Episode 149 - How Durable is Your Watch?

Published on Wed, 01 Sep 2021 21:06:47 -0700

Synopsis

The podcast hosts Andrew and Everett discuss the durability of watches and how much stress different activities may put on them. They cover water resistance ratings, shock resistance from impacts like golfing or catching a baseball, and the risks of magnetism from everyday electronics. The hosts aim to dispel myths and provide practical advice on reasonable precautions for various activities while reassuring listeners that modern watches can generally withstand ordinary wear. They emphasize regular maintenance like checking gaskets for water resistance and note that magnetism is likely the biggest hazard for most watch wearers in today's world of ubiquitous electronic devices generating magnetic fields. Towards the end, Andrew recommends the new Stephen King novel "Billy Summers" as an enjoyable work of fiction without supernatural elements that King is known for. Everett mentions an upcoming auction of items from the estate of Al Capone, including some watches and other accessories that could be of interest to collectors.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 and 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your host, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Everett Everett, how are you? I'm good. I liked your roll. I liked your roll into the into the intro there. Oh, it was like an unusual. I think so. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I've only heard you do it 149 times. Is this episode 150? 149 today.
Andrew Okay. By my count. I don't know. There was a long time that you, that I was actually misnumbering them and you were correcting them and you thought that I was just fucking with you putting the wrong number in, but I was just adding one from the last number that I used. The lost episodes. There's probably, there's gotta be lost up. Well, there are lost episodes, like episodes we thought we recorded.
Everett It turns out that we didn't hit record. Yeah, no, that's true. That's happened. Uh, It's been a long time.
Andrew Yeah. Since we've gone analog, we have not had that issue.
Everett Yeah. I mean, I think that there was, there were at least one or two times where we did like a half hour.
Andrew Oh yeah. And there were times we'd go a full episode. There were, I'd say there's probably 10 total redos in the early catalog.
Everett It's nice that we figured some of this stuff out.
Andrew We're not good at many things. We're just pretty okay at this.
Everett If we've learned anything, it's how not to record most of an episode without pushing record. Yeah. Hi. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. I've got a surgery in two days. I'm starting in two days. Damn. Yes. So I thought it was the 18th. No, the second. Clearly. So when you guys are hearing this,
Andrew There's gonna be some day, some dude filleting your leg. Very, very likely. With lasers.
Everett I think it's in the afternoon, so I'll probably be getting mentally prepared. I don't think there's anything I actually have to do to prepare. Do you have to fast? I do. That's butt. I have to fast, and it's in the afternoon too, so my general instructions at this point are nothing after midnight. And water? Water. Oh, yeah water is okay, but the server is not till two o'clock.
Andrew So it's gonna be Oh, you just have an IF day, that'll be fine. She had a big-ass dinner and you're good.
Everett That's right Yeah, maybe not too big. But but yeah, I'll be fine. I talked to the anesthesiologist tomorrow. I don't have any actual fear I don't have any actual concerns, but I'm just starting to have this sort of nagging.
Andrew Yeah, it's scary.
Everett It's totally general anxiety about it. Yeah. Other than that, I'm good.
Andrew Dude, they're gonna. Have you ever been under general before?
Everett Yeah. Lots of times. I wouldn't know. Yeah. Yeah. Several times.
Andrew It's a general anesthetic surgery.
Everett Yeah, it is. They say a light general anesthetic. Um, but yeah, I'll be out.
Andrew How long are they expecting the surgery to take?
Everett Uh, 20 minutes. 20 minutes? God. Yeah. Uh, out the hospital for three hours. Yeah, they bring me in at 2 and they said Kim should be ready to pick me up between 4.30 and 5. Oh, that's quick. Yeah. Yeah. So, all things said and done, three hours. Uh, actually, doctor touching my leg, 20 minutes. 15 to 20 minutes. Man. Yeah. I watched one. I need that guy's job.
Andrew I know. Guy does a dozen of those a day and buys a Ferrari.
Everett Yeah, I think they do like three a week, um, which doesn't seem like a lot, but if you, yeah, I'm sure it is. Uh, I watched one of these things and it's actually kind of violent. Uh, I was a little, you know, you know, you don't know what they're going to, you know, it's like, uh, I don't know if you've ever watched like a painting restoration on YouTube. Like they take, you expect them to be really, Ginger and you know almost this old painting.
Andrew They're hit with a wire brush and a pressure washer You know, it's just the surgery was the same thing right it's like you're fine, but I was still shocked at the violence of force Yeah, anyway, I'm feeling a little anxiety, but I yeah, I used to get cortical steroid injections in my spine and I always wondered what they were doing back there because you know felt a little pressure felt a couple pokes and I was like I wonder what this looks like and I watched a YouTube video of it, and that was a giant mistake. Because the guy's like, yeah, I do about 25 of these a day. And that's all he does. It's just this clinic. That's just a spinal pain management clinic. And that's all he does. He just hits people with spinal injections all day. And I watched the video, and they hit like a couple spots with lidocaine. So those were the first pinches I felt. And then he's kind of generally numb you yeah and he's he's looking at he has like an x-ray screen above your back like like I level with him and he's looking down at your injection point and he kind of free hands it in like he knows where he's going he just drives the needle in and once he starts getting depth he's watching on the x-ray or whatever scanner they're using gets the desired depth hits it retracts out of the vertebrae, makes a twist, and then plunged it into the next gap. And I was like, and I was getting four, so he's hitting me with four of those, and I was like, and it's a long needle, obviously, because they put it in just about over your kidney, like on your side. So you have like five inches of needle in you. Regret watching it.
Everett Yeah, you know, when I had a, tumor removed from my shoulder about, I don't know, two years ago.
Andrew I don't think it was that long. Well, maybe it was.
