Winder confusion

[kd8tzc]

So I received my Bergeon #5 winder today... I ordered the red one (right hand) and blue one (left hand)... but when I look at these, they both look like right handed winders.  Maybe I am looking/thinking of this wrong, but I thought a right handed winder will look like the tab in on the right when you hold the arbor upside down (as I have in the picture), and a left handed one will be on the left.  Well, here is the red winder first and then the blue second... thy are identical.  Am I missing something?

[Jon]

They are both anti clockwise winders you've got there by the looks of it.

Just had a look at my clockwise winders and the hook is facing the opposite way to yours.

[kd8tzc]

Okay, I wanted to make sure before I contact the vendor

[Jon]

On 5/1/2023 at 5:54 PM, kd8tzc said:

Okay, I wanted to make sure before I contact the vendor

Yeah, you've definitely got the same winders, which are anti-clockwise winders. Not much good, as most springs are clockwise springs.

I hope you get it sorted out. One word of warning for any that buy from Cousins, if you have a complaint with your goods or want to send it back because it is defective, dream on!

Their T & C's state that if you are not a registered watch repairer then they will not give you a refund. Even if you are, then it is hit and miss to get your money back. I am the buyer for Epping Forest Horology Centre and when a £35 quartz movement got delivered to the wrong address and got signed for, Cousins took 5 months to give the few quid back. This is after spending over £4000 in two years with them! Seriously, you don't have a leg to stand on and if you complain they will delete your account! Take heed  of this warning and check out their T and C's! And there is no way to contact them. Their phone number gives a message saying "there is no contact number" Seriously? How crap is that. Beware!

Edited May 2, 2023 by Jon

[kd8tzc]

Good to know @Jon about Cousins.  Since I live in the US, I avoid them as I am still waiting for an order that I ordered a month ago.  Thankfully it wasn't a whole lot of stuff.  It makes me very concerned when a vendor doesn't list a phone number.

I actually bought the winders from Eslinger here in the US (yes, I know they don't have a phone number, which does concern me) and they promptly are taking care of it.  Sent a new one immediately with a return label for the incorrect one.  I should hopefully have the new one tomorrow.  They took a look at what they had in stock and it appears that the set (barrel and winder arbor) are incorrectly stamped on those they have in stock too, so it looks like Bergeon made a mistake.

[Jon]

Brilliant! I'm glad Eslinger treat their customers better than our UK Cousins does. It's quite shocking to be honest. I had a student that bought a £800 watchmaker's Durston bench from Cousins and when he complained about the quality of it, they deleted his account! They seriously just jogged him on! Wow!!!

Edited May 2, 2023 by Jon

[kd8tzc]

Well, you just confirmed for me never to do business with them.

[Colditz]

Hi Kd8tzc.

Who is the vender that you purchased the winders from?

I have just one more winder to get for a full set of Bergeon left blue and right red arbors to get. The one I need is left 3 blue. All of these were purchased from Cousins.

I started with an empty Bergeon box and itshas taken me 2 years to fill it, buying winder when needed and money would allow.

Now Jon has got me nervous and I will have to check all my arbors to ensure that I have no right /left crosses.

 

[kd8tzc]

I bought from Esslinger

[kd8tzc]

Quick question... when I get a replacement spring... if I have a left handed movement but they send it with the red washer, does it matter?  I would assume I have to flip the washer upside down so the red is facing down or will locusts swarm my house because I am breaking some sort of rule? 

[GuyMontag]

I would expect that it would come with the colored part oriented so that the spring goes in as it should, but regardless you would just position it so that the spring is orientated the same way you showed it in the barrel, CCW. I've had springs come with neither side colored and you just pop it in the way it should go. EDIT: I mixed this post up with your other post, I assume it's for the same mainspring.

Edited May 4, 2023 by GuyMontag

[kd8tzc]

40 minutes ago, GuyMontag said:

EDIT: I mixed this post up with your other post, I assume it's for the same mainspring.

Sorry, different watch, but also a left hand wind.  This was for a Luch 2209.  Strange though as the mainspring out of the Luch has the DB bridle, and this one doesn't.  I wonder how the replacement will work in the barrel without the DB bridle?

[JohnR725]

On 5/2/2023 at 2:03 PM, kd8tzc said:

vendor doesn't list a phone number.

one of the amusements I have with well this group is an obsession with material houses can only exist online. In the old days the used to be physical structures with real people. But for this group usually any attempt I have to convince people to seek out your physical real material houses falls on deaf ears because it's not online it doesn't exist. But the problem with being online is maybe they don't really exist?

so for cousins they do have a help and support page which is actually quite amusing for reading. read the section on what if you're not a registered business that's quite interesting.

https://www.cousinsuk.com/?section=helpAndSupportLoader

then we have this link which is interesting it looks like cousins physically does exist they seem to have an address we should probably Google it and see if it is a actual building or just a field in the middle of no place. But notice what it says about contacting them well I would interpret that the main basically don't because were to make it really really hard to do that.

