Mainspring winders

[VWatchie]

On 3/13/2021 at 2:14 PM, jdm said:

If you read the various topics about that you will find how the outcome may not be the desired one, as in experiencing performance degradation in amplitude and/or power reserve, even when fitting a new mainspring which is close but not exactly matching the original. Issues that then no expensive, specialized lubricant can fix. 

I'm afraid I 100 % share this experience and that's why (among the nearly impossible to handle, no larger than a piece of dust diafix cap jewels for the third(?) wheel and the escape wheel) I stay away from Seiko and Orient watches. Especially as it seems near impossible to find barrel completes for these brands. I least I haven't found any suppliers. Too bad really as I otherwise really like these brands.

[grsnovi]

I thought that if I purchased a new mainspring for the watch I'm working on I could just pop it into the barrel. Not so. I'm still going to have to use a winder. My barrel ID is 16mm. If I only want to buy one, how do I know: a) if I need left or right-hand and b) what size Bergeon winding head to find?

At this point I have the original spring (that looks OK) as well as a NOS #817 for the size 16s, grade 313 Elgin that is currently in pieces.

If this answer has already been covered somewhere in the previous 25 pages somebody just tell me and I'll spend all day slogging through. I understand the purpose of pinning certain topics however it seems like many on this forum have been pinned ages ago and just grow forever - sort of missing the point.

[Kalanag]

This table from the Bergeon catalog might answer your question at least partially:

 

[Kalanag]

If you look at the open barrel and the spring winds away from the centre arbour anti-clockwise it is a left hander I think.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Kalanag

[APvRV]

I'm still learning, so please allow me a (perhaps naïve) question! Mainspring winders are spec'd according to barrel size and "caliber". Does the spring height not also play a role? Do the different barrel widths (or does caliber) correlate to spring heights?  I bought a winder recently and it seems to only work well for spring heights 1.5 and 2mm.

[grsnovi]

12 hours ago, Kalanag said:

This table from the Bergeon catalog might answer your question at least partially:

Thanks @Kalanag! Looks like a #12 would do.

[gbyleveldt]

8 hours ago, APvRV said:

I'm still learning, so please allow me a (perhaps naïve) question! Mainspring winders are spec'd according to barrel size and "caliber". Does the spring height not also play a role? Do the different barrel widths (or does caliber) correlate to spring heights?  I bought a winder recently and it seems to only work well for spring heights 1.5 and 2mm.

I have resorted to thin washers where the spring height is less than 1mm, like the modern Seiko’s 

[Kalanag]

3 hours ago, grsnovi said:

Thanks @Kalanag! Looks like a #12 would do.

A 16mm winder will not work for a 16mm barrel imho. The wound spring has to be smaller  than the barrel ID. So I would recommend #11.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Kalanag

[grsnovi]

1 hour ago, Kalanag said:

A 16mm winder will not work for a 16mm barrel imho. The wound spring has to be smaller  than the barrel ID. So I would recommend #11.

@KalanagThe actual ID of the barrel is 16.25mm. If the OD of the portion that fits into the barrel is actually 16mm, it should work. I hope so anyway, I just ordered one...

 

[grsnovi]

Esslinger told me: "  If the inside diameter of your mainspring barrel is 16.25mm, the 16mm winder would be the correct choice."

[Paul80]

Hi all

A quick question regarding the Chinese Mainspring Winders

The all say they are for ETA Movements and list the common Calibres they fit and always amongst the list is a 8200.

I have searched and cannot find a single mention of an ETA 8200 movement dies such a thing exist.

The only 8200 I can find is the Miyota/Citizen version and the winder is not really the correct size for that one either, although it can be persuaded to work, the Arbour is correct in size and rotation but the barrel is a lot smaller than the Miyota/Citizen barrel.

Was there an ETA 8200 in the past or have the Chinese makers just got the barrel size wrong and its intended for the Japanese 8200.

Thanks

Paul
 

[jdm]

8 minutes ago, Paul80 said:

Was there an ETA 8200 in the past or have the Chinese makers just got the barrel size wrong and its intended for the Japanese 8200.

