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Excuse my ignorance but I've been looking at these Chinese sets but the thing putting me off is not knowing whether they can do both left hand and right hand winding? Please excuse me if I'm asking a ridiculous question.

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1 hour ago, plop said:

Excuse my ignorance but I've been looking at these Chinese sets but the thing putting me off is not knowing whether they can do both left hand and right hand winding? Please excuse me if I'm asking a ridiculous question.

That kind of irrelevant. First, the Chinese set is sized for individual types, so you would rely on the chance of a same size spring that winds backward, and that's uncommon.
And then, any winder can do both directions. Just transfer the wound spring first to a properly bored roundel, then insert as needed.

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11 hours ago, jdm said:

That kind of irrelevant. First, the Chinese set is sized for individual types, so you would rely on the chance of a same size spring that winds backward, and that's uncommon.
And then, any winder can do both directions. Just transfer the wound spring first to a properly bored roundel, then insert as needed.

Makes sense, thank you. I guess what I'm trying to ask is will I be able to use this set for Seiko mainsprings, I presume the answer is yes if there are winders which are suitably sized and I do the reversing thing?

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1 hour ago, plop said:

I guess what I'm trying to ask is will I be able to use this set for Seiko mainsprings, I presume the answer is yes if there are winders which are suitably sized and I do the reversing thing?

You should be able to find the answer by yourself. On Cousins UK  find the mainspring sizes for all the types in the set, you can verify on the GR catalogne also available there. Compare to the size of the MS of you interest and let us know?

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20 hours ago, plop said:

Excuse my ignorance but I've been looking at these Chinese sets but the thing putting me off is not knowing whether they can do both left hand and right hand winding? Please excuse me if I'm asking a ridiculous question.

Sent from my Mi 9T Pro using Tapatalk
 

It's certainly not a ridiculous question but an interesting and very relevant question @plop and one that I've been asking myself. I don't have this set myself but my guess is that these winders are all right handed as they are for Swiss movements and not for Japanese movements (I'm thinking Seiko and Orient here) which I believe are all left handed. So yes, it's critical that you get the correct type of winder (left or right) depending on in which direction the spring is pushed into the barrel.

I don't even dare to think about how much time I've spent trying to figure out what would be the best and most affordable mainspring winders. In this case, as I don't know the sizes and the quality of these Chinese winders, I have refrained from ordering them. That doesn't mean to say that I think they are bad. They could very well be excellent but I just don't know and I don't want to take a chance. Currently I have a vintage "K&D No. 128 IMPROVED" winder which I don't like one bit.

Anyway, I've had my eyes on the Bergeon winders for a long time, and I'm guessing they are among the very best and safest to use, and just yesterday I placed my very first order for these on CousinsUK.com. I ordered a "Right Hand Mainspring Winder Handle", a "Right Hand, Ø9.80mm (No.6) Winder and Arbor", and a "Right Hand, Ø8.60mm (No.5) Arbor only". The smaller Ø8.60mm arbor is just in case the Ø9.80mm arbor is too thick for the inner coil (it can be used with the Ø9.80mm winder if you are careful). My plan is to use these tools for Vostok's 24xx calibres having a barrel diameter of 10 mm and (and this it may surprise you at first) my Seiko 7S36S and my Orient 46E40 barrels 10.5 mm. Now, as the Seiko and Orient barrels need left handed winders the plan is to first push the spring into a mainspring spacer and then push the spring from the spacer into the barrel. That way I will hopefully save the money for a dedicated left handed winder. Now, if this plan will be successful or not remains to be seen (you never cease to be surprised in watch repairing), but if it does I'll let you know.

BTW, as you are a new member you are perhaps also new to watch repairing? If that is the case you won't be having a stack of mainspring spacers laying around so that would be a problem if you eventually would want to adopt my approach. Anyway, if that is the case I'd be happy to send you a spacer or two (free of charge). The spacer diameters that I currently have are 8.9 mm, 9.9 mm 10.4 mm, 10.75 mm 11,4 mm, and 14.5 mm. Just let me know what you need when and if you do!

EDIT: Just saw that you're located in the UK so www.cousinsuk.com will be a great place to pick up tools, parts, and what not. Info about their mainspring winders here.

