Balance Hairspring

[jfred1]

I'm new here, and fairly new to watch repair.  I've done a couple services on learning movements and am working on my first "real" repair.

I'm dealing with a Seiko 7S26C that was dropped.  Since being dropped, it runs VERY fast (an hour per day fast).  Movement was never opened or serviced prior, and is only about 6 years old... and most of that time it's been sitting in a drawer because of this issue.

I've pulled the whole balance and see the hairspring is not quite concentric and seems "squished" to one side. 

I've put it on a demagnetizer (the cheap blue one) and also soaked it in naphtha.  I've also tried to gently manipulate it with no change.  Since removal, I haven't yet put it back into the movement to see how it's keeping time (no timegrapher, so a bit of a patient process).

Thoughts or recommendations?  I see new balances with hairspring on eBay for cheap...

[Nucejoe]

  On 4/22/2022 at 3:00 AM, JohnR725 said:

 

seiko etachron.pdf 180.38 kB · 12 downloads

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This picture from a post by johnR shows ETACHRON REGULATOR SYSTEM.

In your watch the regulator pin has turned     ( notice the slot in your regulator pin )      resulting a bend/kink n hairspring which now is hidden/ inside the slot and must be gently taken out of the slot, you might need to turn the regulator pin back  to safely take the spring out. then; 

1- Stregthen the bend/kink

2-  Thread the spring through the slot

3-Regulate your watch 

The terminal curve will inevitably not be concentric with other coils and would need a bit of adjustment fora concentric hairspring coil.

Good luck

 

 

 

[Klassiker]

When you were gently manipulating the hairspring, did you specifically attempt to run a fine oiler or similar between the two outer coils, where they are bunched up? 

[JohnR725]

  On 2/22/2023 at 2:00 AM, jfred1 said:

Since being dropped, it runs VERY fast (an hour per day fast)

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Did you make any visual observations before you remove the balance wheel of the condition of the hairspring?

  On 2/22/2023 at 2:00 AM, jfred1 said:

I've also tried to gently manipulate

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One of the problems with gently manipulating is what exactly is the definition of gentle manipulation?

 

Typically what happens when watches are dropped is the hairspring will relocate to somewhere it's not supposed to be. So visually look at it you'll say look my hairspring has moved over usually just a gentle large in a pop back in place. At least if your visually seeing a problem.

The ETACHRON REGULATOR SYSTEM Is actually quite marvelous for adjusting things providing you did not bend the hairspring then you may have to fix that before you use the system. It almost looks like the stud has been rotated I would open up the regulator pins so there is far apart as you can get them you to look up the above picture to see that make sure you turn at the right direction though. Then move the stud to hairspring is centered between the pins and see if that helps with anything that's right then you can close the regulator pins back being careful not to bend the hairspring.

Then is usually better if you can do this in the watch because when the balance wheels out of the watch it might be leaning and it's hard to tell exactly how things look it also helps if the entire watch is out of the case's you can properly see things.

 

 

 

 

[Waggy]

Looks to me like the hairspring jumped out of the slot in the regulator rather than being bent and is lying on top of the pins in the picture - which would be a great result as there would be a lot less manipulation to do. So I would straighten out the slot then slip the spring back in the slot and see how bad the problem is. Also if the spring was out of the slot there would be no regulation on the spring, which may account for your crazy performance?

[JohnR725]

  On 2/22/2023 at 8:02 AM, Waggy said:

Looks to me like the hairspring jumped out of the slot in the regulator rather than being bent and is lying on top of the pins in the picture - which would be a great result as there would be a lot less manipulation to do. So I would straighten out the slot then slip the spring back in the slot and see how bad the problem is. Also if the spring was out of the slot there would be no regulation on the spring, which may account for your crazy performance?

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Basically what we need is a much better picture. Then anytime you're dealing with hairsprings it's important for the original person posting the pictures to really look carefully at the hairspring before doing anything at all because if you start doing things without understanding why then you have to fix those things In addition to fixing whatever the real problem is or was providing a real problem is still there. As I said previously sometimes they hairspring goes was not supposed to be and just a gentle nudge it goes back of the problems solved unless somebody went tweaking the hairspring and now there's a new problem.

