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Magnetic or Non-Magnetic Screwdrivers and Tweezers?

trigus

By trigus
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trigus New Member

trigus

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Complete novice here. After watching a few of Mark's videos on Youtube (great work, by the way) it appears that some of his tools are slightly magnetized.

My question is, in general what tools to you want to be magnetized and which not? Obviously, brass tweezers are going to be non-magnetic. Also I can see the value of having at least one pair of tweezers slightly magnetized. Advice?

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Tmuir Distinguished Member

Tmuir

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Anti magnetic tweezers are expensive, most people cant afford to have all their tweezers anti-magnetic.

You do not want tweezers or screwdrivers magnetized, magnetism is the bain of mechanical watches and causes all sort of issues, such as causing the coils of the hairspring to stick together making the watch run fast.

If your tweezers are not 100% anti magnetic they will eventually becomes slightly magnetic, whether that is from touching magnetized parts of watches, or just them passing through other magnetic fields.

If you work on quartz watches you will need atleast 1set of tweezers that is 100% ant-magnetic to pick up the rotor for most people a good set of brass tweezers will do.

For everything else rather than have 100% ant-magnetic tweezers having a demagnitizer is more important.

You can buy cheap ones off ebay and you will need one as its quite regular to find that a watch you are working on is slightly magnetized that you will need to demagnetize and so will your tweezers or screwdrivers after touching the watch.

Bottom line you don't want any of your tools magnetized and the only part of a watch you want to be magnetized is the rotor in quartz watches.

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clockboy Distinguished Member

clockboy

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Magnetised tools are a real problem when working on watches especially when working on Hairsprings. I have anti-magnetic tweezers the best and safest material is brass.  Screwdrivers can become magnetised and a quick zap on my demagnetiser sorts this issue. 

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oldhippy Distinguished Member

oldhippy

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My advice is this. Whenever you are about to start on a new mechanical watch repair, make sure all your screwdrivers and tweezers and other tools you might use are de-magnetised. It is also good practice to de-magnetise the watch movement before attempting any repair.  It will also save you time.  

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