Everett Yeah. It was pre COVID. So, um, and it was, uh, it was fine. Right. They just did it, you know, outpatient local anesthetic and the kids had asked what had happened, you know, what's this. And so Kim pulled up a video on YouTube when we showed them, that was a mistake because I'm still like sort of feeling the pain of this thing having just happened that day. And yeah, I got like lightheaded, had to like lay down on the floor. He did what? Yeah. Yeah. Don't watch your surgeries kids. Uh, don't, don't do it. So no, but yeah, other than that, I'm fine.
Andrew Andrew, how are you? I'm doing well. Mid weekend. Uh, yeah, I mean, it's been kind of a hectic couple days. Uh, but yeah, just, you know, plugging away, living life, getting really excited for this upcoming hunting season. I'm starting to see people posting pictures of their elk that they've put on the ground and I am ecstatic. I went to Cabela's today, topped up on a couple of things that I needed. Also got some salmon fishing gear. Uh, for, you know, like October, November after my elk season is done.
Everett Are you able to get, uh, are you able to get freeze-dried hiking food again? I mean, last time I went to buy freeze-dried hiking food, granted there was a fuckload of it about a year ago. Um, that you couldn't find it anywhere.
Andrew There's, and it's 20% off. Okay. There's a whole wall of it.
Everett An overcorrection.
Andrew Yeah. Oh, no, I think that's their normal inventory. But last time you went was when people were hoarding toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and rice.
Everett Yeah, it was last August. But yeah, it was crazy. Yeah.
Andrew Yeah. No, there's plenty of it. I don't take that because it's just more expensive than... It is pretty expensive. ...what I do. I dehydrate a lot of food and just reconstitute it with some water. Are you making jerky? I am. I'm going to go grocery shopping tomorrow and make... Meat crackers? Make a bunch of meat crackers.
Everett If you've never had Andrew's meat crackers and none of you have, uh, you should try them sometime. They're really good. That's my other thing for the week.
Andrew Just roll out some ground beef after you've seasoned it, throw in the dehydrator for the highest temperature you have. And they're like crackers, but they're, but they're meaty, but they're meat.
Everett Yeah. They're like crackers made on a meat. It's terrific. That's what we call them. Meat crackers. Yeah.
Andrew So we should get to it though, because, uh, we got a lot. We're not going to cover everything we're intending to cover today, and we usually don't, but today I think it's going to be especially so.
Everett Yeah, but that's nice because today we don't have to cover anything. This is a fact. Yeah, we don't have to cover anything. We can just say you're fine.
Andrew Yeah. Play the music. Yeah. Moral of the story is you're fine. So today we're going to be talking about how durable is your watch? And we've touched on this several times. We've touched on it with ISO certifications for water resistance. We've talked about a little bit about shock resistance when we talked to G-Shock. We've talked some anti-magnetism. But today we're gonna go in depth into these things to just make you feel okay about wearing your watches. You're fine. You're good. I'm gonna give a few examples of some of the stress tests that companies have put their watches through. Victorinox, for their Inox, for their 130th anniversary, did 130 unique stress tests on their watch, ranging from perfectly reasonable to downright ridiculous. They froze it in a block of ice and then used weed-burning torches to thaw it out. They strapped it to a bobsled and ran it down a bobsled tube to test its vibration resistance. They ran it over with a steam roller.
Everett That's less stupid. That's cool.
Andrew They put it in a 12g centrifuge. That's a lot. They exposed it to all manner of corrosive agents. And just for good measure, they put it in a coffee pot and boiled it for a while. It obviously succeeded. It took a few iterations for them to find something that succeeded, but 130 unique stress tests. Partnered with Martin Baker. Martin Baker makes ejection seats for jets. Braemont partnered with them and started strapping their watches on dummies that were being ejected from airplanes and other aircraft. We know the story of the Marine Master Pro going down on submersibles. We know the story of Rolex putting what?
Everett Nothing.
Andrew We know the story of Rolex doing the same. Gavox doing the same.
Everett There's James Cameron took the DSD down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Andrew And he wore one inside. And we know what G-Shock does to their watches. These are just factory in-house stress tests that are being done to these watches before they go to market.
Everett And granted, these are the toughest watches on earth. Fair.
Andrew But these are the kinds of stress tests that watches are going through. And they're surviving. These are the toughest watches on earth, but they're not orders of magnitude tougher than your general fare. They're tougher, but we're not talking like paper mache versus steel. Yeah. We're talking generally the same technologies here.
Everett Right. And you know, some of these tests, if not most of them are done for the purposes of marketing, right? Yes. Because there are, laboratory testing settings that can replicate all of these things. Um, or at least most of them. So the, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, the point you're making is that they're doing these things to these very tough watches to show how tough they are and except in some circumstances, uh, you know, deep sea dweller being incredibly just big and tons of brute force or, Um, you know, a watch like, you know, one of these balls or something, which has some proprietary, uh, some proprietary suspension. These watches are kind of, you know, not incredibly special.
Andrew No, but the purpose of those things is to say, Hey, you're never going to do this, but we did it with this watch so that you can feel safe should the opportunity arise. Everything you do doesn't hold a candle to what we've already put it through. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. Real life. I've got a list of things that I think normal people do in their watches. They golf. Play baseball. Participate in shooting sports. Run, swim, recreationally dive. Mow your lawn. The stranger. Yeah, also the stranger. You hammer. And you work around machines, you know, whether it be small table, lathes, computers, televisions, refrigerators, microwaves, you work around things that emit an electromagnetic field. That kind of sums up, I think, normal life for about everyone. Yeah. At least things that are going to put your watch at air quotes, risk and air quotes. You've got some rumors for me that apply to some of these. I'm sorry.
Everett I didn't hear what you said.
Andrew Actually, you've got some myths, some rumors, some things that we need to talk about. Yeah.