https://www.cousinsuk.com/page/contactus

this of course is the problem of online businesses do they really exist or not. Then yes at one time material houses were physical if you go look at cousins well for instance you look here. You can explore the company history were at one time it physically existed you could reach out to them but at some point in time they went all online they don't have to talk to customers anymore. Which makes the online people happy because it's not online it doesn't exist

https://www.cousinsuk.com/history

On 5/2/2023 at 2:03 PM, kd8tzc said:

from Eslinger here in the US (yes, I know they don't have a phone number

looks like they're still doing a little better than cousins because on the contact page they have an email address they also have a physical address and a form you can fill out that might actually go somewhere. But I can see their embracing the online attitude of don't even think of reaching out to us in any other way than this.

noticing that @kd8tzc lives in the state of Ohio was wondering if there are any physical material houses there and here's sort of one. one other thing is cousins makes me nervous and you look at even like this notice the reference they are while the word professional. When a dealing online I don't think they discriminate against anyone but it does make you nervous when they say the word professional. I've actually seen some online material houses they won't deal with you unless they perceive somehow your professional and the trade.

I know locally of the two material houses that we have one of them will sell your tools but won't sell watch material if you're a hobbyist and it has to do a tax reasons. The final sales tax on wholesale items is collected by the user in their business so if your watchmaker that's where the final taxes collected but in the case of tools year the final users so she charges taxed everybody. But it still brings him a problem of a lot of the material houses think there only dealing with the so-called professionals and they do a nice job of hiding from everybody else which explains why there's slowly all going out of business. At least a lot of them are because they become extremely hard to find.

So at least below there is a phone number and you could physically go pick up things. Which means it is a problem you can at least yell and scream at somebody although yelling and screaming isn't the best approach usually.

https://www.jewelerssupplies.com/

 

 

 

[kd8tzc]

Yes, and the link you provided for CasKer not only has a phone number, but is also in Ohio which makes me happy (faster shipping hopefully).  I just called them about another Mainspring, and the lady there was extremely pleasant to speak with.  It's nice to be able to just jump online in the middle of the night and order something, but it's even better when you can call a company number and a REAL person answers, vs a messaging system.  CasKer had a real person answer the phone.  Truly old fashioned, but I really appreciate it as I had a ton of questions (mainspring for the Caravel 11DP)

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, kd8tzc said:

Ohio which makes me happy

the real question is are you making use of all the horological stuff in Ohio?

and yes it's really nice when you can telephone and talk to somebody in person he can explain what you need and then they can find it for you. If you look at a lot of the material houses at least the ones in this country that haven't converted 100% the online you'll find in the fine print sometimes reference that call them because not everything is online. In the case of cousins when you look at their history they converted to automated no persons here at all fully robotic operation I'm joking about the robots possibly but they did that a long time ago so if it's not online it doesn't exist but the other material houses they been slowly converting they still have a lot of stuff that's not on line and a lot of times will see in the fine print says call for availability or whatever

then here's another place not a material house a Association their classes are really expensive there aims at professionals that make a lot of money I guess but sooner or later you might find something of interest. If he did go to one of their annual meetings that's an opportunity to meet all the various material houses and dealers. At least usually. They had a annual meeting in Seattle but the material houses were annoyed with their Rolex policies and nobody showed up there was nobody of the trade fair other than the local material houses is very disappointing.

https://www.awci.com/

then as I suspected more material houses in Ohio at least on the bottom of the page they claim there in Ohio they have an address and phone number. oh and this is a really weird company we go there contact page they have an address and even have a map so they can be found.

https://mccawcompany.com/

the about page gets to be interesting in that this is a real material house they really exist.notice what it says walk-in customers welcome they want to see physical people. If you read the fine print they say they're a full-service material house there.just order takers their actual material people. Otherwise this is a real material house of full-service exactly what they say they are versus the online which everybody loves convince convenience until you have to get something that you can't get online then you need the real material house. The people I can find whatever it is you need.

Oh but this does bring up a little problem of finding stuff. Like finding of physical material houses a really hard to find they seem to hide quite nicely in the universe. Because at one time they existed all across the planet or at least a lot of the planet. More than likely a lot of them still exist but they catered to the local customers and don't care about online so trying to find them if you live wherever they are can be a challenge

https://mccawcompany.com/about-us/

 

[fellerts]

Lost of bad experiences with Cousins in this thread, so I though I'd share my positive experience with their customer support team! I purchased a set of Bergeon screwdrivers with the rotating base, and noticed that the base was very "crunchy" and didn't rotate properly. Sounds like the bearing had taken a good beating. I told them this and they sent a new one. They didn't even want the old one back.

Maybe it depends on whether the support rep is having a bad day or not?

[kd8tzc]

46 minutes ago, fellerts said:

Lost of bad experiences with Cousins in this thread, so I though I'd share my positive experience with their customer support team! I purchased a set of Bergeon screwdrivers with the rotating base, and noticed that the base was very "crunchy" and didn't rotate properly. Sounds like the bearing had taken a good beating. I told them this and they sent a new one. They didn't even want the old one back.

