where is the best place to buy replacement mainspring

[NathanM]

I found that the mainspring in my most recent project was broken, but I have no idea where the best place to buy one is in United States 

[Nucejoe]

Material houses in the US, julesborel for one. 

Good luck

[JohnR725]

3 hours ago, NathanM said:

United States 

You want to narrow down a location in the US as it's a relatively big place

do you know the pain spring you're looking for?

 a lot of it just depends on what mainspring you need there is quite a few online material houses. Depending upon where you live there may be a physical material house That you can actually walk into and buy things from although the quantity of those is decreasing. There is eBay and even though cousins is in the UK a lot of people claimed they can get stuff faster from cousins and they can from the  US material houses.

[watchweasol]

Hi there are several places in th US to get bits, Jules Borel has been mentioned, there is Timesavers, Otto Frei, Esslingers, Perkins in Canada,  UK. Cousins, A.G.Thomas, Gleave and co all material houses and suppliers it’s just a case of checking out each. Esslingers is a good site with a wealth of material and tutorials and that’s just one.     Cheers

[GuyMontag]

6 hours ago, watchweasol said:

Hi there are several places in th US to get bits, Jules Borel has been mentioned, there is Timesavers, Otto Frei, Esslingers, Perkins in Canada,  UK. Cousins, A.G.Thomas, Gleave and co all material houses and suppliers it’s just a case of checking out each. Esslingers is a good site with a wealth of material and tutorials and that’s just one.     Cheers

The last time I needed a mainspring I looked at Esslinger and it didn't look like they sold them, unless I completely failed in my search.

[watchweasol]

Indeed you are correct. Guy. I checked out the site , there are mainspring winders and Rolex generic mainsprings but supply details of mainsprings although they have a chart for sizing. Odd indeed for a major supplier.

[Jonno65]

I was about to start a thread with the same title.  I am searching for Seiko Mainsprings (6309 and 6349 - i.e. same).  A quick search on Cousins UK only turned up a couple of unrelated ones, and quite expensive (75 UK pounds).

eBay was also a non-starter apart from a job lot of indistinct springs.  This is my first time looking for one, so I have drawn a blank too.  I am in Perth, Western Australia but resigned to the fact that anything like this would come from 'overseas'.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards

Jon

[rehajm]

I won't know who has the best shipping to Perth so try McCaw, Watchmaterial or Ofrei.com. At Ofrei you'll only be able to get the ETA 2892A2...#771 on their site..

Edited April 11, 2023 by rehajm

[Jonno65]

43 minutes ago, rehajm said:

I won't know who has the best shipping to Perth so try McCaw, Watchmaterial or Ofrei.com. At Ofrei you'll only be able to get the ETA 2892A2...#771 on their site..

Thanks for this.  The Ofrei website is awful to navigate!  I assume that there are equivalents and providing sizing is the same I can get something that fits, i.e. rather than a OEM Seiko spring?

[rehajm]

3 minutes ago, Jonno65 said:

Thanks for this.  The Ofrei website is awful to navigate!  I assume that there are equivalents and providing sizing is the same I can get something that fits, i.e. rather than a OEM Seiko spring?

Yes, most of the US watch part suppliers are terrible online. I get most parts from Cousins, Flume, eBay and have them sent to the US. Otto Frei is sometimes worth a phone call but they ship slow...

...and yes, instead of the Seiko 401615 you're likely getting either generic equivalent or in the case of Ofrei its an ETA that fits. I think its a little longer at 430mm instead of 420mm for the original...

[JohnR725]

9 hours ago, rehajm said:

Yes, most of the US watch part suppliers are terrible online.

to grasp what part of the problem is read about cousins. When cousins gets into the material business they recognize their customers are not in the same location they are so basically there a mail order business people probably sent them a letter or telephone them before the days the computer they basically had set up an online business. Which why today there very popular because it basically all online

https://www.cousinsuk.com/history

the problem with the US material houses are for the most part they're not online. Yes I know some of them are online but a lot of them are not or what is online is just a fraction of whatever they have. I heard a story that one of the material houses back East purchases other material houses and when they do they bring the new material house and put it in the warehouse someplace they do not integrate into the system. That is because there is actually multiple of differing numbering schemes for the parts integrating lots of little parts that cost small sums of money is not cost effective.

