My first true project watch. Really nice condition vintage Seiko 7006a. Non running.

[Waggy]

I reached out to Mike and he got back to me very quickly - short version is that he hand winds on Seiko springs and even included a photo of his last Seiko mainspring winder attempt, I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sharing:

[lexacat]

I've had 2 that looked like that, and 3 that snapped after repeated attempts. 

[Birbdad]

Yeah that's concerning....I guess i'll have to wait and see for myself how to avoid that. Every vid i watch of a seiko service they use a mainspring winder and it looks pretty straight forward.

[Neverenoughwatches]

15 hours ago, Waggy said:

I reached out to Mike and he got back to me very quickly - short version is that he hand winds on Seiko springs and even included a photo of his last Seiko mainspring winder attempt, I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sharing:

Haha, yep he did that was last week. 

[RichardHarris123]

1 minute ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Haha, yep he did that was last week. 

It makes a lovely bow. Hehe 

[Birbdad]

7 hours ago, lexacat said:

I've had 2 that looked like that, and 3 that snapped after repeated attempts. 

So i know they have the sorta reverse portion at the end,(i forget what it's called) and that's a bit unique to seiko springs.

I saw in marks video on the subject after he winds the spring in he then reverse winds it till he can feels tension. It seems to me that having this reversed sorta foot on the end would basically mean you can't reverse wind it as that foot portion of it would just come back out through the hole in the winder? Is that what makes seiko springs in particular such a challenge to wind?

[Neverenoughwatches]

6 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

It makes a lovely bow. Hehe 

I shall make some to adorn my mother in-law's next birthday present

[RichardHarris123]

3 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

I shall make some to adorn my mother in-law's next birthday present

Steam punk!!!

[Neverenoughwatches]

6 minutes ago, Birbdad said:

So i know they have the sorta reverse portion at the end,(i forget what it's called) and that's a bit unique to seiko springs.

I saw in marks video on the subject after he winds the spring in he then reverse winds it till he can feels tension. It seems to me that having this reversed sorta foot on the end would basically mean you can't reverse wind it as that foot portion of it would just come back out through the hole in the winder? Is that what makes seiko springs in particular such a challenge to wind?

The reason for reversing the winder handle would be to release the spring's tension upto the barrel wall and help unhook the winder arbor from the spring 

[Birbdad]

1 minute ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

The reason for reversing the winder handle would be to release the spring's tension upto the barrel wall and help unhook the winder arbor from the spring 

Ok. God i hate ordering from cousins. I'm weirdly excited to get my mainspring winder and mess around with the thing and learn how to do all this haha. Decided i'm not gonna wait to open up the barrel on this watch and i'll just get it all cleaned and ready for when the thing arrives. 
That said how do you store a mainspring that's not wound into anything? Should i just put it in a large tupperware container or something to keep it away from moisture?

[Neverenoughwatches]

5 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Steam punk!!!

I was thinking more on the lines of booby trap. nah, I'm not even going to say what I'm thinking,  its just very wrong.

2 minutes ago, Birbdad said:

Ok. God i hate ordering from cousins. I'm weirdly excited to get my mainspring winder and mess around with the thing and learn how to do all this haha. Decided i'm not gonna wait to open up the barrel on this watch and i'll just get it all cleaned and ready for when the thing arrives. 
That said how do you store a mainspring that's not wound into anything? Should i just put it in a large tupperware container or something to keep it away from moisture?

Lol.  You are all exciiiiited, as much as the microscope's arrival ??.  How about a tupperware container with half an inch of IPA in the bottom. 

[Birbdad]

21 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

 

Lol.  You are all exciiiiited, as much as the microscope's arrival ??.  How about a tupperware container with half an inch of IPA in the bottom. 

I would say maybe a bit more. The microscope is awesome but pretty straight forward. I'm now SUPER intrigued by all the troubles people are having with the mainspring winder and want to try it for myself. I watch videos of how to use them and nobody really mentions any caveats or issues or failures so i'm super curious to see now how i get on with it.

