting needle is generally a sign of magnetism).

[Zio Di Roma]

[url]

This has arrived. Much beefier than the Chinese demag tool.

Demagnetises in a second with a beep.

|https://thumbsnap.com/vYtj9qMQ[/url]