Noob Disaster, mainspring argh.....

[Hibbz]

So I've been working on this cool masonic watch I bought off ebay. The movement is stamped as JWB ES 95, not something I can find much about?

I stripped it, cleaned it, oiled it and put it back together. Its a manual wind so nothing overly complicated. Put it on the timegrapher and the amplitude wasn't great around 170 fully wound. Many hours later (Like 24hrs) I checked it again and the amplitude was now up above 270, so I wound it again and the amplitude dropped back down. With my limited knowledge I thought that the culprit must be the mainspring, I had opened it up and looked inside the barrel during the strip down, but it looked so clean I thought I'd leave it alone.

Wanting to improve the watches performance I decided to take the mainspring out, inspect it, then clean and oil it. I had some trouble opening the barrel and this is where I made my first mistake. I got so task focused that once I got the barrel open I....... well barrelled straight on removing the spring, I forgot to make a note of which way the spring was wound!

I'm sure i read somewhere the most Swiss movements are right hand wind. Now this is where someone can probably tell me there is an easy way to tell which way the spring should be wound? Can you just look at the arbor and see which way it will catch and match that up to the hook on the winder handles??

I have a mainspring winder set and chose to go with the right hand set, this is where my next error occurred. Im used to winding automatic mainsprings, which I've never had a problem with. But this manual watch mainspring was a lot trickier to get into the winder, as there is a part that catches at the end. You've know doubt guessed it but I managed to mangle to mainspring during this process.

So I now need to confirm if it was left or right hand wind and order a new mainspring which I've never done before.

I understand I need a micrometer to measure the thickness, but what else do I need to do to make sure I get the right one?

[watchweasol]

Try toassemble the barrel and arbour without the spring usually the arbour only fits one way up, having determined which way up it goes then look at the arbour for the small hooking point .

[watchweasol]

Can you post some pictures of the movement front and back and the barrel bits   thank you

[Nucejoe]

The click tells you which direction winds the watch. 

[Hibbz]

Thanks all, it looks like I’ve wound it the wrong way then going off what’s said, I think . Here’s some pics of the movement.
 

So I’m going to have to order a new mainspring, from what I’ve gathered I need to know length, thickness, height, barrel diameter and bridle type. Do they come left or right wind? 
 

 

[mikepilk]

If we knew the movement it  would be easy to look up the mainspring. 

It looks like it's stamped 'JMB' which could be Jeambrun, but I can't find any reference to an ES 35 movement. It's not in Ranfft or the GR mainspring database.

Mainsprings don't come left or right wind, you get that by which way you push them in from the washer they are fitted in.

BTW your hairspring looks out of shape between the stud and regulator.

Edited January 17, 2022 by mikepilk

[Hibbz]

2 hours ago, mikepilk said:

If we knew the movement it  would be easy to look up the mainspring. 

It looks like it's stamped 'JMB' which could be Jeambrun, but I can't find any reference to an ES 35 movement. It's not in Ranfft or the GR mainspring database.

Mainsprings don't come left or right wind, you get that by which way you push them in from the washer they are fitted in.

BTW your hairspring looks out of shape between the stud and regulator.

Yeah I think its ES 95. Google'd it and came up with a Sonceboz?? I think it must have been like an ETA movement where companies just put there own stamp on it so they could have a Swiss movement.

Ah thanks that makes sense, never had to order one, until now. All part of the learning process I suppose. 

Cheers, I'll have a look at that and see about straightening it out.