Everett I mean, I, I don't have a ton of myths. Um, there are some, I think, widely held beliefs about watch reliability. Those are called myths, just much like Bigfoot that maybe don't have a ton of credence. So, Uh, the first, uh, that I think is notable that we can talk about this as a water resistance feature, uh, watches are often marked with a water resistance rating. Anywhere from 10 meters to in extreme cases, a thousand meters or more, right? I suppose. Um, those numbers. 10 is pretty rare, 10 meters, one atmosphere of pressure. Um, well, so first let's talk about that. The, the watches are tested, not at the amount of meters that's listed, but rather watches are tested at atmospheres, pressure, bars of pressure in a machine. One atmosphere or one bar of pressure roughly approximates the amount of pressure exerted over above that at sea level, um, every 10 meters for one bar. So two bars, 20 meters, three bars, 30 meters. And so I think everybody kind of knows this, but it's important to say a, it's an approximation and B nobody's testing their watches at 30, 50, a hundred meters below sea level, except in maybe odd marketing scenarios.
Andrew And they're going to go with the lowest score. Almost all watches are going to be higher than their rating. It's very much like an expiration date. This is when it peaks. This is at its very best. Still good beyond that, but it's very best. in the rating scheme, it's the very worst. The first model fails at this rating. Yeah.
Everett Yeah. And, and you have to expand that understanding, right? So these, these figures that we get are understandings more than any practically useful number. So a 10 meter watch is not necessarily Intended to be used at up to 10 meters because I think by and large most people when they're doing scuba are diving between 5 and 25 meters and 25 meters is kind of a deep it's gonna be deep dive. Yeah, that's a deep dive, right? So why then our watches rated for 200 meters, which realistically no one is diving at 200 meters Speak for yourself. 600. So these numbers are an understanding, right? It's not meant to be a practically applicable rating for the way you use it. Rather, it's meant to educate us in terms of our understanding of how capable that watch is at resisting water. So 10 meters doesn't mean You can take that watch or you should take that watch to 10 meters below the surface, below sea level. It, what it means is that watch probably doesn't have any water resistance. Yeah. Uh, maybe humidity resistant, maybe 30 meters, certainly humidity resistant, certainly splash resistant 50 meters. Uh, you may be able to bathe or swim, uh, a hundred meters. Uh, you may be able to skin dive as, as folks would like to say 200 meters. So these understandings that we have do not have any bearing on the practical capabilities of that watch. What they're meant to do is to indicate a general level of water resistance that folks can understand. And I think by and large, They do that pretty well.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett I think by and large, if I'm wearing a 30 meter watch, I'm going to understand that that watch is going to keep out any water. Yeah. Humidity. Um, I'm going to feel comfortable washing my hands. Um, I'm probably not going to bathe or go into the hot tub with that watch. So that's maybe myth number one. I don't think that's a myth so much. as just sort of a common misunderstanding based on the terminology. I think that we have adopted this terminology for better or worse. I'm not going to judge that good or bad, but that's, it is what it is. And I think it's important just in the front end, if you've never heard that before, you've never been on watch, you see, perhaps, uh, cause I think most people kind of know this. Most people who are listening to a watch podcast kind of know this stuff. So, What can you do? This is the second myth and I'm going to lean into it a little bit, but what can you do with, say, a 50 meter watch? Because I think we understand 50 meter watches to be capable of keeping out day to day water moisture, but probably not a whole lot more than that.
Andrew I'm comfortable being in the hot tub in a 50 meter watch.
Everett And I think you should, I think you should be. Yeah. I think you should be. So the biggest, a 50 meter watch, is rated at 5 atmospheres of pressure. Yes. Which is roughly the amount of pressure that will be exerted on it at 50 meters underwater. That watch, if it's brand new, you just bought it yesterday, the crown's never been pulled out, the case back has never been removed, that watch will be able to do almost anything Including getting in the swimming pool.
Andrew Yep.
Everett Including snorkeling. You could take that watch to Hawaii, put on your snorkel and your flippers, go snorkeling, and it will be fine. Yep. It is 100% rated to take that level of abuse. Now there's nothing inherent about that watch, which will hinder its ability to do exactly that on day one. On day two, day three, day four, you're going to start wearing your gaskets. You're going to unscrew the crown. You're going to screw the crown back in. Well, if it's a 50 meter watch, you're probably not screwing anything unless it's a Dan Henry. Um, but you're going to pull that crown out. You're going to push it back in the, the gaskets are going to wear over time. And if the 50 meter watch, maybe not a lot of time, cause that's what we understand. A 50 meter watch is not going to have incredibly precise, uh, tolerances, right? Cause that's not what it was made for. That's not what it was made for. So as we go up a hundred meters, a hundred meters might have incredibly precise tolerances, uh, but maybe no screw down crown 200 meters, we're going to have incredibly tight tolerances and additional protection for water resistance crystals that are intended to flex. And, and so as you go up, you're going to have more carefully implemented, implemented water resistance techniques. that will be more reliable over time? I have a question. Yes. What about at altitude? Yeah, altitude. Actually, the amount of pressure that you get at altitude is significantly less impactful than it would be at depth.
Andrew So no, no, no. I mean, if I'm at altitude and in a, in a, say a dive tank, I don't have an answer. I'm just wondering.
Everett I don't know either, Andrew. I don't know. I don't. Um, what I can say is that when people start having these conversations, one of the things that commonly comes up is dynamic water pressure. Oh, dynamic. This is the idea that if you are underwater, say at 50 meters, so you're right, or maybe 35 or 40 meters. So you're right at the very precipice of what your Hamilton khaki king can take which you shouldn't be in at 40 meters in your khaki king right anyway you've made a mistake but to the extent you are if you are not perfectly still that's the only way to keep that watch dry on the inside is by staying perfectly still because as soon as you move dynamic water pressure will increase and your watch will start taking on water. And it'll damage the equipment inside and you will be sad. Single tear. Left eye. And under 50 meters of water. Okay, you guys, look. Dynamic. The idea of dynamic water pressure. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just skip forward 30 seconds, 60 seconds, because you really just Don't need to have ever heard this phrase because it's complete and utter horseshit for human exertion for human exertion. There are any number of things that will combat any possible differences in dynamic pressure that you may exert to your watch. If I think I read some numbers earlier, I'm not going to recite them, but I'm just going to sort of paraphrase at a hundred meters. You are capable of moving your arm at maybe two or three miles per hour, an Olympic swimmer, maybe six miles per hour. That will increase the relative water pressure on your watch by about the same as six feet difference. So a, so an Olympic swimmer can put an additional six feet or what, maybe two meters ish of pressure on their watch. And that may be a factor, if not for the fact that your gaskets are locked in at 90-degree curves and 90-degree angles behind other 90-degree angles. It's just utter horseshit.
