A mechanical watch does not run at one rate. It runs at six different rates, one for each position it can rest in, and your wrist spends the day moving through all of them. Regulation is the work of making those six numbers agree.
What the six positions are
Watchmakers measure rate with the movement dial up, dial down, crown up, crown down, crown left and crown right. Gravity pulls the balance staff and the escapement differently in each, and the difference between the best and worst position is called the positional variation.
Why flat-on-a-desk numbers are meaningless
Most budget builds are timed dial up, on a desk, for a minute. That measurement tells you almost nothing: a watch that reads +2 seconds dial up can read +25 crown down. Since a wrist spends most of the day with the crown in some vertical orientation, the desk number is the one position you almost never use.
What good looks like
A properly regulated movement shows:
- Rate variation under 10 seconds across all six positions
- Amplitude between 270 and 310 degrees, dial up
- Beat error under 0.4 ms in every position
- No sudden rate jump when the watch is turned
The cost of getting it right
Regulation is not expensive in parts — it is expensive in time. Adjusting a balance to bring six positions into line takes between forty minutes and three hours, depending on the movement and how far out it started. That is why it is the first thing dropped when a build is priced to a number.
| Measurement | Good | Acceptable | Walk away |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rate (seconds/day) | −5 to +8 | ±12 | over ±20 |
| Amplitude (degrees) | 270–310 | 250–320 | under 240 |
| Beat error (ms) | 0.0–0.3 | 0.3–0.6 | over 0.8 |
| Positional variation | under 8 s | under 15 s | over 25 s |
How to ask for it
Ask for the printout. Not a summary sentence in a listing — the actual timing machine output with six rows. Any bench that regulates properly keeps those records, and any bench that does not will change the subject.
Every watch here is regulated across six positions and ships with the printout in the box. The process is documented here, and if you already own a watch that reads badly, we can regulate it on the bench.
Next
Send the reference. Get the build.
Photograph, reference number, or both — the bench replies with the closest build, the price and the lead time, usually inside two hours.
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