Hands Set

Specification

Technical parameters

Overview

Hands are pressed onto their respective pipes: the hour hand on the hour wheel, the minute hand on the cannon pinion, the seconds hand on the fourth wheel arbor. Each is a friction fit, and the fit is the specification — too loose and the hand slips, too tight and you risk breaking the arbor or damaging the wheel when you try to remove it.

Clearance is the second discipline. Hands must clear each other, the dial, the crystal and any applied indices, in every position of every hand. A minute hand that touches an hour marker at the 40-minute position will stop the watch or scrub the dial, and it will do it after you have closed the case.

Hand profiles carry the style: dauphine is a faceted taper, sword is a flattened blade, baton is a simple rectangular bar, and skeleton hands are open frameworks. Profiles are not interchangeable aesthetically or practically — a heavy hand on a low-amplitude movement is a load the movement did not expect.

What matters about it

• Friction-fitted to their pipes, not glued
• Profiles change both appearance and inertia
• Clearance must be verified through a full rotation
• Blued steel is heat-coloured, not painted
• A heavy hand is a load on the going train

Practical notes

• Set the hands to a reference time — usually 12:00 — so alignment errors are visible.
• Check clearance by rotating the hands slowly through a full turn before closing the case.
• Use a hollow punch that bears on the hand pipe, never on the hand itself.
• Remove hands with levers and a protector; prising them off with tweezers bends them.

Compatible with