Edited by VWatchie
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On 8/7/2018 at 10:53 PM, matabog said:

I have been struggling with the matter of mainspring winders for a while and I want to share some of my experience with Bergeon mainspring

Thanks for your posts. Very enlightening! Mainspring winders are unfortunately a struggle indeed. May I ask where you got the arbor diameters? I’ve been searching Bergeon’s site but couldn’t find the information. I don’t doubt your numbers but I’d like to know the arbor diameters for their movement specific winders as well. Thanks!

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On 7/13/2020 at 4:18 PM, VWatchie said:

The smaller Ø8.60mm arbor is just in case the Ø9.80mm arbor is too thick for the inner coil (it can be used with the Ø9.80mm winder if you are careful).

That is incorrect and was an assumption on my part. Sorry! Mainspring winders can make you go insane. As illustrated in this post the diameter of the arbors for the no.6 winder and the no.5 winder is the same, that is 3 mm which seems way to large for the ETA spring I tried it with (I believe a cal. 2772 spring). I should have ordered the no. 4 winder, but then the disc probably would have been too small. Did I mention mainspring winders can make you go nuts?

So, I had an initial quick test trying to wind an automatic ETA spring (I believe for a cal. 2772) into the 9.8 mm barrel, but the 9.8 mm barrel was likely too small (or that's what I'm hoping) and the arbor too thick as the spring got stuck in the barrel once the bridle was wound in. The handle wouldn't swing back and I had to press it out with quit a bit of force inside a plastic bag not to get my eyes poked out.

So far my conception of mainsprings winders is that they are costly and frustrating. Anyway, shame on the one who gives up.

It would be very interesting with a list of barrel diameters and arbor diameters for the Chinese set of mainspring winders. Also, I wonder if these Chinese winders can be used with Bergeon's handle. If so, these Chinese winders can be ordered individually from Cousinsuk.com for about half the price of the Bergeon winders. The Chinese handle can't be bought separately.

 

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8 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Sorry! Mainspring winders can make you go insane. As illustrated in this post the diameter of the arbors for the no.6 winder and the no.5 winder is the same, that is 3 mm which seems way to large for the ETA spring I tried it with (I believe a cal. 2772 spring). I should have ordered the no. 4 winder, but then the disc probably would have been too small. Did I mention mainspring winders can make you go nuts?

I'm attaching a PDF it shows the complete listing of the standard winders and the barrel diameter not unfortunately the arbor diameter.

Then there is the other little problem the numbers on barrel itself and the arbor? I'm going by memory but it appeared to me that the Eta sat and even the ones Rolex do not actually Mark what therefore they just have a number. So if you have the Eta sat and the standards set they will both have numbers conceivably the same number and yet they're not the same sized winder? As we have both sets at work if I remember tomorrow I will verify my memory.

Then realistically what you need is one set of the barrels and three different winding handles. The old style and the new style for both the right-handed and the left. I assume that the left hand is in the new style versus the old? Then even if you had all of that occasionally you need a different winder for your mainspring I don't think there is a perfect set for all mainsprings. Because I've had incidents where none of the sets would 100% cover what I need to do.

 

 

Bergeon Mainspring 7023 A B C.pdf

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You need to find someone that has the ETA winders set to give you the dimmensions.

What I know from a friend that bought only the 2824 winder - the arbor is 2,5mm. So I suppose the newer winders have smaller-diameter arbors. Which, I suppose, is good for the current calibers, but won't work for the older calibers (it won't catch the maisnpring, and the bigger-arbor winder will have a barrel too big).

So you need to know what you're working on.

 

I am satisfied with my Nivaflex set, together with the improv's I made on it, because I can use them for both older and newer calibers.

 

About the left hand arbors... I  use two consecutive barrels, the larger being smaller then the watch barrel - and I right-hand wind it in the smaller barrel and then push it in the bigger barrel. Then, I will finally push it in the watch barrel (I am talking about seikos, citizen and Orients).

 

p.s. I also have #6 and #7 left hand winders, which are 3 and 3,5mm. But I don't have the 2,5mm arbor... so, depending on the watch arbor diameter, I use the left hand winders or the small barrel-big barrel improv.

