# Hacking second hand?



## preciousvapor

This is obviously a newbie question. What is meant by "hacking the second hand"? Can this be done on all Ball watches? How is it done?
Thanks


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## sukispop

Hi PV,

Hacking is the ability to stop the second hand so you can sync the time to another timepiece or time reference. This is usually done when you pull out the crown to set the time. With Ball watches, you'd unscrew the crown, and then pull out to its furthest position. And, yes, all Ball watches have the hacking feature. ;-)


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## groundhog

The same goes for almost any quality mechanical watch as well as most quartz watches.


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## scottw44

Back in the day this was a huge feature. It was a great advent for the military as it made synchronization a much simpler chore.

Some of today's watches even feature a "return to zero" feature, so that when you pull the crown out, it moves the second hand to zero for syncronization.


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## sukispop

groundhog said:


> The same goes for almost any quality mechanical watch as well as most quartz watches.


Hi Groundhog,

That's very true...although many(but certainly not all) of the Japanese automatics do _not_ have hacking or handwinding capabilities. Earlier this year I bought, on impulse, a beautiful Seiko that had a gorgeous textured cream dial, Roman numerals, and dark gun metal(almost black) sword hands...on a rich, dark brown calfskin strap...really, a nice looking piece...

...but, like many Seikos with the 7S26 auto movement, it ran quite fast...and it drove me nuts when I couldn't hack it to re-sync to my atomic time reference. o| Needless to say, I ended up flipping that piece. ;-)


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## sukispop

scottw44 said:


> Some of today's watches even feature a "return to zero" feature, so that when you pull the crown out, it moves the second hand to zero for syncronization.


Hi Scott,

That's a feature that I'd love to have on all of my mechanicals! It's like a chrono seconds hand feature. Are ETA movements capable of this, or is it unique to specific "in house" movements? Very interesting! ;-)


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## scottw44

sukispop said:


> Hi Scott,
> 
> That's a feature that I'd love to have on all of my mechanicals! It's like a chrono seconds hand feature. Are ETA movements capable of this, or is it unique to specific "in house" movements? Very interesting! ;-)


That's a great question. I am aware of the inhouse movements at GO and Langeb for example, but not sure if ETA does this in any movements.


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## preciousvapor

When hacking the second hand do you need to move the minute hand so that it is lined up with a minute marker? It seems that when I set my Oris TT1 diver I need to play around to get the minute hand set on a minute marker then let the second hand move till it reaches 12:00 and then stop it. Does that make sense?


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## scottw44

I wait till the second hand comes to 12, and then pull out the crown.

The I will set the time based on centering the miute hand one one of the bigger indices, v the tiny minute markers.

I like for the minute hand to be perfectly centered at zero seconds.

Ideally watch will gain v, lose, so all you have to do at any time is pull out the crown until actual time catches up with the watch, and then close the crown to synch!


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## Frontierman63

As far as centering the min. hand,my Balls seem to "self adj" to center:think:
But I hav'nt noticed this on my others (they dont get the wrist time):-s
I cannot stand my watches that don't "hack":-x want a WIS i am;-) This is a "hack" repro from Bulova:














Cool piece for the price:-!


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## D50

When you set a digital watch to 00 seconds on the minute, is this second hacking?


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## BundyBear

D50 said:


> When you set a digital watch to 00 seconds on the minute, is this second hacking?


Same concept but no. Hacking seconds hand means that the seconds hand is stopped when the crown is pulled out.


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## hogwldfltr

Even on my non-self hacking watches I can hack the hacking by second had by reverse pressure on the crown. This keeps the second hand at a fixed point on the dial and allow matching to a standard.


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## arquitron

hogwldfltr said:


> Even on my non-self hacking watches I can hack the hacking by second had by reverse pressure on the crown. This keeps the second hand at a fixed point on the dial and allow matching to a standard.


Yes, that is called back-hacking and here is a how to video for those interested.

What is Back-Hacking... will it harm my watch? Watch and Learn #60


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