Mainspring blues

[FreelanceAstronaut]

First off, I am new to watch repair and servicing. I'm loving it and normally take setbacks in stride because I'm just learning. But sometimes my mistakes start to get expensive and get me down. This is one of those days.

I'm repairing two pocket watches for my father. Both of them had mainsprings in good condition, so a couple weeks ago I attempted to use a mainspring winder. This was my first attempt, and I mangled both. My biggest issue was trying to get the tongue end into the barrel of the winder. I just couldn't get it to tuck in.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. Using the existing mainsprings and a mainspring calculator I found online, I ordered and received new mainsprings from ofrei.com. The calculations want you to aim for taking up about 50% of the space between the mainspring barrel arbor and the inner wall of the barrel, right? The mainsprings I had taken out calculated out to around 62%, so I split the difference and ordered mainsprings around 55-57%.

My experience so far led me to expect to just pop the new mainsprings into the barrels. But these new mainsprings in the package were not wound tightly enough to fit into the barrels. It was close, but the outermost coil or two was on or outside the wall of the barrel when I set them on top.

So I simply unwound them and got out my winders. By now I had practiced a little, and was a better at using my winders. However, I ran into another issue. I can't get the holes of the mainsprings to catch on the notch of the mainspring winder arbor. One of them would catch and let me wind it about halfway, but then it would slip out and wouldn't catch again. The other one just wouldn't catch at all. It is like the innermost coil isn't tight enough so it just goes right on around the winder arbor without catching. Out of desperation I actually tried to bend the inner coil a little tighter and ended up just snapping it off.

If I were using cheap winders I might think I should blame them, but my mainspring winders are Bergeon winders (one uses a right-handed #6 and the other a left-handed #7).

Am I doing something wrong? Were my mainsprings too big? Were the mainsprings I received poor quality?

Talk me down off the ledge here...

Edited February 13, 2022 by FreelanceAstronaut

[jdm]

2 hours ago, FreelanceAstronaut said:

Out of desperation I actually tried to bend the inner coil a little tighter and ended up just snapping it off.

No surprise there, it's hardened spring steel which will not bend. There are a lot of parts like that in a watch, even unsuspicious ones, like casing tabs. The recommendation it's always the same, if something doesn't go in or out with no or little effort, stop right there, research, or ask for help.

About a new mainspring, if it catches OK to the barrel arbor it's not that you can manipulate it to catch on the winder, even if you could you would then have to mess with it again to catch on the watch..  not a good idea.

It's a fact that winders set, no matter the brand or how much you paid for, give no warranty that they will cover perfectly all the barrels and mainspring in existence. So either you mix or match components, sometime make your own arbor, drums, etc (unlikely for a beginner), or coil up by hand.

Issues like that are especially common with vintage watches, a lot of good old watchmaking and toolmaking skills are needed. It's not the "click for parts / fit them / get paid" approach that current repairers, especially the official service centers, are able to get by with.

 

[JohnR725]

8 hours ago, FreelanceAstronaut said:

Both of them had mainsprings in good condition,

As you had mainsprings in good condition and eventually needed new mainsprings. You could have just measured the old mainsprings and purchased replacement spring equivalent to whatever you have. The problem is you found out the calculations are not an exact science.

8 hours ago, FreelanceAstronaut said:

This was my first attempt, and I mangled both. My biggest issue was trying to get the tongue end into the barrel of the winder. I just couldn't get it to tuck in.

Leaving a little bit out is okay if you chose the right size of Winder. Often times with pocket watches usually American but not always they could have a T end and that has to stick out a little bit. Because you have to get the Winder and the little bit sticking out all into the barrel get the T into the hole hold it in place and then push the spring out. The biggest concern would be as if you picked too small of a Winder and wound things super tight that's not good for the mainspring of all. A little bit sticking out as fine as long as you can get it all back in the barrel when you push it out

7 hours ago, jdm said:

It's a fact that winders set, no matter the brand or how much you paid for, give no warranty that they will cover perfectly all the barrels and mainspring in existence. So either you mix or match components, sometime make your own arbor, drums, etc (unlikely for a beginner), or coil up by hand.

Issues like that are especially common with vintage watches, a lot of good old watchmaking and toolmaking skills are needed. It's not the "click for parts / fit them / get paid" approach that current repairers, especially the official service centers, are able to get by with.

Yes unfortunately with mainsprings there is no such thing as one size fits all and you'll never need another set of winders ever again because your set will be perfect. Typically for American pocket watches I have a older set that works fine. But go to anything smaller than 12 size my set doesn't work then I have to go to the Swiss sets. Then I find that the newer Swiss set the handles may or may not always work with the mainspring. Then I have to go to the older Swiss set which has older style handles that are supposed to be for blued steel Springs but sometimes they're the only thing the modern springs that aren't sized correctly for the winding set.