So typically what you're going to see online is only the stuff they have insufficient quantity. Everything else you're going to have to call them email or income higher as to whether they have whatever it is you seek. Then of course there is the other material houses the ones that have no online presence at all they still exist. In Seattle we have two of them you can physically walk into their establishment and purchase things or you can telephone them or email them but they have no online presence at all. So more than likely there is quite a few of those spread across the US where you have to reach out to them somehow and a course these ones will probably not ship out of the area.

then let's look at a problem I see a specific request for specific mainspring

11 hours ago, Jonno65 said:

Seiko Mainsprings (6309

then you go to this page it has your watch and it lists the mainspring. Yes it's a generic replacement but still he gives us a number it also means that you could probably order that exact same mainspring from cousins because they distribute the same mainsprings. Is the problem today of limited quantity of people manufacturing mainsprings.

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=SEK_6309A

then you get this link the mainspring and it's part numbers in which watches has the same mainspring.

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=T`ZF]EX

then they go to the homepage looks like you have to use the Seiko number the mainspring number doesn't seem to work? That's always the fun on the websites of trying to figure out which number you're supposed to use because to a certain degree of all the websites suck

http://www.julesborel.com/products/watch-parts-mainsprings/0401615

cousins is being a pain but all share the pain based on the link above I know how wide the spring is so ended up at this link and you can scroll down and you'll eventually get the right number which is just same number he got the website above but with the spaces taken out.

basically looking for GR2534X now let's see if I can do a search for that can get an exact linkthe second link does have yet it's not as informative as going through well I'll snip out a image of you go through the first link and find it versus the second link which just as a place and isn't overly helpful but at least you could purchase it

https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/up-to-105mm-height

https://www.cousinsuk.com/search?searchTerm=GR2534X

 

 

[LittleWatchShop]

53 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

In Seattle we have two of them you can physically walk into their establishment

When I was a young lad working for my dad at his watch shop in Houston, I would often catch the bus downtown to pick up material from Prague & Kurtz material house.  It was like walking into an auto parts store or a John Deere Service desk today.  Long counter...several people taking orders and disappearing into a (ostensibly) warehouse and returning with the parts. The people behind the counter were very knowledgeable. 

Edited April 11, 2023 by LittleWatchShop

[rehajm]

29 minutes ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Long counter...several people taking orders and disappearing into a (ostensibly) warehouse and returning with the parts. The people behind the counter were very knowledgeable. 

Some days I'd trade a kidney for a place like that ...

...and I don't mean to sound like I'm knocking the US suppliers, it's just that it isn't as easy as shopping with Cousins or Flume. More than a few of them still believe in 'to the trade' which makes it difficult for the rest of us....but once you sort of discern how to deal with each house I've found most of them to be helpful, accommodating compadres. I have a bit of a professional crush on the woman at Ofrei- fast, efficient, knowledgeable...

[LittleWatchShop]

9 minutes ago, rehajm said:

professional crush on the woman at Ofrei

[JohnR725]

4 hours ago, rehajm said:

Some days I'd trade a kidney for a place like that

the interesting problem here is how do you find the local material house or even one in the state that you might live in? I remember when I started watch repair we had a list of the material houses when I was in school. So we knew where they all were at least the physical ones in Seattle. But I remember looking in the phone book and they weren't even listed in the phone book which always made me wonder how you would even know they exist. How do you find a business that doesn't seem to be listed anywhere?

it becomes the interesting problem of how do you find a business that doesn't seem to be listed anywhere on the planet. There must be other material houses physical ones that exist across the planet. Or even some of the online ones how many of those still have a physical counter or phone number and email or whatever that you can use the order stuff with? Yes if you look at some of the online ones in the fine print they will tell you whether they will take a phone call or something. cousins becomes interesting if you read their history and the fine print they only exist online if you're not online they don't exist at all apparently.

 

4 hours ago, rehajm said:

few of them still believe in 'to the trade' which makes it difficult for the rest of us

yes the trade problem is interesting. The assumption if you're in the trade you know we exist if you don't know we exist we don't want to know that you exist. Then of the two Seattle material houses one of them will sell to everybody and they will sell anything that they have. The other one will only sell things were you are the final consumer of the item. In other words tools cleaning supplies and the excuse is tax issues. All final sales have to have sales tax collected. So all of the watch parts are considered wholesale and you have to have a business license if you're going to purchase watch material. Because you're typically not the final user of the material and it has to do with tax issues supposedly. but quite a few people I know get around that's because they have business licenses there in business for some other purpose they don't care what your business licenses only that you have one if you want to purchase watch material. So yes in the trade then yes that affects lots of things not watch repair only.

 

[Jonno65]

That was an extremely informative response to my part of the topic.  Thanks very much!