6498 Hairspring - Can It Be Saved?

[Maurice]

You are welcome my friend across the pond!

[BlakeL]

I got lucky and was able to find somebody locally selling a #18 K&D set.  It's about an hour and a half away but is a very good price and doesn't look to be missing very many parts.  The picture is not great but it does look as if some of the parts have rust but hopefully will clean up fine.  I'll be picking it up next Sunday.

 

 

[bobm12]

Excellent Blake, it doesn't seem to be missing anything. Nice catch!

 

Cheers,

 

Bob

[Geo]

Well done Blake! :)

[BlakeL]

I got back to working on the 6498 last night.  Fixing hairsprings is so delicate I find myself correcting the bends/twists then right after making it much worse. I was able to fix one of the worst twists but now I have a very slight downward bend towards the end that you can't really see and at some point when trying to grab the spring I bent the inner bronze ring so that if I mount it does not lay perpendicular.  It might have been like this from the beginning but I have a feeling it was me.  Any suggestions?

Edited February 23, 2015 by BlakeL

[clockboy]

I struggle with hairsprings although better than I was. I found the last time I wanted to bend up a touch I put the hairspring on a staking tool & put it where I wanted to bend over a hole and pushed VERY GENTLY with some Dumont 5 tweezers and it worked.

Edited February 23, 2015 by clockboy

[BlakeL]

Good idea, I might have to try that since I have a staking set now.  It should be pretty easy to finish off the end but that bend in the inner ring scares me but I'll have to try since a replacement won't be cheap if I can even find one.

[clockboy]

Like I said me and hairsprings just don,t get on.  But this method worked but you have to be very gentle with it.

I see a vid where a guy was making a hairspring overcoil and he pushed the hairspring into a tube that he had made which is the same principle.

Edited February 23, 2015 by clockboy

[BlakeL]

I spent some more time with this over the weekend and I've given up for now to save my sanity. I'll keep this movement for parts and come back to it later when I have some more experience and a better 10x loupe. I found another cheap 6498 pocket watch on eBay for around $50 that is working. It does have some rust on the ratchet wheel but i can swap that out.