Mainspring winder and braking grease advice from Aliexpress for Omega 550 series barrels?

[kaan]

Hi everyone,

Due to political reasons I can only buy stuff from Aliexpress, other things are held at customs for me

I wonder if these will work for Omega 550 series barrels: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004895035484.html 

I also couldn't find any leads on a braking grease to use, I'd appreciate if a more knowledgeable member can run some keywords and find one on Aliexpress that will work on assumably brass barrels

This will be my first experience with barrels, previously I either ignored or replaced them (hobbyist)

Regards

[LittleWatchShop]

56 minutes ago, kaan said:

I also couldn't find any leads on a braking grease to use, I'd appreciate if a more knowledgeable member can run some keywords and find one on Aliexpress that will work on assumably brass barrels

I am an amateur, but here is what I would suggest.

[JohnFrum]

Check the barrel and arbor diameter of the Omega against the sizes listed here (first ten ones in grey)

https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HJ-Mainspring-Winders.pdf
 

+1 on the MoS grease as as potential replacement braking grease. 
 

Just a newbie hobbyist however 

Edited February 2, 2023 by JohnFrum

[HectorLooi]

I occasionally work on camera lenses and always wondered what was the sticky stuff that is used on the threads. 

Then recently I discovered this on AliExpress
https://a.aliexpress.com/_m0Mupse

I wonder if it can be used as a braking grease.

[JohnR725]

11 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

I am an amateur, but here is what I would suggest.

I'm not sure how much breaking this is going to have it looks more like a high-pressure grease which means it might just slip continuously?

10 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

Then recently I discovered this on AliExpress
https://a.aliexpress.com/_m0Mupse

I wonder if it can be used as a braking grease.

At least it implies breaking properties.

 

 

[LittleWatchShop]

4 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

I'm not sure how much breaking this is going to have it looks more like a high-pressure grease which means it might just slip continuously?

From Esslinger website:

This special purpose Moebius grease contains Molybdenum disulphide to enhance it lubricity and resistance to pressure. It is designed for use on automatic mainsprings, to ensure proper functioning of the bridle. It is also recommended for use on the Bulova Accutron watch movements. 

Moebius 8201 natural watch grease lubricant
Contains Molybdenum disulphide

--------

I use this. 

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by LittleWatchShop

[Kalanag]

I am still not sure if „breaking“ ist the purpose of a breaking grease. It should just prolong the life of the highly loaded inner wall of the barrel which serves as a kind of breaking drum imho. That’s why MoS2 is used.

Unfortunately I haven‘t found tests which compare power reserves of differently lubed barrels. Any ideas here?

[LittleWatchShop]

3 hours ago, Kalanag said:

I am still not sure if „breaking“ ist the purpose of a breaking grease. It should just prolong the life of the highly loaded inner wall of the barrel which serves as a kind of breaking drum imho. That’s why MoS2 is used.

Unfortunately I haven‘t found tests which compare power reserves of differently lubed barrels. Any ideas here?

Makes a lot of sense to me.

[JohnR725]

5 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Moebius 8201 natural watch grease lubricant
Contains Molybdenum disulphide

I like your brilliant detective work except it conflicts with my memory at school so perhaps you could help me out

Here's the problem I had at school in the early days the lubrication's didn't have numbers I'm not even sure they had their name on the Bottles, grabbed the bottle looked right I'm sure it was the 8201 so you would be proud and it slips. So far sounds fine except if you look at the link below this is basically 8200 which is a general-purpose lubrication for mainsprings where you want them to slip all the time with zero breaking effect with the bonus of the high-pressure Molybdenum disulphide. In other words you have a really really nice lubrication with zero breaking effect which is what I remembered wind it up it slips and it slips until is no power So basically I found it sucks for mainspring breaking grease as it has zero breaking effect. In other words I found it does exactly what it specified as a really nice high-pressure lubricant with zero breaking effect.

If you look at the link below they do tell you which ones are supposed to be the breaking grease 8012, 8013 and 8017 They even specifically use the word breaking.

3 hours ago, Kalanag said:

I am still not sure if „breaking“ ist the purpose of a breaking grease. It should just prolong the life of the highly loaded inner wall of the barrel which serves as a kind of breaking drum imho. That’s why MoS2 is used.

Unfortunately I haven‘t found tests which compare power reserves of differently lubed barrels. Any ideas here?

Breaking is the purpose of breaking grease. It's supposed to hold the mainspring in place and not allow the mainspring to slip effortlessly which it will do if you use the wrong lubrication. Then the purpose of the grease is also to keep your barrel wall from disintegrating. So it serves two purposes it's a lubrication only when enough pressure has been applied to break free. Then just to make things confusing all lubrication's have a breaking property just some of them it's much better for this application.

Then if you wanted to run tests occasionally will see a reference to this in the tech sheets and that is you wind up your watch until the mainspring slips counting how many turns it took to reach that point and then you see how much slippage you have. So view using a really nice lubricant that with zero breaking a fact you probably won't even build a reach the end of the spring before it slips and when it does slip it's going to unwind a heck of a lot and if you use something really sticky. I get a better effect but if you use something like p125 which to me resembles tar and if the person who asked he advises you incorrectly like what's happened the may then it has extreme breaking properties with almost no lubrication effect at all. I was doing a Seiko at work which I almost never do ask the idiot head watchmaker and he said put all around the barrel which is not what people recommend it's supposed to be a little spots on a couple of places on the barrel and when I wound it up to the end I thought as you break the screw head off the ratchet wheel it was so tight so we have kind of a balance here you have to have slipping or you could break your automatic or you will screw up timekeeping if you don't have any breaking at all but ideally the watch should bill a run a few hours after it slips. So an interesting compromise we have.

 

https://www.moebius-lubricants.ch/en/products/greases

 

 

[Marc]

As I understand it the breaking grease has two jobs to do, one of which is to provide lubrication between the bridle and barrel wall as the bridle slips, the other is provide the right amount of stickiness or grip such that the bridle slips at the right torque threshold but also stops slipping at the appropriate threshold as well.

I have tried not using any breaking grease on the walls of an auto barrel and the result was that it simply refused to slip at all, so grease was necessary to lubricate the slipping action.

I suspect that once the bridle is slipping though it is better to have it slip little and often rather than a lot every now and again as this would result in a more even power delivery and therefore better time keeping.

The breaking grease controls the amount of slip by virtue of the shear properties of the grease between the bridle and the barrel wall, low shear strength gives more slip, high shear strength slips less, zero shear strength and the bridle slips continuously.

 

 

[Kalanag]

Thanks for the replies! But sorry when I am not convinced yet. Why should JLC recommend a PTFE filled clock grease (859 PTFE) for the barrel wall of its automatic movements?

[JohnFrum]

FWIW, Fried recommended ‘graphite, molybdenum disulphide, or a mixture of this and heavy watch oil’

[kaan]

Thank you everyone for your input, and sorry for the late reply, I assumed I'd get an email but I didn't get emails even though I was following my topic

I was told Omega 550 barrels required 6.0 R - looking at the list, ETA 2671 is 7.3 R - I'm hoping it'll work as it's the closest I could get - still looking for confirmations from friends, I'll post a definitive update if it works or gets refuted

The outer smallest diameter of the 550 barrel is 11mm, 7.3 seems like safe entry

"shimano roller brake grease" is available locally, I'm probably going to pick an off the shelf Molybdenum disulphide based grease and use it, so far I'm set on the shimano one

Just realised the source of my confusion now

I was suggested a Bergeon size 6 - which isn't 6.00 mm ... so the target size for 550's are 9.8 and 7.3 is likely small