Incabloc spring replacement.

[PostwarO27]

Hi yall,

I just did a teardown of an Omega 351 bumper I got for a steal on Ebay a few months back that was non-running.  I've found a few issues, tip broken from center wheel and the mainspring was a manual wind spring with another strip of mainspring between the inner barrel wall and the mainspring, but what I need right now is to know if there a way to insert the Incabloc spring into the setting without having to remove the whole setting from the main plate.  The bottom balance shock spring is broken in half and only one "tang" on it.  I salvaged a shock spring from another movement that will fit but I had to remove the entire setting from the main plate to get it out.  Is it a reverse of removing the spring to get it back into place?

 

Thanks

 

George

[jdm]

11 hours ago, PostwarO27 said:

I had to remove the entire setting from the main plate to get it out.  

This is asked from time to time. If there is no way to fit the spring you will have to raise setting that little which is enough. No need to remove it completely. That is better done with a jeweling press. 

[JohnR725]

On 1/29/2022 at 5:24 PM, PostwarO27 said:

mainspring was a manual wind spring with another strip of mainspring between the inner barrel wall and the mainspring,

In the old days they didn't have automatic mainsprings. They had standard mainsprings with a short mainspring exactly what you found. That's the old-fashioned way of doing it now of course the little part on the end is welded to the end of the spring it's all one spring. But that's the way they used to be

On 1/29/2022 at 5:24 PM, PostwarO27 said:

Is it a reverse of removing the spring to get it back into place?

Sometimes if you're extremely lucky somehow you can manage to get It to slide in but typically You will have to take the setting out.

 

[Nucejoe]

38 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

In the old days they didn't have automatic mainsprings. They had standard mainsprings with a short mainspring exactly what you found. That's the old-fashioned way of doing it now of course the little part on the end is welded to the end of the spring it's all one spring. But that's the way they used to 

 

 

 John,       is this the type of MS you are talking about.?   

     I wonder if I can put a modern MS( with spindle attached) in the old barrel that this type of MS came in. 

[JohnR725]

19 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

John,       is this the type of MS you are talking about.?   

     I wonder if I can put a modern MS( with spindle attached) in the old barrel that this type of MS came in. 

Yes that's what I was talking about.

Providing they make a modern replacement mainspring for your watch you should be able to.

[PostwarO27]

John,
The setting on the movement I salvaged the shock spring from had long enough bearing of the setting on the mainplate to be raised slightly but I still couldn't get the spring out and since it was a scrap movement, I just knocked it out and took the spring.

However there was no bearing in the Omega mainplate...I took out the screw and and the setting simply came out.  I did manage to get the shocksping installed after about an hour of trial and error.  By using two pieces of rodico,  I held the setting upside down with one and the other I hung the spring from it and put the "T" on the back of the spring in it's groove onto the setting and tilted it towards the latching position.  Tilted, the spring stays in place enough to insert the setting back into the mainplate.  Once the setting is in its mainplate counterbore, the shock spring will stay put.  I like this due to the fact that they cant ping away when accessing the jewels for lubrication.

[PostwarO27]

Nucejoe,
That's exactly what I found in my barrel.  The feedback I got from a watchmaker on a social media site was that doing this is frowned upon and he said he's never done and will never do it.  I tried to get some info about whether this method actually works but all he kept reiterating was that it wasn't the correct method.

 

I have a couple vintage automatic movements on hand that I will try this with just as a learning experience but for the Omega, I'm going with the proper automatic spring.

[Nucejoe]

41 minutes ago, PostwarO27 said:

Nucejoe,
That's exactly what I found in my barrel.  The feedback I got from a watchmaker on a social media site was that doing this is frowned upon and he said he's never done and will never do it.  I tried to get some info about whether this method actually works but all he kept reiterating was that it wasn't the correct method.

 

I have a couple vintage automatic movements on hand that I will try this with just as a learning experience but for the Omega, I'm going with the proper automatic spring.

Come to think of it, I can try to combline an ordinary spring( the type for hand wind movements ) with this detached spindle. My watch is an old Mido bumper multifort.

I agree only genuine Omega replacement for your watch. 

Regs

[JohnR725]

5 hours ago, PostwarO27 said:

That's exactly what I found in my barrel.  The feedback I got from a watchmaker on a social media site was that doing this is frowned upon and he said he's never done and will never do it.  I tried to get some info about whether this method actually works but all he kept reiterating was that it wasn't the correct method.

I'm attaching an image that I snipped out of a book. Notice my book disagrees with your watchmaker oh dear? Your watchmaker doesn't understand the history of automatic watches that's the problem.  Like so many things in the history of watches evolution it evolved into it's all one spring but at one time some of them were separate.

As the discussion involves an Omega watch let's see what Omega once had to say about this. Page 5 they talk about mainsprings I snipped out an image which looks vaguely familiar whereby seen this before? Oh wait it's up above it looks just like the image that Nucejoe gave us.

One of the problems with watches they span a sizable quantity of time. Watchmakers usually don't span several hundred years so they don't necessarily have the knowledge of how things once were done. So unless your watchmaker has a history of things like automatic watches they may not know that this was once acceptable practice.

Omega_Omega Repairing self-winding watches bumper.pdf