Watch Winder for Tag Heuer Carerra Calibre

doohey

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a watch winder for a Tag Heuer Carerra Calibre as a present. I know the price of winders can vary hugely in price & I'm wondering if it would be possible to purchase a fairly decent one that would be suitable for this watch for less than €150-€200 or would I be better off thinking of a new present? Any makes, models, websites would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you

marcus1971

doohey wrote: »

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a watch winder for a Tag Heuer Carerra Calibre as a present. I know the price of winders can vary hugely in price & I'm wondering if it would be possible to purchase a fairly decent one that would be suitable for this watch for less than €150-€200 or would I be better off thinking of a new present? Any makes, models, websites would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you

I bought a few winders from Wolf Designs last year, they were on special and I got four programmable double winders for only $100 -- the lot, the ones I got are fairly basic looking but fine for $25 each including shipping, they send me regular mails on special offers etc and in this months mail they sent me a 50% off coupon code, dunno if it will work for shipping to Ireland or what kinda offerings they have at the moment.
If you want to use it the code is:

MYSUMMER50

https://www.wolfdesigns.com/watch-winders/winders?sort=p.price&order=ASC

Valid till end of Sept.


Always lots and lots of them on eBay from $35 up.
I think there is a certain amount of emperors new clothes about the higher priced winders, a lot of them seem to be aimed at the sort that think the more you pay the better they will be. The consensus on various forums about these is that the motors in the cheaper ones crap out after a few months, that may or may not be true...the motors in my cheapo $25 winders are the same as the motors in their $350 winders, so why there should be a difference between how long they are supposed to last is beyond me.....although mine are in no way design pieces that you would be happy to put on display.

marcus1971

bedlam wrote: »

$25 cheap if you take the discount into account, $200 - £3750 (model dependent) if you don't Oh and damn you for getting the 4.1's at $25 a piece, sucker for technology and gadgetry that I am, I really wanted those but they proved too difficult to find at the time. (looks like it wasn't the 4.1's you got.)

I dunno what the model# is on mine, they were from a clearance lot they had made for Neiman Marcus for christmas over here, seemingly the order was cancelled and they had a boatload of them in stock. They took the Neiman Marcus labels off and sold them off in the clearance section, Got wind of the deal on another forum and also just happened to get them when they were offering free shipping on orders over $50, so I got 4 doubles for the grand total of $100 to the door.

Once I get back home Im gonna start working on my own winder/cabinet, I'll be keeping an eye out for a nice cabinet to assemble it, I'm thinking something suitable for 25 or so watches all driven by one motor with decent torque running off the mains instead of weedy transformers...pulleys, bearings and belts, a simple controller board and a bit of quality leather from a junked sofa or something......I reckon it would be easy enough to put together, the finish will be as good as the time spent getting it right...Its really a couple dozen glorified cups attached to shafts driven by pulleys off a motor driven belt and a sheet of board with holes cut out, laid with foam and upholstered...stick in some fancy lighting and a lined drawer or two and that would be it -- I couldnt imagine spending more than a couple hundred euro and I'm sure if you wanted to buy something similar it would run into the 1000's

marcus1971

bedlam wrote: »

Awesome project, make sure you document and post lots of pictures Will you be aiming for individually controlled holders or just have them all run at the same time?

Not sure yet, the easiest solution would be to have a controller rotate clockwise for a predetermined # of rotations and then reverse to anticlockwise for the same...... could have select individual cups on a solenoid controlled timer to disengage after a certain number of hours/minutes and then reengage.
I like the idea of one motor driving the whole lot at once though, get the gearing right and they should all rotate at the same speed, stay in the same position relative to each other, and with one well placed insulated motor it should be pretty silent.
I've been looking at these online for some inspriation as to the general look and have to say they must be the single most overpriced piece of equipment I have ever seen, the only one I saw that was half decent looking was $20,000 !!!!! Serious? Does anybody actually buy these? sure there are loads of people out there that have more money than they know what to do with, but if you are the sort of person that has $20,000 to drop on a watch winder I think its safe to assume you live in a pretty nice looking house and most of these things are atrocious looking, if I wasn't programmed to expect anything related to fine watches to be expensive, the sort of person who uses their cellphone for the time, I would look at these watch winders and put a value of no more than $200 on them, never mind $20,000.

Bullseye1

Will it look anything like this

marcus1971

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Will it look anything like this

Wow NICE!!!.....Only $3,000,000, although in fairness you get the 3 watches thrown in too!!!!

The safe aspect is nice, but I would prefer something that would have the watches on display all of the time, there must be something weird about me, but I love seeing watches just spinning around inside a watch winder.
Not big enough either, I want to fit in at least 20 or maybe even 25 watches....the general look is what I am going for ...Top half for the watches and the bottom half in drawers for the bits'n'pieces....even that exact colour of leather is what I have it pictured with

Bullseye1

So your obviously of the school of thinking that winders are the way to go if your keeping mechanical watches. I've read many threads with differing opinions on the subject. Some say they are only necessary for the more complex watches.

marcus1971

WEll, only the way to go if you have a pita winding and setting every single time you decide to wear something different, and with a lot of watches this is very often....and an even bigger pita when you consider a lot of older watches do not have quickset dates, Mrs 1971 also has a few nice watches and in true woman fashion she will pick one up , look at it and if its not set and ready to go its back in the drawer, on with the quartz and out the door....WOMEN!!!

I know there is a lot of debate from the self proclaimed "experts" on WUS and wherever as to whether or not its "safe" in the long run to use winders and to be honest we are not talking about 100k Pateks or Jaegers here, a Ploprof/Sub/Seamaster etc. are going to be fine on a winder, so its down to 2 things for me:

1) All of my (and her) watches are wound, set and ready to go

2) I just like to stare like a fool at my lovverly watches slowly spinning around and around and around and around over and over and over...........................................

Zagato

bedlam wrote: »

A bit more inspiration...

On one level impressive, but does anyone else think it looks like some sort of shrine?

Bullseye1

Brandy, cigars and watches in one handy location.

Zagato

bedlam wrote: »

Zagato wrote: »

On one level impressive, but does anyone else think it looks like some sort of shrine?

You mean you don't keep your watches on a shrine?

I keep my watches in an old dusty drawer, in the hope that one day I'll find a really valuable watch in the old drawer, it's where everyone seems to find them, and I figure putting watches in there has got to improve my chances.

A bit like hiding a fiver in your suit jacket pocket, knowing how much that's going to cheer you up at the next wedding/funeral you go to.


...didn't get much sleep last night, you'd never guess