That said i think this weekend i'll take out that barrel and clean it and oil the mainspring if it's still good. Probably post both to make sure they aren't worn out and i'm gonna de-rust and see if i can get the case polished up a bit with some cape cod cloth. Polishing is the next rabbit hole i think i might go down.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Birbdad

[Birbdad]

SIGH, pretty sure i totally f'd up. 
I was watching marks video on removing a 7s26 from a barell and for him he pulled the inner coil up and it stayed sorta up so he could start unravling it. Mine would not do that. I would gently pull it up with tweezers and no matter where i moved that inner coil to it just snapped right back into the damn barrel. Tried moving my thumb a to the next loop down to try to put a bit more lenth on it to lift it up and the goddamned thing exploded and launched the barrel across the room. I'm assuming i killed the damn thing since it's not laying flat anymore.

Now i'm in the weird position where i got a pile of junk parts i got off ebay. There's two barrels in it with mainsprings and both ahd the arbors removed. Measuring the arbor pivot i can see that one of those barrels is from a 7s26a which is compatible with the 7006 barrel complete and one isn't.

So i guess the question is does anybody know if 7s26 and 7006 mainsprings are interchangeable? Barrel complete interchangability ended at the 7s26a but i only see the arbor pivot dimensions listed as to why in the doc JDM made.


This ws before i messed with it. Honestly the inner coil looks different from other examples i've seen. Hopefully this thing already had issues as is.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Birbdad

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, Birbdad said:

SIGH, pretty sure i totally f'd up. 
I was watching marks video on removing a 7s26 from a barell and for him he pulled the inner coil up and it stayed sorta up so he could start unravling it. Mine would not do that. I would gently pull it up with tweezers and no matter where i moved that inner coil to it just snapped right back into the damn barrel. Tried moving my thumb a to the next loop down to try to put a bit more lenth on it to lift it up and the goddamned thing exploded and launched the barrel across the room. I'm assuming i killed the damn thing since it's not laying flat anymore.

Now i'm in the weird position where i got a pile of junk parts i got off ebay. There's two barrels in it with mainsprings and both ahd the arbors removed. Measuring the arbor pivot i can see that one of those barrels is from a 7s26a which is compatible with the 7006 barrel complete and one isn't.

So i guess the question is does anybody know if 7s26 and 7006 mainsprings are interchangeable? Barrel complete interchangability ended at the 7s26a but i only see the arbor pivot dimensions listed as to why in the doc JDM made.


This ws before i messed with it. Honestly the inner coil looks different from other examples i've seen. Hopefully this thing already had issues as is.

Not so bad col. This one of mine was carefully taken out of the barrel with no explosion. You can clearly see two points of lifting. Sometimes unavoidable when removing a spring. Next time try using a pair of tweezers with one side under the barrel base and the other side under the first coil and then spin the barrel to slowly release the coils until you can get your thumbs in to finish the job.

[Birbdad]

23 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Not so bad col. This one of mine was carefully taken out of the barrel with no explosion. You can clearly see two points of lifting. Sometimes unavoidable when removing a spring. Next time try using a pair of tweezers with one side under the barrel base and the other side under the first coil and then spin the barrel to slowly release the coils until you can get your thumbs in to finish the job.

Huh ok, i was under the impression if it's not totally flat it's toast. I actually sorta gently fixed some of the twisting around the arbor.  If that's true that's a big relief. Your method sounds a bit more reliable than using my fingernail like Mark does.
Also yikes i just noticed that some of the teeth on the barrel are totally screwed up. Not sure how that can happen. Ugh it looks like barrels for the thing are not compatible with 7s26 barrels...teeth shapes are different. Did not expect that...

Edited March 5, 2023 by Birbdad

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 hours ago, Birbdad said:

Huh ok, i was under the impression if it's not totally flat it's toast. I actually sorta gently fixed some of the twisting around the arbor.  If that's true that's a big relief. Your method sounds a bit more reliable than using my fingernail like Mark does.
Also yikes i just noticed that some of the teeth on the barrel are totally screwed up. Not sure how that can happen. Ugh it looks like barrels for the thing are not compatible with 7s26 barrels...teeth shapes are different. Did not expect that...

Flat would be better, a new mainspring would be better still. I guess its what you are prepared to work with. Wear in the barrel can certainly take place when the spring is coned. Knowing how flat it has to be to get away with,  well thats going to be a guess. If you dont want to take any chance at all then a new mainspring would be the closest you can get to that. And thats watchrepair for you, expect the unexpected. 

[Birbdad]

11 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Flat would be better, a new mainspring would be better still. I guess its what you are prepared to work with. Wear in the barrel can certainly take place when the spring is coned. Knowing how flat it has to be to get away with,  well thats going to be a guess. If you dont want to take any chance at all then a new mainspring would be the closest you can get to that. And thats watchrepair for you, expect the unexpected. 

