Cleaning old clock springs

[HectorLooi]

Old clock springs always have this brownish colour. Is this dried up oils, rust or tarnish? Or is it colour from the heat treatment?

I've been polishing it off with Autosol until shiny. Is this necessary or excessively OCD?

[oldhippy]

Just put the spring in petrol and clean with fine wire wool, old grease and stubborn oil will easily come away. Then dray with a clean cloth. The ends of the springs will show a blueish colour this is because the end has been heated to stamp out the hole, you will see that at the arbor end as well. 

[Tudor]

The color looks to be from heat treat to me; not a stain per se.

[nickelsilver]

I see springs all sorts of colors, blue, purple, brown, or just plain steel color. It's from the heat treatment, and depending how they do it determines the color. It's normal and no need to remove it. Older stuff will tend to be a dark blue, and often you can find the maker's name scratched into the blue on the spring end if the spring is still original.

[rodabod]

If you do ever put abrasives such as Autosol on clock parts, make absolutely sure it’s entirely washed away so that it doesn’t get trapped into the clock when reassembled. 

[rodabod]

As for cleaning, these days I usually use my old, used, oil-based watch cleaning solutions for crude things like mainsprings.