Patek Philippe

johnswatch1
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Interesting question - my experience

This question will undoubtedly bring up many contrary responses from the winder vs no winder camp and both parties have good arguments.

I was always of the no-winder camp until very recently when I had my thrid automatic movement fail due to excessive manual winding.

Here's my take:

Moving parts equals friction which shortens the service life of a watch.  If you're wearing it monthly then the question is which parts are getting the movement on the winder and which if it's hand wound?  In your case I think it's academic as either way is not likely to have a long term impact on the watch.  I'd probably opt for only hand winding when I wear it and then only give it ten or so turns before you put it on.

For myself I look at the mvoement and make a decision based on my limited knowledge of the workings and quality.  If it's an ETA 2824 it lives on the winder.  In my experience manual winding destroys the reverser wheels on this movement.  I had three destroy themsleves between 4 weeks and a year and in each case it was the reversers that failed.  In my mind it's not worth the risk as a premature service is expensive and the damage can be quite extensive.

For my 3130 or 3135 movements I'm easy - no real prefernce either way.  They've never let me down and I've hand wound my 3130 movement daily for years without any noticable reduction in performance.

My Patek 324SC stays on the winder.  The movement is that bit more delicate so I don't like the idea of putting the clutch mechanism through too much use, especially as I don't understand how it works.  The new 324 has ceramic bearings so rotor wear should be minimal and the rest of the movement is polished and well lubricated so I don't see any issue with unusual wear on the rest of the movement from it being rotated on the winder.  To me the risk of enhanced wear on the clutch due to manual winding is higher than the risk of 'normal' wear on the rest of the movement from being constantly in use.

I have an old Lange catalogue that advocates winders but I'm interested to hear everyone elses opinion.  Further details on the patek 315 and 324 clutch would be welcome too.