A mechanical watch can consist of hundreds of parts. When a watch is subject to magnetic fields, it can become magnetized.
The goods news to all of this is that there is an easy and affordable fix to demagnetise your watch. all you need is a demagnetiser. Watch demagnetizers are cheap to buy and can demagnetize your watch in just a few seconds.
Magnetism can be a major headache with hand-wound and automatic watches, the most commonly affected component is the hairspring, even though most of the mechanical movements which we use would tend to use Nivarox (Nivarox is an acronym for Nicht Variabel Oxydfest (in English Non-Variable Oxidizing Resistant) although these hairsprings contain modern alloys that are much less affected by magnetism and are supposed to be highly resistant to magnetic fields in real life magnetism can still be a problem because the alloy is a combination of iron and nickel, even though the mechanical movements we use are either Seiko or sometimes Sellita the spring can still suffer issues. In simple terms what happens is that the coils of the hairspring stick together, this means is that the spring is actually then somewhat shorter in real terms which consequently causes the watch to gain. Although fortunately, it's not particularly common it's not unheard of for the springs to stick together to such a degree that the watch movement cannot operate at all.
Fortunately, no damage is normally done and the watch can be demagnetised by any watchmaker. Demagnetisers are usually around €40 / £35 / US$49 but a watchmaker should be able to do the job in seconds and we usually have stock of these products ourselves. Rarely it needs to be performed twice but usually once is enough, the main thing is the watch doesn't come into contact again with whatever caused the problem in the first place.
The basic problem is that magnets are everywhere, examples are the scanners at airports, MRI machines smartphones and tablets, handbags, which frequently have magnets in their clasps and worst of all items such as speakers and TVs, even the door contacts of a security system on Windows are magnetic in many cases. The problem is because magnets and magnetism are so prevalent sometimes you wouldn't even realise that you've come into contact.
One of our customers said that every mechanical watch he ever wore suffered from this problem and therefore he was going to opt for a quartz model (these are less affected) but the problem was identified as being caused by something he used to work to remove security tags, although this of course released the magnets in the tags his watch was in contact with magnetism constantly during the course of the day!
If you have a compass it's easy to find out if this problem has arisen, just place your watch near a compass. If the compass needle moves, your watch has been magnetised. It's a 100% reliable diagnosis.
How to use a demagnetizer
The process of using a demagnetiser to demagnetise your watch is simple and very straightforward.
To use it, you simply pass the watch back and forth over the device to remove the magnetic field thereby returning operation to normal. Each device of course also comes with a straightforward using guide.
Please note that these demagnetisers are fitted with a standard European plug if you're using it in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta Etc you can simply use a shaver adapter.