Maybe it depends on whether the support rep is having a bad day or not?

That's good to hear, but how did you even contact them?  There is no phone number, no email address, no way to speak with a real human being.  I'm glad you had a good experience, but being that I live in the US, I'm going to pass on them.

[Jon]

On 5/4/2023 at 6:05 PM, kd8tzc said:

Quick question... when I get a replacement spring... if I have a left handed movement but they send it with the red washer, does it matter?  I would assume I have to flip the washer upside down so the red is facing down or will locusts swarm my house because I am breaking some sort of rule? 

Yes, flip it upside down.

To be honest, calling mainspring left handed and right handed is really confusing. 90% of mainspring are 'clockwise' mainsprings with the colour of the new mainspring holder facing towards you (UP). Pretty much all Russian watches are anti-clockwise mainsprings.

Here's a pic of a clockwise spring. As the mainspring comes away from the arbor towards the barrel wall it moves in a clockwise direction. These mainspring are the most common.

If you were to buy Bergeon anti-clockwise mainspring winders they would be marked with a blue mark on them. Clockwise mainspring winders, which are far more common have a red dot on them.

 

When this mainspring which is hooked to the barrel arbor moves away from the arbor towards the barrel wall it is an anti-clockwise direction.

All mainspring winders from Bergeon will be bought as clockwise or (counter)anti-clockwise, so calling them left handed or right handed can cause confusion in my opinion, but maybe it's a cultural difference and in the states you do refer to them as left handed and right handed. I'm assuming a left handed mainspring is a clockwise mainspring, because it comes away from the barrel arbor in a left handed way?

 

10 hours ago, fellerts said:

Lost of bad experiences with Cousins in this thread, so I though I'd share my positive experience with their customer support team! I purchased a set of Bergeon screwdrivers with the rotating base, and noticed that the base was very "crunchy" and didn't rotate properly. Sounds like the bearing had taken a good beating. I told them this and they sent a new one. They didn't even want the old one back.

Maybe it depends on whether the support rep is having a bad day or not?

It's not that, although I sometimes wonder! They have a deal with Bergeon, that if anything in the Bergeon range is defective there is no quibble about replacing it. I had the same with a Bergeon tool that broke and they replaced it without even wanting the old one back. Pretty cool. You can count on Bergeon. Don't count on Cousins though!.. lol

On 5/4/2023 at 7:05 PM, JohnR725 said:

one of the amusements I have with well this group is an obsession with material houses can only exist online. In the old days the used to be physical structures with real people. But for this group usually any attempt I have to convince people to seek out your physical real material houses falls on deaf ears because it's not online it doesn't exist. But the problem with being online is maybe they don't really exist?

The one place we have left in London is Gleave and Co (https://gleave.london/). which is one of the only places you can go and get good advise from Graham and Luke (Father and Son). It has a counter service and online sales. There is H S Walsh which has a shop in Hatton Garden, London, but they know very little when it is specific watch related stuff, because their staff are more jewellery related, I find. Gleave are the absolute business in my opinion. Nowhere left like it in the UK, which is a sad thing!

Edited May 9, 2023 by Jon

[fellerts]

19 hours ago, kd8tzc said:

That's good to hear, but how did you even contact them?  There is no phone number, no email address, no way to speak with a real human being.  I'm glad you had a good experience, but being that I live in the US, I'm going to pass on them.

I issued a Return Request through the website. Associated with return requests is a "correspondance" page where a human, who opened with "Thank you for contacting our management team", asked for a detailed description of the issue. They forwarded this to Bergeon. After a bit of back and forth, they shipped a new base.

10 hours ago, Jon said:

They have a deal with Bergeon, that if anything in the Bergeon range is defective there is no quibble about replacing it.

Ah, that might explain why I had such a pleasant experience. Always buy Bergeon then, I guess?

[kd8tzc]

14 hours ago, Jon said:

he one place we have left in London is Gleave and Co (https://gleave.london/). which is one of the only places you can go and get good advise from Graham and Luke (Father and Son). It has a counter service and online sales. There is H S Walsh which has a shop in Hatton Garden, London, but they know very little when it is specific watch related stuff, because their staff are more jewellery related, I find. Gleave are the absolute business in my opinion. Nowhere left like it in the UK, which is a sad thing!

Thanks for that information... I will add them to my "preferred" list, which simply means I tend to use them more as they have someone I can call.  Granted, I will likely use them last after all the US based ones as it will arrive quicker and not an international call, but it is nice to know there are still some places out there who have people you can call and talk with.  As someone new to this hobby, that is critical to me as I may have a question about something and they can quickly point out something that might have caused me to buy the wrong item. 

Don't get me wrong, Cousins has a beautiful website, but without the ability to interact with someone if I have questions, I'm buying elsewhere.