Andrew And more importantly, if you're to the point that those extra six feet are going to break the seal, you're already too deep. They're broken. It's horseshit.
Everett The damage has been done. So the next time you hear someone say dynamic water pressure, blah, blah, blah, it's horseshit, just move on.
Andrew You don't have to argue with them. Just ignore it. Pretend it didn't happen.
Everett Ignore it, move on. So myths, myths. In terms of water resistance, I think those are the ones we hear most often. And shock, I think, is the same way. You will hear a lot of people, you know, if you Google how much, you know, how much shock can my mechanical watch take, or what can I do in my mechanical watch? You will read forums of what you seek, Rolex forum. It doesn't matter. Everybody's had like four or five iterations. Every couple of years someone posts this question. And the answers vary between watches are tougher than you think. Don't worry about it. And you will break your watch if you golf, play tennis, baseball, et cetera, in your watch. So there's a range of answers. And as with all things, the answer probably lies in the middle. But from what I can tell, there is very little in the way of evidence-based information on this topic.
Andrew With that, let's talk about shock resistance. We've talked about it before, but I want to briefly touch on it now. We've got Inca blocks that come into creation in the 1930s. Can you tell us what that is just really quick? Inca blocks are basically columns on which fragile parts rest. They're designed to allow these fragile parts to flex away the fragile parts so their more robust parts can crash and absorb the impact. So the fragile parts aren't crashing against each other, the fat parts are.
Everett And just shortly, just to be more specific, one of the most common failures of watches prior to say the end of World War II or so was a balance wheel. There's a shaft on the balance wheel called the balance shaft and it was rigidly held. So the balance wheel turns, this rigid shaft would snap and your balance shaft snaps, you need a service immediately. What it is, is a jewel cap, a jewel and a jewel cap with some movement and a spring on top of a jewel cap. You've seen them. If you Google Inca block, you'll know exactly what it is because you've seen them before. It was this super simple, super genius. And now today everybody uses them. Yeah.
Andrew Or, uh, some sort of balance pivots and ball has a couple of really cool ones. Uh, they've got one called a spring lock and an amortisseur. And these are basically armor coating around your movement. It's totally encased it. And then that's what's shock resisted. It's got pistons basically that let it ride freely. The whole entire movement. Yes. Yeah. So let's talk about golfing in your watch.
Everett Let's. I golf on my watches, all of them. Speedmaster Every single watch I own, I've golfed in.
Andrew I did quite a bit of really amateur physics today. And I say really amateur physics because I'm not, I mean, I'm, I'm familiar with, you know, big things, but, but actually doing the work myself is challenging. What, what I got down to. So the average kinetic energy generated by the head of your golf club is about 200 and 26 jewels. So we're talking about energy here and that's important. Your golf ball leaves is in flight on average at about 157 jewels, which means there's a loss there, a jewel loss of 108. That was on your clubhead. Like 28% or so. That was on your clubhead, but not in the ball. It's got to go somewhere. A lot of it is going to be absorbed by your shaft, by the shaft of your golf club, by the rubberized grip. I can't say how much because I'm not smart enough to actually do that math and I don't have a camera to be able to measure speed of my golf swing striking a ball. and actually do the hard math because I don't think you can work in generalities here. I think you have to actually do the experiment to find where that energy is transferred to. The most common golf injury is a wrist injury. From what I can tell, from I forget which medical journal, it's a sports medicine guy who wrote this about golf sports injuries. His opinion was that it wasn't actually from the swing or the strike. It was from bad biomechanics of the swing. From having an open or closed wrist or something strange in the torsion on your wrist. So not impact.
Everett Torsional, some sort of torsional motion at impact.
Andrew Yes.
Everett So I don't think... Because anyone who's ever hit a golf ball well knows... You don't feel shit. You do not feel it. But how many times do you hit the ground?
Andrew Or do you or just miss the ball entirely and it hurts everywhere. But so we're working with 108 lost jewels that weren't transferred into the ball.
Everett G Shock tests and the law of the conference conservation of energy say it's going somewhere.
Andrew They went somewhere. They went somewhere. G Shock tests there with their hammer test in lab. Generating 30 jewels, direct impacts and perpendicular impacts to the watch. So it's significantly more than what G-Shock is testing at. But I can't say, and I'm really comfortable saying that 30 joules is not being transferred at any direct access into your watch when you're striking a golf ball. I'd be comfortable with less than 30. You're getting energy transfer there, but it's certainly not perpendicular to any of the surfaces.
Everett Yeah. Your body is full of squishy bits.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett your body's full of squishy bits, like you said, the club shaft, the grip, your glove, your skin, your fat.
Andrew Yeah, imagine how much of those jewels are absorbed by my beer belly. Right.
Everett A bunch. It's like when you see the slow motion videos of someone getting slapped in the face or whatever, right? And like the shaking. His ear just wiggled. Well, and there's a dissipation too, just by way of the deformation of the ball. So a Huge portion of that is being absorbed by the deformation by way of heat By way of heat spin Yeah, I mean so so really we're talking about probably to the amount of force getting to your watch probably being really low Way less than you banking like bonking against a table.