That never existed, it's normal for Chinese sellers to place incorrect, exaggerated, or just laughable descriptions.

[VWatchie]

On 4/6/2022 at 10:55 AM, APvRV said:

Does the spring height not also play a role?

Not in practice.

On 4/6/2022 at 10:55 AM, APvRV said:

Do the different barrel widths (or does caliber) correlate to spring heights?

Not in my experience. What matters is the outer diameter of the winder barrel and the diameter of the winder arbor. You could say left and right is important too, but not so much in practice as the wound spring can be pushed into a spacer before it is pushed into the barrel.

On 4/6/2022 at 10:55 AM, APvRV said:

I bought a winder recently and it seems to only work well for spring heights 1.5 and 2mm.

In the world of micro mechanics 0.5mm is huge! Anyway, do you have or do you expect to have a spring with a height taller than 2mm? I don't think so. In that case the other dimensions would likely be larger as well and you'd be needing a different winder. I would expect your winder to work with springs having a height smaller than 1.5mm though. So, I'm curios to know why you say that it only works well from 1.5mm?

EDIT: I guess the answer to my question could be that the hook on the the arbor is placed in such a way that it doesn't really work with springs outside the range 1.5 to 2.0mm.

Edited April 9, 2022 by VWatchie

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 4/9/2022 at 4:08 AM, grsnovi said:

Esslinger told me: "  If the inside diameter of your mainspring barrel is 16.25mm, the 16mm winder would be the correct choice."

Hi sorry to jump in on this. I do have a little mistake experience  on this and I don't want to hear of any newbies make the same one because it can be costly in the sense of ruining a new expensive tool. Most of what I say is pretty obvious but often overlooked in a haste to get something done, never a good start in the world of watch repair to place time ahead of sensible thinking. Most of my tools are second hand ebay purchases, I can't justify paying a lot of money on expensive tools when I can get by with well chosen secondhand gear. Besides if the hobby interest fades for whatever reason I will have wasted a boat load of cash. So this post mostly relates to similar ilk as myself. Mistake coming up shortly. The mainspring winders I have are a generic set of 7 and 3, so 10 in total, so I thought this should cover most bases, I was wrong. They often don't fit and I frequently reinstall the mainspring by hand with a little gadget I devised, nothing clever because I'M not particularly, but it works ok. Now when i say my winders dont fit a barrel I mean it doesn't fit the barrel well, because its quite important that it does. Mistake coming up very soon. I was sizing up a winder to fit a barrel I was working on, only by eye i might add as I find skeg of E works for me on stuff like this. Mistake coming up now. "Not that one, not that one, ah that's not a bad fit a slight gap around the edge of the winder but it should work". Oopsey. A slight gap by eye is a big bloody gap under a microscope or 10 x loupe. So I'm winding the spring in, it felt a little tight towards the end but I got it in. I looked inside to check it was ok, "oh crap it looks a bit bloody snug in there". Would it pop into the barrel ? Would it f---. Mistake arrival. The winder hook was well and truly jammed in the mainspring eye with no room for any release to ease it back out. 15 minutes of tugging pulling and cursing, left me with a minature version of a slinky that looked like it had just finished coming down the people crowded steps of the Eiffiel Tower and a broken hook winder embedded workshop wall. So the moral of this lengthy detailed story ( apologies I'm very recently early semi retired and have far too much time on my hands ) is to make sure the winder you are going to use, fits the barrel in a positive undestructive, stress limiting and good resulting way. Thanks, I hope this helps at least one person that is in any kind of rush and thinks that they can get away with a - that pretty much fits attitude. 

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 4/6/2022 at 3:21 AM, grsnovi said:

I thought that if I purchased a new mainspring for the watch I'm working on I could just pop it into the barrel. Not so. I'm still going to have to use a winder. My barrel ID is 16mm. If I only want to buy one, how do I know: a) if I need left or right-hand and b) what size Bergeon winding head to find?

