Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

As my first attempted repair on a watch can anyone advise me on how to fix the twisted hairspring on my old 5 jewel Ingersoll.Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

P1050648.JPG

Posted

If coning a video of side view when runing, otherwise I take the balance complete out, a pic of top view( cock side) to sbow coil circles and side view to show levelness. You may come to removing the hairspring, not before seeing the pix however.

Posted

Looks good, grab the hairspring near the stud, bend your tweezers toward the center very little, , you will notice the effect, judge from there to bend more in same direction or reverse.

Posted

Looks like that is all it needs, Grab near the stud, bend towards the center of the coil . The stud looks raised, normally its end should flush level with the stud arm.

Posted

All that needs done now is to bend the hairspring back to level, hold near the stud as you did ، bend to bring back to level,. 
hairspring looks flat A okay.

Posted

My advice, for what it's worth, is to practice, practice, practice on hairsprings which you do not mind destroying completely. If you've never done this before, the difference between knowing what to do and actually being able to do it is enormous. The chances are you will make it much worse (out-of-round as well as out-of-flat) by doing the wrong thing in the wrong place.

 It looks like the hairspring is touching the underside of the cock, opposite the stud. Is that right? If so, what Nucejoe is suggesting might work, but you will need a very good pair of tweezers with very fine tips (Bergeon 5) and a steady hand. Make a series of small adjustments and check your progress.

  • Thanks 1
Posted

Stud ok now, check if stud is fit tight in the hold. Hairspeing touches the cock. Use tweezers to bend hairspring near its end where it is connected to stud, bend to get a perfect flat coil. Lucky the coil's inner circles look undamaged' you'd have a good hairspri g.

Posted

Ok thanks both of you I will give it a go, and yes hairspring is touching cock, as for tweezers just starting out repairing watches so only brought budget tweezers Vetus ST10 & ST14 will they do.

Posted

Sorry, not Bergeon, Dumont No.5!

I'm not familiar with the Vetus tweezers, but the ST-14 looks a similar shape to the Dumont No.5, except the drawing I found shows slightly rounded tips. That worries me a bit because any width at the tip will squeeze a flat spot on the  hairspring and throw it out-of-round.

That's why the Dumonts are indispensible for hairspring work in my opinion. Very slender and sharp tips which meet perfectly and don't cross when you squeeze them together. Expensive, but worth the money.

Posted

Wooooahhhh, don’t touch the hairspring yet.

remove the balance complete, turn it over, does the spring lay flat when off the watch, are all the coils equally spaced apart?

Have you cleaned it in essence of Renata or similar, I’ve just had the same thing almost on a Seiko 11A and the hair spring had somehow got the tiniest bit of lube on it somehow and had gummed up a few coils causing it twist up like yours. I also demagnetised the balance complete aswell.

So first off mate take the balance complete out the movement and see if the hair spring lays flat. That’s your start point ok 

  • Like 1
Posted

Genuine vetus tweezers are fine for hairspring work. Pi Only first two pix opened for me, obviously next pix show something wrong. What?

Posted
3 hours ago, Sabre said:

I think I have got it wrong it's not a twisted hairspring but a coned one.

Have you removed the balance complete from the movement yet and taken a photo to show us the hairspring when off the movement?

Whilst it is off the movement it will tell you a great deal than just surmising what’s wrong with it whilst it’s fitted mate

Posted

Give the movement’s caliber and a picture of the lower jewel assembly. Dose balance lower pivot turn in a cup instead of jewel or is this the remain of a broken pivot, I presume the later as it is a five jeweler.  Coning of hairspring is best seen whilst in oscillation, that is inside the movement. If broken pivot your best bet is to replace the complete balance. 

Posted (edited)

Turned it upside down so balance was swinging on spring and yes no lower pivot to be seen.

Edited by Sabre
Posted

New balance staff required or if you are unable to do that yourself a local watch smith can do it for you, failing that eBay for a complete balance or scrapper movement, possibly might be able to source one from a materials house.

  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Topics

  • Posts

    • Hello Tom and welcome to the forum.
    • Hah! Well, California will have to do. Lived in TX for a brief period back in the early 70s, though, so maybe that counts. 🙂 Funny you should mention making vacuum tubes- I've actually tinkered with that! It's REALLY tough to do, and I've never made one more complicated than a simple diode that barely worked, but I have played around at it. But there's just no infrastructure for vacuum tube fabrication. I can get a lathe and learn how to use it to make complex parts, and while it might take a while to learn- and money to get the equipment, of course- it is possible to do more or less "off the shelf". But vacuum tubes, not so much. There are a few folks out there doing some crazy cool work with bespoke tubes, but they have setups that are far beyond what I can manage in my environment and it's mostly stuff they built by hand. I also have been playing with making piezoelectric Rochelle Salt crystals to replace ancient vacuum tube turntable needles- nobody's made those commercially for probably 60 years. I'm a sucker for learning how to do weird things no one does any more so I can make things no one uses work again. (I think this is drifting off the topic of lathes, lol).
    • You shoulda been born in Texas. Tough to make a vacuum tube though. You can substitute with a MOSFET eq ckt I guess. I was playing around making a pinion the other day. More to it than meets the eye.
    • Well, turns out it was a fake bezel! The crystal is domed mineral glass and I was able to find a cheap replacement that should be here in two days.  I used my crappy little press to pop out the cracked crystal, Ill give the case a good cleaning in the meantime and do a once over on the movement.     
    • Early ‘90s Debenhams in Oxford Street at InTime Watch Repairs. The older guy was one of my mentors Mr John Campfield, fantastic ex-Omega watchmaker. Good times - black hair gone now! 😄
×
×
  • Create New...