Andrew Yes Next Average joules of a baseball off a bat 161 Which means when you catch that baseball, you're catching that ball in the neighborhood of 160 joules. Here's the problem. When you're catching a baseball, all y'all weirdos catch with your left hand and wear your watch on your left hand. Where is that energy transferring? That whole 160 joule transfer is occurring. Inches. from your watch. That, I think, in the way of athletic endeavors, is the most hazardous thing you can do to the shock resistance of your watch. Because you're going to get a lot of energy lost in just the mitt. But if you're catching, like you're a catcher, using one of the big fat catcher mitts, it's padded, but that's a big energy transfer direct into it. Using a big standard fielder's glove, you catch it in the webbing and there's a slowing of that energy, but that energy transfer is still occurring all when you're in your hand and wrist and your shoulder and into your feet.
Everett And I mean, it's more than just in your wrist, but yeah, that's the closest.
Andrew Well, ain't nobody catching golf balls. Yeah, I have. Don't do it. But that's the, that's what I think in the way of shock resistance is the most dangerous thing you can do while wearing your watch because there's so much energy being transferred
Everett right at your watch. And there's other things too, right? Like I think mountain biking, mountain biking is one that sort of gets pulled out often. Eric Singer famously in his sort of collaboration with Ball has discussed the complete non-desire to wear watches when he's playing because of the potential shock. And he's stated, I don't believe that they've done any really good testing, although there's been a number of statements made by Rob Kaplan and the other folks who were involved in this marketing effort. But he stated that, you know, he won't wear a watch because even just in a single song, the amount of force, and you know, he's not, he's not like Benny Goodman up in here, but you know, really smashing on the drums, but that he could lose a lot of time and really increase the amplitude of his music. movement during a set, even just as much as a song.
Andrew And I believe that because in your watch's shock resistance, many movements are kind of wrapping up and not freezing the movement, stopping it, but protecting it from continuing to move so that you're not getting impact and torsion all at once. Because things break when they're moving in two directions. They tend to not break so much when they're moving in one direction into a padded surface or into a softening of the blow. So I can buy a drummer losing some time because his movement is basically not moving when he's up there banging away. Vibration's a hard one to find a whole lot of information on. It doesn't seem like a common test to be done, at least not ISO for shock resistance. But if you're losing time while participating in an event that's vibrating your movement, it's demonstrative of your shock resistance being extremely effective.
Everett I think that's right. And it may not actually be injuring your losing time is not the same as injuring your movement. You may not hurt your movement. You may not affect the amplitude of your movement and you may still lose time.
Andrew Oh, you're definitely going to lose time because it's pausing briefly during that event. It's a shock event that's happening quite often and for a while. Shooting sports. I learned this today and it made sense after I read it. I was like, oh yeah, duh. The kinetic energy generated by a golf ball is right on par with the kinetic energy generated by a .22 caliber round.
Everett Out of a pistol or something or a rifle.
Andrew I'm just a 22 caliber round. So by that, because the 22 caliber round is tiny, tiny weighs nothing, but is moving at a much higher velocity. So it's kinetic energy is similar.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew It's just when it strikes something, it's got penetration power because it's got such low surface area as opposed to, I mean, if, if you'd have to really, really crank up speed on a golf ball to get penetration power. It's possible, but not with a golf ball and a club. So really the only thing, the only issue I have with shooting sports and a watch is all the gun cleaning stuff and oils and chemical agents, not like actual chemical agents, but chemicals that are out there for cleaning purposes and lubrication. I just don't want that on my watch.
Everett Yeah. They pose no threat. Very little. And that's another sort of, I don't know if this one's a myth so much because there's some true aspects, but people say you shouldn't wear your watch in the shower because shampoo and other things can degrade, um, can degrade the seals and the gaskets. That seems to be partially true. Um, that that's not the greatest thing in the world to do.
Andrew So don't use shampoo and soap in the shower, just stand in the hot water.
Everett Yeah, that's right. That's right. Uh, but that versus firing a few rounds is probably a more serious thing.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. I was just shocked that kinetic energy was the same. Yeah. It's obviously different for higher calibers, but it's like, Oh geez, that makes sense. But weird. So we talked about yard work. We talked about mowing the lawn. Yeah. We kind of got into, I think mowing your lawn is fine. Yeah. You're going to, you're not going to get the same manner of vibration you are drumming. You're not getting the same manner of vibration you are mountain biking, and it's for certainly not a longer period of time. You might lose a few seconds if you have to really mow your lawn for a long time. My lawn takes 12 minutes, so whatever. Swinging a hammer.
Everett I think it's, again, totally fine. Yeah, because you're using the other hand.
Andrew Yeah. Well, I swing a hammer with my right hand and I wear a watch on my right hand. Fair enough. But so if you swing on the same watch, you're a weirdo. I'm a freak. Um, but doing any tasks like that, you're, all you're going to be doing is activating the shock resistant functionalities of your watch that are built into every watch movement.
Everett Oh yeah. Yeah. Right. And, and so there's, there's some just practical, uh, practical advice that you can take away if you're wearing your Seiko 7S26 based movement and you're comfortable with some degree of risk, do it. I've told you about the mediator that I had who had the paralyzed, his whole left side of his body was paralyzed and he wore just this totally lovely Calatrava, gorgeous watch. And he said that he bought it when he retired from practicing law and became a full-time mediator. And the very first weekend he had it, it was a Christmas gift from his wife. And he was walking his dog that following morning, wearing his Calatrava on his paralyzed left arm. Have I told them? Yeah, you told me this. I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah. He drops the Calatrava on the snow. So, you know, maybe a one meter drop, probably less. Um, and sort of snowy ice goes back to the house, realizes it's gone. Him and his wife go to find it. They find it.
Andrew Fortunately, you can track yourself pretty easily in the snow.