At this point I have the original spring (that looks OK) as well as a NOS #817 for the size 16s, grade 313 Elgin that is currently in pieces.

If this answer has already been covered somewhere in the previous 25 pages somebody just tell me and I'll spend all day slogging through. I understand the purpose of pinning certain topics however it seems like many on this forum have been pinned ages ago and just grow forever - sort of missing the point.

Hi again Gary. A semi retired day off today for me, so I was just trawling through a few posts that are relative to issues I've experienced that might help me in the future. I love gathering tips and tricks. Spotted yours after having just posted a silly story relating to barrel and mainspring winder sizing, rather applicable to beginner enthusiasts like myself. I hope you don't mind me jumping in. I'm not sure if you would ask for a left or right handed winder to use for a particular orientation of the mainspring  in the barrel if that is what you are asking. I do things a different way so I'm a bit green on ordering tools. Or if you are asking how you know which way the spring fits back  into the barrel after it's been taken out. If its the later and I did this a few times and forget which way the spring fitted  into barrel. I first started by doing a little drawing but that was sometimes a bit confusing, so then a picture before it's taken out really helps. If I don't have either of those to refer to then a loupe inspection of the inside of the barrel  wall and the barrel arbor points me in the right direction. Depending on the mainspring tang end and there is a few, The vintage Swiss watches I restore I find are mostly ones that have the mainspring tang that engages with a ledge on the inside of the barrel wall but not always. That tapered ledge direction will give you an indication of which way the spring outer coil is going to start to  curl, anti clock or clockwise. And the barrel arbor assuming  it is the right way up, the hook on it also has a direction to it and if you can imagine once the hook is in the mainspring  eye that will also indicate  an anticlockwise or clockwise direction of the inner coil of the mainspring. The two indications of outer and inner coil direction should tally up. Hope this all makes sense. It may not even apply to the mainspring you are working on because of a different  tang design, but the barrel hook description may well do. Unfortunately I haven't laid tweezers on any American watches as yet so the information about my experiences with Swiss brands may not be fully relevant to you. Apologies if you knew all of this, but someone hopefully will make use of this information. Rich

[grsnovi]

In photos I've seen (I didn't draw it when I popped the lid) the spring coils clockwise from the arbor in the barrel. I purchased a RH handle and winder.

[Neverenoughwatches]

23 minutes ago, grsnovi said:

In photos I've seen (I didn't draw it when I popped the lid) the spring coils clockwise from the arbor in the barrel. I purchased a RH handle and 

Ok hmm. The first couple of times I used a spring winder It went back into the barrel reversed. The coils wasn't  wound the wrong way, I just put it back into the barrel the wrong way. The spring just needed flipping over. It confused me a little to start with. So if you held the barrel directly in front of you with the spring in the barrel the very end of the outer coil would face towards the sky ? Winders confuse me sometimes so many sizes and calibres then left and right handed and then the crazy cost. I work on so many different brands and sizes it would cost me a small fortune to cover them all. That's why I do it by hand, tbh I don't really handle them that much the way I do it. 

[grsnovi]

Rich - I'll be careful to burn that bridge when I get to it...  

[LittleWatchShop]

9 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Mistake arrival. The winder hook was well and truly jammed in the mainspring eye with no room for any release to ease it back out.

It is rare for me to have a case where the winding arbor just pops out!  I almost always have to "tease" it out carefully.  One method uses a fine driver that slips in between the arbor handle the the spring holder.  I gently nudge the MS hook off of the arbor nib.  Hopefully the professionals will tell us what they do.

I have many winders...most I inherited, but some I have bought.  In any given situation, I find the winder that will work best.

[Neverenoughwatches]

30 minutes ago, LittleWatchShop said:

It is rare for me to have a case where the winding arbor just pops out!  I almost always have to "tease" it out carefully.  One method uses a fine driver that slips in between the arbor handle the the spring holder.  I gently nudge the MS hook off of the arbor nib.  Hopefully the professionals will tell us what they do.

