no catch on a watch craft mainspring winder

[arron]

Hello guys:

Today i received the watch-craft mainspring winder i got off ebay and i have a couple of questions.  

1) my first question is whether anyone knows why it has two handles that seem identical.  is one supposed to be for right hand winding and the other for left hand?  the catch on the handle in the middle picture seems like it's 90 degrees on both sides so that it could be used to wind in either direction (although i can see a slight undercutting on the right side of the catch, but not much).  i tried winding in both directions on a junker spring (from either side of the spring) and it did the job.  The catch is in the 9 o'clock position.

2) my second question has to do with the second handle that is missing the catch.  it looks like someone tried to jerry-rigg a missing catch by wrapping wire around the staff and trying to solder it in.  (look at the 9 o'clock position)  it didn't work and the wire just rotates freely and will probably fall off.  i asked the seller prior to buying whether there were any missing parts or if anything didn't "work as intended."  and the answer was "Don't know much about these. Nothing seems broken and the photos show all items in the sale."  there were no up close photos of the catches and i didn't think to ask for any.  I paid $145 for the set.  I'm the kind of guy who does not like returning things generally.      What do you think, should i address the defect with the seller or just accept it as the price of doing business from afar.  

 

Any thoughts appreciated.  Arron.

[LittleWatchShop]

Kind of the nature of Ebay.  I bought some stuff recently.  One thing in the lot was advertised as NOS.  When it arrived, most everything was as expected but the NOS component.  It was used and abused!!  I took my lumps because the rest was fine.  I did downgrade my feedback giving 4/5 on description.  The seller started screaming at me even though I gave him a positive rating.  He wished I had contacted him before leaving feedback, he would have give me a slight refund.  It all ended well.  He gave me 5% refund which I did not ask for but happily took.

I have some of these winders and will take a look at them later today to see what you are dealing with.

In another instance, I got some winders on ebay and one of the arbors had a nub that was non-existent.  In this case, the nub is derived from a pin through the arbor.  I just punched it out, put it on the lathe, reformated the nub and put it back...voila.

[LittleWatchShop]

1 hour ago, LittleWatchShop said:

I have some of these winders

No, my other set is different, so I cannot make a comparison.