Everett And it was broken. And he had to, the very next day, send it back to Paddock to get repaired. Warranty repair. Seven months and like $900, right? Um, so it, you know, it sort of depends, right? What kind of movement do you have? Um, is this a handmade movement? Is this a, you know, what's the risk?
Andrew And sometimes you just have bad luck. I know plenty of people who've been in high speed motorcycle crashes, freeway motorcycle crashes. I know someone who died turning his ATV around on his street. after it left the bed of his truck. He couldn't have been going more than two miles an hour. Tires are still soft, cranked all the way to the left. Tires grabbed, dumped him off, never woke up.
Everett Just hit the button. I got hit by a car, rode the windshield for 10 feet, thrown through the air for 35 feet, had like a couple of broken ribs and a bruised spleen and was otherwise totally fine. And got a Speedmaster. And got a Speedmaster.
Andrew What a day.
Everett And wings. Man, you had a day. So yeah, it's really just, I mean, some of this is luck of the draw.
Andrew We have one last important one to talk about, and this is the most dangerous thing we all do with our watches. We wear them in the presence of electronics. I think that's right. Yeah. The ISO requirements. So ISO 764 dictates the ISO requirements for magnetic resistant label on your watch. Here's their standard. The magnetic resistance stamp requires exposure to a direct current field of 4,800 amperes per meter and then to remain at plus or minus 30 seconds a day from its measurement prior to exposure. The magnet on your refrigerator is approximately 4,800 amperes per meter. Let me say it again. The magnet in your refrigerator. On the door of your refrigerator. Yeah, yeah. 4,800. Which means the magnetic field generated by your microwave, our recording equipment, your laptop, cell phone, the starter in your car. If you do any kind of small engine mechanics, Like anything bigger than your lawnmower and there's an actual starter in there, take your watch off. That's a fucking magnet. That's all it is. A starter is an electromagnet. So really being in your car could get you close enough to that electromagnet to magnetize your watch. I was all shitty because my Alpinist is magnetized and I was hot. I was like, what the fuck could I have done? I tried demagnetizing it. It's still, it's, it's just, it's off. So it's, it's going back for a warranty repair. And I, I was reading about this ISO requirement and I was like, Oh, I was just living life. I just had bad luck with that watch. Yep. That's the most dangerous thing we do on our watch.
Everett Magnetic resistance is the most underrated feature of a watch in modern America, modern world, the modern world, because everything we do,
Andrew has a magnetic field. We talked a couple weeks ago about that guy that used to turn shaving brushes and pens and he had to stop because they were concerned that the magnetic field generated by his bench lathe would interfere with his pacemaker. How many small machines, I mean, you turn your planer on, you turn your jointer on, you run your table saw. I mean, take your pick of things that generate small magnetic fields. If you do it in a watch, taking a risk. You turn your microwave on and you reach up to open it while it's still running and you leave it at one second, you have just exposed your watch to an enormous magnetic field. That's what we do. That's how, like, that's our risk.
Everett Just living. Not to mention mechanics or medical professionals who are regularly, uh, in proximity to extremely high, extraordinarily high.
Andrew If you're wearing anything but a ball, or like a Milgauss and you work in a hospital, you're doing it wrong. Right.
Everett This is why our friend, Dr. Watcher man, uh, has just an incredible collection of anti-magnetic watches.
Andrew Yeah, that's it. But other than that, you're fine. And unless we're going to start all wearing super high anti-magnetic watches, that's the risk we run. Be prepared for your watches to get magnetized.
Everett So can we give some practical advice? Cause I think that, um, More than one The odds are you wear mechanical watches. We can convert that to practical advice.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett So first I think we started with water resistance. This I think is something that never gets stated and it should be. You need to check the seals, service the seals on your watch. every 12 to 18 months if you're wearing them regularly.
Andrew And you plan on being in the water with them. That's right.
Everett Your case back, if you've taken your case back off, you should be lubricating, checking the gasket, the case back gasket, lubricating that. If you're not ever taking it off, then it's probably okay. Your crown seals are the big ones. That's the, highest risk. Yep. That's the high friction failure. Yeah. You need to be checking those every 12 to 18 months. It, I mean, if you're unscrewing or, or on, uh, pulling out your crown with any regularity and Lord knows we all are.
Andrew Yeah. Cause every time we wear the watch, we have to wind it or set it.
Everett You may be able to go seven to 10 years and that will be fine. But at 12 to 18 months, you start seeing signs or start having potential for risk. And so you can either change those, you can take them to your watchmaker and have him change them. You can just check them and lubricate them if you're mechanically inclined. But that is with regards to water resistance, that is the most important aspect, whether it's a 50 meter watch or a 200 meter or a deep sea dweller, it doesn't matter. You need to be checking your seal.
Andrew Just like you would check the fluids in your car. That's right. You want the shit to work. You got to make sure it's working with regards to shock.
Everett If you're golfing or playing tennis or baseball, use common sense. Yeah. Uh, a higher beat rate. This is something I learned today. A higher beat rate watch is going to be less prone to shock based deviations, higher shock resistance, Additionally, any sort of G-Shock or a quartz watch is going to be safer bet. If it's a low beat mechanical movement, especially something pre-1950.
Andrew You shouldn't be wearing that golfing anyhow.
Everett Don't wear it golfing. Yeah, common sense. If it's a paddock, maybe don't wear it golfing. Don't wear your paddock, Calatrava, golfing, right? or do and just understand that you have some risk.
Andrew Yeah, and also, I mean with that the shock resistance might be okay. How are your spring bars? The torsion that you exert on your spring bars when golfing, that's my chief concern. When I'm golfing, am I going to pop a spring bar and lose my watch?
Everett Yeah. Or are you going to pop a spring bar, have your watch fly off your wrist and then hit the ground from two or three meters in the air, exerting 10 or 11 or 12,000 G's on your watch upon impact. That's a much higher risk than hitting the 300 meter perfect drive.
