What's the technique to anneal thin carbon steel consistently ?
I recently bought three Movado watches, and all three had broken setting lever springs (is this common to Movado?). As parts are hard to find, and very expensive if available, I've started making the parts using feeler gauge steel.
For the first one, it took me several goes to get the steel soft enough to work.
I've started on a second one, but I've tried three times to anneal the steel without success. Heating to red how with a torch, then slowly moving the steel up the flame over s
Along the lines of what Joe said, for annealing small pieces I put them in a tube with powdered charcoal, heat the whole thing up to red, and let cool. Works great. For larger things like the end of a clock mainspring that needs a new hole, I do the flame in the air thing, letting it cool as slowly as possible. It doesn't get fully annealed but enough to drill with HSS drills, and file easily.
Bergeon and others used to supply carbon steel sheet in 0.10mm increments, but not for some
