Letting down main spring?

[RichardHarris123]

Bought this.  I'm going to have many questions but the first two. 

How do I let down the main spring?

Do I remove the balance or barrel bridge first? 

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, RichardHarris123 said:

How do I let down the main spring?

Do I remove the balance or barrel bridge first? 

the first thing I would do is take the dial off. If you're lucky you will see the click on the other side. Then and it be nice if you give us pictures before you do this but I'll explain. With a key on the square although universal key would be better because it's around a no spin in your fingers carefully you might build two of the pin vice may be. Vacation one a hold on the square really nice and tight don't lose control the release they click carefully and you let the power off slowly.

Removing the balance bridge is also a good idea in that because the balance out of the way so you don't break anything. You do not want to remove the barrel bridge until the powers off the spring because when the power releases suddenly it tends to break things.

[RichardHarris123]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

the first thing I would do is take the dial off. If you're lucky you will see the click on the other side. Then and it be nice if you give us pictures before you do this but I'll explain. With a key on the square although universal key would be better because it's around a no spin in your fingers carefully you might build two of the pin vice may be. Vacation one a hold on the square really nice and tight don't lose control the release they click carefully and you let the power off slowly.

Removing the balance bridge is also a good idea in that because the balance out of the way so you don't break anything. You do not want to remove the barrel bridge until the powers off the spring because when the power releases suddenly it tends to break things.

Thanks, I'll post pictures once the dial is removed. 

[JohnR725]

one other little caution? Not so little if we get it wrong either. What kind of the escapement does this watch have? I'm reasonably sure it's a lever escapement but just in case it's not if you remove the balance wheel you won't have to let the power down because you'll spin down all by itself which may not be what you want to do. In other words of this was a verge watch you could remove the balance wheel and it would spin down you to temporarily block the train and then remove the balance wheel it be okay but if you don't know what you're doing and you pull the balance out the bump something when it's spinning that would be bad. But this just has the look of something later I don't even think it has a fusee even though it was originally set up for that or could have been set up for that. So just make sure that is a lever before you pull the balance of to avoid surprises