Andrew Yeah. Or am I going to catch a golf ball? There's risks involved in the sport of golf or, or, you know, the asshole on the next fairway. You never know. Everyone covers their head with their hands. I'm either going to catch it right on the melon or right on the crystal.
Everett And the same is true for playing tennis, playing basketball.
Andrew Uh, you know, wear watches that make sense for the activity.
Everett We don't have $750,000 Richard Mills, uh, which are purpose designed to be able to take any shocks. So just use common sense.
Andrew I probably still wouldn't wear that playing basketball or baseball.
Everett I'd be too scared with regards to magnetism.
Andrew It's just accept that it's going to happen.
Everett you're going to be exposed to magnetism.
Andrew And if it happens and your watch gets magnetized, it's a bummer. There's ways that you can try to fix it at home. Sometimes they work and other times they don't. But that's why we have people who fix our watches.
Everett Yes.
Andrew That's why they exist. That's why there's warranties. Fortunately, mine's still under warranty, but that's why those things exist. We live in a world inundated by electromagnetic field. The 5G people who are concerned that 5G is going to make it worse are crazy because it's already as bad as it could possibly get. Like it's just, it just is. You almost certainly are listening to us by something like through a medium that is not attached physically to the speakers that you are listening to it on. You are exposing yourself to some measure of some kind of
Everett Magnetism effect man making a hot pocket. You're totally yes, you're dope. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew So I go to the fridge seven dozen times a week. Open it up and get into that magnet zone. That is the gold standard for if it's exposed to it, it still stays plus or minus 30 seconds. You good? Yeah. 30 seconds.
Everett Yeah, yeah, that's a lot. It's a crazy thing. Yeah, I can't remember what the ISO standard is for shock resistance, but that's where they simulate a one meter drop. They have a hammer.
Andrew It's the hammer. It's 30 joules, a silicone based plastic hammer, 3.3 or four point.
Everett I have it written.
Andrew It's a three kilogram.
Everett Oh, gosh, I don't remember. We don't need the details, but the bottom line is it simulates It simulates a drop onto a wooden floor from a meter up. Yeah. And that exerts 5,000 G's of force on your watch. 5,000 G's? 5,000 G's. And almost every single watch that you can buy today is capable of surviving that and continuing to run within a minute. Within a minute. of the standard, right? So plus or minus a minute per day of where it already was. That's right. So if your watch is running a minute fast or slow, that's going to be a problem. Maybe, maybe not for me. I don't think I'd notice, but for some people that will be a problem, but that's within standard. But what it will do is still run.
Andrew Yep.
Everett It'll still keep time. it will still be able to. So don't stress. I think that's the point of today's show. Don't stress. Check your gaskets. Don't play Kiss songs on the drums.
Andrew But do play them in your home. Right.
Everett But do. My kids are super into Kiss. I've just introduced them to both Kiss. Metallica about six months ago, but Kiss, they really, Betty really likes Metallica, but both of them are like, Can you play I Want to Rock and Roll All Night and party every day?
Andrew Who doesn't want to rock and roll all night? And party every day. And part of every day. Detroit Rock City was one of my favorite movies as a kid.
Everett How are we doing?
Andrew Did we make it? Did we do it? We're as close as we're going to get given the time.
Everett Calling it. Calling it. Andrew, of the things, what do you got?
Andrew I found a really cool thing that's going on. It was via Uncrate that I found it.
Everett Uncrate is like old school internet pro.
Andrew And so I'm just browsing and it showed Al Capone's Sweetheart 1911 was going up for auction next month. $50,000 is what it's opening at. It's going to go for much more than that. But it said bid here. And I'm obviously not going to bid, but I wanted to go to the auction house website or wherever it was being auctioned through. And I come to find out that the Capone Estate, or what's remaining of it, is going to auction on October 8th through an auction house called Witherells. W-I-T-H-E-R-E-L-L-S. I didn't look at where they are, but it's Witherells Auction House. On the 8th, they go live with approximately 200 lot items from the Capone estate and and the way they came into being. When Al Capone went to prison, his wife bounced. She left the house with just what she could carry, just what she wanted to take. The house was later sold and that like the some of the estate was divided to her. She had and Al had one child. The items went to him, eventually went to his daughters. So Al Capone's granddaughters are now auctioning off the balance of the estate that they have left over from their grandfather and their father. There is some cool stuff. Among those is Al Capone's platinum and diamond. It's monogrammed on the front of the pocket watch just like you'd expect it to be because he's pure baller. Its starting price is only $12,500. So you could make an opening bid on this for $12,500. You won't get it. They're estimating it to go between $25,000 and $50,000. I would, I would guess quite a bit more, but take a look at withdrawals auction listing for a century of notoriety, the estate of Al Capone. There's some cool stuff. There's a couple of like clay figure, I guess, uh, like porcelain figurines that I'm for sure going to bid on because they're, they look like knickknacks and frankly they are knickknacks, but they were Alan Mays knickknacks. And I would, I think it'd be very cool to have. a knick-knack mantelpiece from Al Capone in my home. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple other things. I mean, there's 200 other things. A lot of family portraits, some letters. Pistols. Pistols, jewelry items, all of his tie bars, his pins, a lot of Sonny's stuff. They've got like six lots of four folding and fixed blade knives. All of Sonny's guns. He was a competitive, uh, shooting sports guy. They've got his pocket watch. He's got an Elgin pocket watch. It looks to be in really, really good condition, but they say it's not moving or it's, it's not running. A couple of cool watches in there. Just a lot. You could own Al and may Capone's bed, not the mattress, but the bed frame. That's so cool. The Sweetheart was almost certainly used at the Valentine's Day Massacre. It's a little morbid. A little bit, but what an intro... I mean, it couldn't have been. Because otherwise you'd think it'd still be... You know, they have this Elgin... I have a lot of questions, yeah.