Then regarding the slot it's supposed to be an angle like that. I snipped out the image after I made a little bit bigger the image quality really sucks although I've seen much worse so I guess it's quite good then. You notice that they hairspring does go through the regulator exactly where it's supposed to be. The slot if you've never really looked at the system is miss leading because it's a machined PN the slot allows you to drop the hairspring and when it's turned straight with the hairspring whereas rotated like that it locks the hairspring in place there a machined pins underneath which we can't see.

So I made some little marks if you look carefully at the slot you'll notice they hairspring enters on one side exits on the other where I put the marks and you can see the hairspring in the center so it is where it's supposed to be. But the other mark shows that they hairspring is really really close to the stud which the picture quality sucks so I can't tell how close.

This is where providing somebody didn't bend a hairspring in the first place you'd put it back in the watch pen up the regulator pins to the maximum. Rotate the stud until they hairspring is centered and I make sure everything else looks right and then you can close the regulator pins. Unless of course other things have been done to the hairspring and then we'll have to deal with that but it be easier to look at it in the watch rather than out of the watch even though it's a pain the photograph of their.

[Nucejoe]

yup, improved pic reveals the fault.

@JohnR725 how do you improve reslution of pics as you do? 

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Nucejoe

[JohnR725]

  On 2/22/2023 at 1:59 PM, Nucejoe said:

how do you improve reslution of pics as you do? 

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Actually what I'm doing is quite simple. I have a vintage version of paint shop Pro version 7.04. So I just copy and paste the image found here into that program in large it to see if it might look better which it did then use the Windows snipping tool the snip out the relevant section. This snipping tool has the ability to highlight or put the wood colored lines down. So the words lets us see the image where we need to see it and see that they hairspring is indeed between the regulator pins where it's supposed to be well at least it's in the regulator pin the hairspring isn't quite what is supposed to be.

 

 

 

[jfred1]

Thank you all for your awesome feedback!  I'm at work right now but will look after!

I can't believe I didn't notice the stud was turned so much (I told you I was really new).  Hopefully when I get into it this will turn out to be relatively simple after all.

And yeah, the picture isn't great.  It was hard to get a good pic of something that small and thin. I tried my phone with no luck and this was the best I could get, and it's from my kids' digital microscope, but it's still very rough.

[JohnR725]

  On 2/22/2023 at 6:37 PM, jfred1 said:

I can't believe I didn't notice the stud was turned so much (I told you I was really new)

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Have you ever heard the saying measure twice cut once? In other words you want to be really careful what you're doing because you might only have one chance at something. Watch repairs kind of like that well actually we can replace the parts may be but it's always best to figure out what is the problem before jumping on solutions. Which yes is a typical newbie mistake until you learn what you're doing.

 

[jfred1]

  On 2/22/2023 at 5:51 AM, Klassiker said:

When you were gently manipulating the hairspring, did you specifically attempt to run a fine oiler or similar between the two outer coils, where they are bunched up? 

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No, but I nudged it a little with the tip of my #5 tweezers.  But I was trying to be extremely cautious, heeding the warnings read elsewhere on how delicate these are.

  On 2/22/2023 at 7:26 AM, JohnR725 said:

Did you make any visual observations before you remove the balance wheel of the condition of the hairspring?

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The balance appeared to me to have very low amplitude.  I don't have a timegrapher (yet, it's on the way), so I don't have a number for you.

If I had to guess, with my untrained eyes, I'd say a fixed point on the balance probably only traveled about 1/3 the way around the balance end to end.

[JohnR725]

  On 2/22/2023 at 7:04 PM, jfred1 said:

The balance appeared to me to have very low amplitude.  I don't have a timegrapher (yet, it's on the way), so I don't have a number for you.

If I had to guess, with my untrained eyes, I'd say a fixed point on the balance probably only traveled about 1/3 the way around the balance end to end.

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I wasn't asking about the amplitude was asking about if you visually looked at the hairspring was the opening and closing in a proper fashion or was it something else? So where is it I got bumped and it was where it wasn't supposed to be then visually it wouldn't look right and conceivably it be touching the balance wheel or something and when you took it out it went back to where it's supposed to be although like I said it is possible that the either the stud or the regulator pins can rotate sometimes they can even move around the arms can move if the impact is great enough.

In any case a visual observation of the balance wheel in the watch is a really good skill set the have someday in the future in other words the a look at the hairspring and see if it even looks right before you take it out.