Yeah. If i can find out for sure whether 7s26 and 7006a use the same mainspring i probably got a half dozen spares. The only barrel complete i could find for this that's NOS they want like 40 bucks for it including shipping. 

[Neverenoughwatches]

3 hours ago, Birbdad said:

Yeah. If i can find out for sure whether 7s26 and 7006a use the same mainspring i probably got a half dozen spares. The only barrel complete i could find for this that's NOS they want like 40 bucks for it including shipping. 

Dr. Ranfft seiko charts state the same spring. Only way you will know for sure is to remove and measure.

[Birbdad]

43 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Dr. Ranfft seiko charts state the same spring. Only way you will know for sure is to remove and measure.

what is this chart? Maybe it can shed some light on why i have two barrels with the same part number but have differently shaped teeth. I'm familiar with the ranfft sight but i don't see any chart that compares that sort of info? And i have never measured a mainspring so i will totally look that up. 

EDIT Nm. i think you're just referring to the same part number for the barrel complete. I'm still baffled by the fact that these two things are visually different in a manner that i would think would make them incompatible despite having the same part number....

Edited March 6, 2023 by Birbdad

[Neverenoughwatches]

22 minutes ago, Birbdad said:

what is this chart? Maybe it can shed some light on why i have two barrels with the same part number but have differently shaped teeth. I'm familiar with the ranfft sight but i don't see any chart that compares that sort of info? And i have never measured a mainspring so i will totally look that up. 

EDIT Nm. i think you're just referring to the same part number for the barrel complete. I'm still baffled by the fact that these two things are visually different in a manner that i would think would make them incompatible despite having the same part number....

You wanted to know if the mainsprings were the same for the 7006 and the 7s26. Looking at those calibres Dr. Ranfft site has the same mainspring for the 7s26a  7s26b and the 7006a. 

[Birbdad]

Just now, Neverenoughwatches said:

You wanted to know if the mainsprings were the same for the 7006 and the 7s26. Looking at those calibres Dr. Ranfft site has the same mainspring for the 7s26a  7s26b and the 7006a. 

Yeah i think this is for the barrel complete as seiko never sold mainsprings so they don't have a part number. The only difference between them listed in @jdm's great doc on the 7s26 caliber is the arbor pivots. I guess i'll get to the bottom of it once my mainspring winder arrives.

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, Birbdad said:

Yeah i think this is for the barrel complete as seiko never sold mainsprings so they don't have a part number. The only difference between them listed in @jdm's great doc on the 7s26 caliber is the arbor pivots. I guess i'll get to the bottom of it once my mainspring winder arrives.

I only know of one long-time Seiko repairer and that is Mike at my retro watches. He may be able to help you out with some information. Being able to measure the mainspring would be a good move and give you the option of buying a generic spring of the correct size and type if one is available. This is the biggest reason for me not to touch Seiko watches. I'm dragging it out for as long as possible .

[Birbdad]

 Man does anybody have any advice on inserting an arbor into a barrel with the mainspring in it? In every video i can find the inner coil of the mainspring is around the same size as the diameter of the arbor and they basically just kinda snap it in and it goes in. On this spare barrel i have the inner coil of the mainspring is smaller than the arbor and i literally cannot for the life of me get it in. Is there some sort of technique i'm not seeing in other demos?

[Neverenoughwatches]

9 minutes ago, Birbdad said:

 Man does anybody have any advice on inserting an arbor into a barrel with the mainspring in it? In every video i can find the inner coil of the mainspring is around the same size as the diameter of the arbor and they basically just kinda snap it in and it goes in. On this spare barrel i have the inner coil of the mainspring is smaller than the arbor and i literally cannot for the life of me get it in. Is there some sort of technique i'm not seeing in other demos?

Pictures col !

[Birbdad]

As you can see the rim of the arbor where the hook is is a lot wider than the smallest coil of the mainspring. This is consistent with both mainsprings from the same movement i've messed with. It is just pure luck if i can get the damn thing in. It's driving me nuts! 

EDIT: I got the damn thing in right after i posted but no way was that best practice. I had to pull the end of the coil out with steel tweezers to get it over the f'ing hook.

29 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Pictures col !

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Birbdad