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Left or right mainspring

leduardo

By leduardo
in Watch Repairs Help & Advice

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Tmuir Distinguished Member

Tmuir

Posted
Posted

Look at the hook on the arbor, one side will have a slope that the mainspring centre eye would not hold against, the other side will have a square end that it would.

Basically if you put the spring in the wrong way round (upside down) when you try to wind the spring it won't catch on the hook and if it did you would be winding the spring the wrong way for it to wind up around the centre arbor.

 

Also if its not an automatic watch, or a 'T' end spring the outer end of the spring will not catch on the outer edge of the barrel either.

It simply comes down to how the watch was made as to which way the spring needs to wind up inside the barrel.

 

I'm sure most of us when first learning has put a spring in 'upside down' in a watch barrel before, its an easy mistake to make when first learning.

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noirrac1j Distinguished Member

noirrac1j

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, leduardo said:

To Thanks everyone! The answers were very helpful. I’m starting to do some repairs and didn’t want to go deeper without understanding fully the whole process of reassembly.

Its great to have so many knowledgeable people to learn from, yes? I've rewound a few mainsprings the wrong way in my day, and its something that one learns to quickly be very careful about because you have to take most of the watch apart to get to the mainspring. If you just starting out, take a picture of the mainspring orientation as soon as you open the barrel, and that way you can figure out which way it is supposed to be rewound once you get everything clean--very helpful especially with auto-winding mechanisms.

J

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