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I'm new to the board and wanted to let you know I have the plans for the Collins spring winder Joe Collins designed and gives away the plans for a bench spring winder made of maple or other hard wood He gave me permission to do the same Email me at [email protected] and I'll send them to you If you wish, he'll make it for you, see the attached letter and email him Al Takatsch

+1 mwilkes For hole jewels I usually use tweezers and for preference I use Dumont 5a tweezers as I find the off-set gives me a little more manoeuvrability than the straight 5's or 4's. But for end stones and Incabloc springs I don't think that there is any thing to beat the jewel picker upper, at any price. I have not had a single flyer since getting mine last year. It has also vastly improved the ease and speed with which balance pivots can be oiled. I always used to start with the end stone upside down on the bench and the hole jewel next to it, also upside down. Place a drop of oil on the end stone, pick the hole jewel up and drop it onto the end stone, then turn the whole thing over, pick it up and install. The number of times that the end stone has stuck to the tip of the oiler, or the hole jewel hasn't gone on straight, or the whole lot has launched into oblivion... Now I install the hole jewel into the balance cock (or the main plate, which ever) dry, pick the end stone up with the picker upper by its top surface, apply oil to its lower surface safe in the knowledge that the surface tension of the oil cannot over come the grip, then position the end stone over the hole jewel and ease it off the picker upper with the tips of the 5a's. Complete doddle.

Not much of a workbench but plenty of tools! :) I loved this Christmas! Cheers, Bob

Wow, one more tool, this is getting better. I'm ordering it! :)

Excellent! Thanks for the hint - I've just ordered a set from Cousins, as my local bloke doesn't have them. Seems a reasonable price, and postage is only a couple of pounds (about $Aus5) so now I'll just wait for them to arrive before losing any more jewels. I ordered all 3 sizes - I can use the others for picking up the tiny fishing hooks I use for my fly tying. Great idea - thanks again :) -- Pete, Brisbane ============

Just for you Geo... This is the smallest one in the range, I don't think that I would have a use for the bigger ones. And no, that jewel isn't balanced, it's hanging. I don't know how long the sticky lasts. I've had mine just over a year now and have used it a lot with no loss of tackiness. When it does eventually lose its stick I suspect that it will only require a rinse in cold water and then air dry to rejuvenate it, although at the price I will probably just replace it.

I purchased a cheap ETA 6497 pocket watch a while back with a view to making a big wristwatch, However when it arrived the balance was in bits and on assembly the hairspring decide to get itself all out of shape! This was shelved as I had no confidence in correcting the self destructing beast. Until 2 nights ago armed with my new Dumont no4 tweezers and having watched Marks excellent videos over and over, operation Do or die commenced! After a couple of hours of bending ,stroking, cursing and manipulating the little bugger the watch was running...Badly! By 4am the whiskey i had been sipping to stay relaxed had over relaxed me so I went to bed! Last night phase 2 began. A little more caressing and back together, still bad! spring looked ok but no amplitude and the loudest knocking I ever heard from a watch. Further investigation showed the balance wheel spokes were hitting the index pin, the arm had a slight bend which was finely adjusted with a set of pliers! Much better! On to the timing machine and I saw what looked like a blizzard so then decision was made to strip the movement down ready for cleaning today! I ended up cleaning reassembling and oiling and having got to bed at 4am again I left the watch running. It now shows good amplitude. 0.3 m/s beat error and around -10 to +6 secs a day. Happy Bunny. If there's a moral to this it must be never give up and all credit to Mark without whose brilliant videos this movement would most likely have never ticked again. The End....or just the beginning?

The last leaf spring I ever worked on was part of the rear suspension of a 1955 Land Rover. :crazysmile:

Well done Blake, you're doing well so far. I have a thick block of cork with a sheet of white paper placed on top when working on hairsprings. This lets me pin the hairspring down firmly to stop it moving when I manipulate it. I use an old watchmakers screwdriver cut down as a tack and push it through the spring collet and into the cork. A block of cork is a very handy addition to your equipment, it's good for pinning down all sorts of odd shaped parts that are otherwise difficult to hold.