I have many winders...most I inherited, but some I have bought.  In any given situation, I find the winder that will work best.

That's how it normally works for me as well, but the winder was way too small for the spring. I chose  it because it was the largest of the ones that actually fitted in the barrel. There was absolutely no room to get even a cat's c--k hair in there ( I have to be careful how I spell things now, I got an automatic sensoring on a word here two days ago for misspelling the words # bottom opening # ). I really should have removed it the way it went in if at all possible ie. Backwards like tang first hook eye out last. But all my clothes started to shred and I turned green. I didn't win, neither did the spring or the winder or the wall that had the winder embedded in it.

[Neverenoughwatches]

5 hours ago, grsnovi said:

Rich - I'll be careful to burn that bridge when I get to it...  

I have my fingers crossed for you, but It will go just fine I know it.

[PostwarO27]

On 1/28/2022 at 1:50 AM, ign03 said:

Sorry, I forgot to mention that my idea would then be to buy a separate handle like this one (https://www.ebay.com/itm/273038305989hash=item3f9259eac5:g:S38AAOSwP-5Z3pnk), in case it would fit. Does that make sense?

ign30,

I just scored an incredible deal on those types of winders myself although they came with a handle.  In messing around with some scrappers and installing and removing mainsprings, I found you don't really need a handle for them to work as it only makes it easier to hold onto while winding.

You have access to the plunger to eject the mainspring into the barrel once its wound into the winding drum.  So in a pinch or until you get a handle for the RH or LH winders, you still can wind mainsprings with just the crank arbor and winder drum.

[grsnovi]

Been trying to purchase a single winder and handle. There doesn't seem to be any in stock at the US vendors I've checked with. Cousins seems to have what I want but having tried to register there days ago, I'm still not able to login. Are there other commonly used vendors? I made an offer on a partial Bergeon set from a guy in Costa Rica but he's probably holding out for the big bucks. I'm reluctant to buy a Chinese set because of the materials they seem to be using to make them inexpensively. There are vintage sets of Watch-Craft that seem to target US pocket watches (which is what I'm stalled on at the moment but I do have other movements that I'd expect to work on eventually).

[Tiny]

So I've striped down my Seiko BUT not opened my main spring yet. I don't really fancy doing I with out a main spring winder I was going to try and buy a new main spring but I under stand a new spring still needs cleaning and re-greasing.

 

I've seen this main spring winder that looks like a universal tool and was wonder if anyone knows where I might buy one from.

Video at about 7 min shows the winder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbjMpWjGzkM&t=452s 

I have really thick thumbs so I think winding it by hand is out of the question 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

26 minutes ago, Tiny said:

So I've striped down my Seiko BUT not opened my main spring yet. I don't really fancy doing I with out a main spring winder I was going to try and buy a new main spring but I under stand a new spring still needs cleaning and re-greasing.

 

I've seen this main spring winder that looks like a universal tool and was wonder if anyone knows where I might buy one from.

Video at about 7 min shows the winder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbjMpWjGzkM&t=452s 

I have really thick thumbs so I think winding it by hand is out of the question 

 

Eyup Tiny. Hand winding is a little risky, although I do it mostly and I have big joiners hands. But I also have suite good manipulation and a little whirlygig that helps me. I thought Seiko only provided the barrel completes. VWatchie mentioned the other day. I love your workstations mate , nice job

2 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Eyup Tiny. Hand winding is a little risky, although I do it mostly and I have big joiners hands. But I also have suite good manipulation and a little whirlygig that helps me. I thought Seiko only provided the barrel completes. VWatchie mentioned the other day. I love your workstations mate , nice job

 

3 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Eyup Tiny. Hand winding is a little risky, although I do it mostly and I have big joiners hands. But I also have suite good manipulation and a little whirlygig that helps me. I thought Seiko only provided the barrel completes. VWatchie mentioned the other day. I love your workstations mate , nice job

I'll keep an eye out for you on ebay mate. Although they don't always fit what you might be working on.