Everett They have this Sonny Capone Elgin pocket watch and chain, starting price $100, estimate $250 to $500. It's gonna go for $5,000. There's just no way it'll go for under... I mean, yeah. It'll go for $5,000. There's just no way.
Andrew Which is kind of surprising for a professional auction house like this to not fully recognize what they have. Well, maybe, maybe they do recognize and, you know, they just don't care what their starting price is because they know where it's going to go. That's right.
Everett Some of this stuff is pretty new too. Like one of these is like a lot with an Opinel. I mean, yeah.
Andrew Well, yeah, some of it's sunny stuff and he did, he died in, I'm going to say the eighties maybe. Yeah. Um, maybe earlier than that, maybe the sixties. regardless, take a look at it. There's some cool lots on there. Uh, and there's a couple of things I'm going to drop a bit on and just see how it plays out. Cause I think it'd be really cool to own a piece of the Al Capone estate.
Everett Right? Well, I've Andrew, uh, do you have another thing? I don't have, uh, any, any auctionable, uh, items, but I do have another thing. Do me. I read a book. Ooh, I read lots of books.
Andrew Well,
Everett You do. I read a book. Uh, the book came on a recommendation from one of our listeners, Blaine from California. Insta Blaine for, for you Instagram folks. One of our, uh, one of our oldest listeners, one of my, I would say good friends at this point. Um, and we've talked books over the years, uh, He's a reader, but also both of his kids are readers, and so we just share, like, I'm literate also, what are you saying? We share book recommendations, but he said, hey, my son just finished the newest Stephen King book called Billy Summers, and he said it was really, really good, not what you think of when you think of Stephen King, but he recommended it. I downloaded it that night. I read it, I think, a couple of days. It's not a particularly long book, and he was exactly right. what I think most people think of when they think of Stephen King. It's not like really typical 80s horror fiction.
Andrew Just showing his versatility there, huh?
Everett Well, anybody who reads Stephen King already knows about his versatility, myself included. So I was not surprised by the tone or tenor of the book at all. With that said, it was notably different than some of his stuff. And it was just extremely extremely enjoyable. So he wrote a time travel book about, um, the, the Kennedy assassination a few years ago, or sort of loosely about the Kennedy assassination, but a time traveler, anyway, it, it felt very similar to that book, but it was almost, almost entirely devoid of any sort of super nature, um, time travel. Billy Summers. No time travel in Billy Summers. Spoiler alert, no time travel. Almost completely devoid of supernature, but with this sort of recognizable tone, recognizable voice, it was a hundred percent Stephen King without those supernatural aspects. And it was really, really good. I've read, you know, in the last year, probably 40 to 60 books. I don't know exactly how many. And I think that this is the first book I'm recommending on the show because it was just such a pleasure. I've read other books that were a pleasure, but it feels new because it is literally new. And so that makes it feel relevant and acceptable for other things. Um, but also just a total, I mean, one of the easiest reads you're it's I wouldn't call it pulpy, but it's digestible. It's approachable. Uh, totally enjoyable, a little bit heavy in places tracks. Um, the end is great. It's not, uh, yeah, excellent. You know, it's like books. How do you talk about books? Right. We do this with shows and movies sometimes too, right? Where it's like, I can't tell you all that much. What I can tell you, is it follows a contract killer on his last job. It's a last job story. And it is sort of meta about last job stories in that it very early on in the book sort of recognizes the last job dichotomy and the problems that arise therein. And you, it's a slow burn. you start to realize that you're going to have last job problems and then they hit and it's really just a cascade and you tumble through the last 150 pages or so. I mean, it just, it, it's, I wouldn't say it starts slow cause it doesn't, but you got to build, you got to build, paint the picture and then enjoy it. And once you start tumbling, it is just a gas. So if you are into fiction, Maybe you've never read Stephen King because you have preconceived notions. I would say it's a great start. It's not a horror. It's not supernatural. Um, you can, you can get rid of all of your preconceived objections to Stephen King, pick this one up and just enjoy the shit out of it. Cause it's very, very good.
Andrew I'll be getting it. Or you can share it with me on Kindle.
Everett I don't know if I can do that. You can share books on Kindle. Some books you can, some books you can't. You paid for it. I mean, I could just give you my login.
Andrew Yeah, go ahead and give it over here. I'll write it down.
Everett Andrew, what do you got?
Andrew I'm out of things, man. And we're pretty close to, you know, that sweet spot of time. We done good. We did good, man. Well, maybe.
Everett Big picture. We drank beer. Don't worry so much. Yeah. We did drink beer. Ooh, can I just do a second other thing here while the music is playing? Sure can. I've got a Rogue. I'm drinking Rogue hazelnut brown nectar tonight. If you've never had a Rogue beer, Rogue is one of these old school micro breweries. Nothing is crazy micro brew when we think about. The ingredients are all excellent. The beers are all Very good, and I think that their best beer is the hazelnut brown nectar.
Andrew I disagree, but they do do some crazy stuff. They did the beard, the beard yeast, and they did the maple bacon bar, or bacon maple bar with a voodoo donut. That was so bad. It's a collectible can, pink can with a voodoo doctor on it.
Everett Hey, thanks guys for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the Watcher Clicker podcast. We are really glad you came tonight. Today? Thank you. whatever time it is. You can check us out on Instagram at 40 and 20. That's us at WatchClicker. That's Will, our editor. Or you can check us out on the website, WatchClicker.com. That's where we have every single episode of this podcast, as well as reviews, articles, and just other fun written stuff. If you want to support the show, and we do hope you want to support the show, you can do so directly with money at Patreon.com slash 40 and 20. You can give a five bucks or 30 bucks and you would be our biggest supporter. That's how we pay for all of our hosting fees which are relatively enormous anymore. Hardware, software, etc. That's also how we pay for all of Andrew's new boat repair tools. Gotta get him. I'm a boat owner. Don't forget to check us back out next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.