Keyless works is the mechanism that lets the wearer wind and set a watch from the crown, without a separate key. It is the reason almost every modern watch can be wound and set by hand from the outside. Only antique watches still use key winding.
How does keyless works work?
The crown normally sits at the end of the pendant. In its usual position, turning the crown winds the mainspring. Inside the movement, the winding pinion and the sliding pinion mesh through teeth that act as a clutch. Pull the crown out to the setting position and its job changes. Turning it now moves the hands to set the time, and it no longer winds the mainspring. Any watch wound with a crown is described as ‘stem wound’.
What are the main types of keyless work?
There are two main types: the rocking bar and the sliding sleeve. The rocking bar is the older of the two. It is also the simpler in concept. The sliding sleeve type was invented by Adrien Philippe. It went on to win out. From the late nineteenth century onward, nearly all keyless watches use the sliding sleeve design. So a keyless watch from that period or later will almost always use Philippe’s layout rather than the rocking bar.
Where it comes from
Before keyless works, a watch was wound and set with a separate key. Louis Audemars came up with a type of keyless winding in Switzerland in 1838. Adrien Philippe later developed his own keyless system. Antoine Norbert de Patek first learned of it at the Paris Industrial Exposition. In Swiss and French usage, a keyless watch was called a ‘remontoir’. The name keyless works simply describes what the mechanism did away with: the key.
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