Good luck!

image.png.af5f6e08cd6af86acfc0eb344e61d50a.png

Edited by matabog
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The entire mainspring winder topic is rather depressing, especially if you're just a hobbyist. I always want to replace my mainsprings but for those occasions when a new mainspring can't be sourced (which is not as uncommon as we like to think) we need a way to get the original spring back into the barrel. The Bergeon type of winders seem to be working well, but to make them work perfectly we need the barrel and arbor of the winder to match perfectly to the barrel and spring at hand. With hundreds or perhaps even thousands of variations this is of course more or less unattainable. If we spend a fortune and/or modify the original winders we may get near, but according to Murphy's law none of our winders will work perfectly with the barrel and spring at hand. If there always was a good replacement spring to be had we wouldn't need any winders at all and our watches would generally perform better.

I know there are several WRT members who do their winding by hand as described by @nickelsilver here (very interesting post, thanks!). Personally I don't want to wind by hand as it will inevitably contaminate the spring, arbor, and barrel with skin residues and likely get braking grease in places where you don't want them, like on the spring, on your fingers, and everywhere. Of course,  finger cots is an option, but then there is a substantial risk they will get caught and ripped apart in the spring (better with skin residues than latex/rubber residues in the spring) .

Still, I'm beginning to think that hand winding might be the only reasonable approach for an hobbyist to this mainspring winder debacle. Getting a spring in my hand (especially automatic springs) can be very difficult (unless you practice every day) and the potential for damage is not unsubstantial. I so wish there was a simple solution to this but there's simply none to be had.:(

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@VWatchie I have this set of Chinese winders.  They're appear to be very well made.  However, they are not a general set and I've not yet actually been able to use them on anything (despite trying to reshape the mainspring hook to fit the arbor).  I will measure them for you if you still want.  For barrel dimensions, do you want inner or outer or both?

I've been planning on 3d printing some winders.  It's actually not hard to design a set of winders that allow you to use any barrel size with any arbor size + adjustments for spring height.  Once I've finalised the design I may get them printed in metal or find someone that could turn them for me.

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9 minutes ago, AshF said:

I will measure them for you if you still want.  For barrel dimensions, do you want inner or outer or both?

That's very generous of you @AshF! The outer diameter of the barrels is what I'm interested in as they must fit inside the movement barrel. Equally interesting is the diameters of the arbors as they must fit the inner coil of the mainspring. I'm sure many current and future WRT members would be interested and grateful for this as well.

Just spotted a similar Chinese set on eBay but with two additional winders. I do wonder if it's any good!?

The 3D printing sounds interesting. Please keep us informed!

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Here are the mainspring winder sizes.

Caliber     Barrel      Arbor

2000        7.34        1.63
2671        7.35        1.65
2235        8.04        1.80
8500-1      9.30        1.90
8500-2      9.30        2.28
8200        9.91        2.65
C07111      10.90       1.50
3135/2824   10.91       2.44
2892/2836   10.90       2.44
7750        12.00       2.73

Notes:

Accurate to +/- 0.02

2000 and 2671 differ by winding direction

3135 and 2892 differ by arbor shape, 3135 has a cut out section and 2892 does not, I have no ideas why.

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15 minutes ago, AshF said:

I've not had any success with this as I've always chickened out in fear of breaking the spring and hand wound.

They are brittle and I've snapped the inner coil of some thin springs a couple of times. It's a terrible feeling. Really 100 % no return...

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10 minutes ago, AshF said:

Here are the mainspring winder sizes.

Great! Thanks! In my current project I need to wind a mainspring for a Seiko cal. 7S36B and I believe the winder for the cal. 8200 could work. The inner diameter of the Seiko barrel is 10.5 mm and I think the cal. 8200 arbor would fit reasonably well. If not, the cal. 8500-2 could be an option.

Anyone having tried this combination? Any hidden risks? Of course, I would first have to push the spring into a spacer as it is a "lefty".

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Here are the mainspring winder sizes.
Caliber     Barrel      Arbor2000        7.34        1.632671        7.35        1.652235        8.04        1.808500-1      9.30        1.908500-2      9.30        2.288200        9.91        2.65C07111      10.90       1.503135/2824   10.91       2.442892/2836   10.90       2.447750        12.00       2.73

Notes:
Accurate to +/- 0.02
2000 and 2671 differ by winding direction
3135 and 2892 differ by arbor shape, 3135 has a cut out section and 2892 does not, I have no ideas why.

This is great information thank you!!

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