Tightening the barrel spring

[vivat]

Had some troubles with tightening the barrel spring. I think that it's an easy move. You just the spring into this little machine  (picture below) and just roll it there, than put back in the barrel. But we've had problems with the spring several times after this procedure. It was loosing it's power after like 30 windings. 

May be there is some secret technique behind this procedure?

[Kalanag]

Do you mean „loosing it’s power“ inside the watch after reassembling?

Edited December 31, 2023 by Kalanag

[vivat]

1 hour ago, Kalanag said:

Do you mean „loosing it’s power“ inside the watch after reassembling?

I mean like we while winding we hear a sound of soring sliding in the barrel 

[Neverenoughwatches]

12 hours ago, vivat said:

Had some troubles with tightening the barrel spring. I think that it's an easy move. You just the spring into this little machine  (picture below) and just roll it there, than put back in the barrel. But we've had problems with the spring several times after this procedure. It was loosing it's power after like 30 windings. 

May be there is some secret technique behind this procedure?

What is it you are wanting to know vivat. Your words are a little confusing.

1 minute ago, vivat said:

I mean like we while winding we hear a sound of soring sliding in the barrel 

It might be best to tell us which watch as there are many types of springs that have different shapes and act differently in the barrel.

[vivat]

5 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

What is it you are wanting to know vivat. Your words are a little confusing.

It might be best to tell us which watch as there are many types of springs that have different shapes and act differently in the barrel.

Yep, I thought that I will confuse you:) Well the barrel was from eta 2824. And after taking the barrel apart, oiling it and putting the spring back, we heard the sound of the spring slipping inside while winding. We think that we've did smth wrong while trying to put the spring back into the barrel. So here is the question, are there any techniques in taking the barrel and spring apart and back?

[RichardHarris123]

Have you put breaking grease o n the barrel wall? 

[VWatchie]

34 minutes ago, vivat said:

we heard the sound of the spring slipping inside while winding

That is not too unusual, and I don't think that indicates a problem or that something is wrong, but I'm not perfectly sure about that. If it is a Swiss movement you should definitely be using braking grease on the inner barrel wall as indicated by  @RichardHarris123

[Kalanag]

If the bridle of the spring is bent you will have slipping too. Here is how it should look like:

Edited December 31, 2023 by Kalanag

[Jon]

18 hours ago, vivat said:

May be there is some secret technique behind this procedure?

The secret is using a brand-new mainspring. Doing that takes away the possibility that the mainspring has created a helix shape slightly, so it won't sit flat when on a flat surface, that could happen when removing the spring, but not usual when refitting the spring. Replacing the spring also ensures that the most amplitude is gained from the movement. You may want to check the wall of the barrel for scratches and/or scores which might rob some amplitude, as well as the correct amount of braking grease. I tend to use 8217 for all barrel types. The more you use, the quicker the spring will slip but don't over-grease. Under greasing the used mainspring can have a detrimental effect on the amplitude and feel a bit scratchy when winding the watch. It's also not the best idea to manually wind an automatic watch often, as that will add more wear to the reverser wheels over time.

[VWatchie]

4 hours ago, Jon said:

The more you use, the quicker the spring will slip but don't over-grease.

Thanks, I was always wondering about that! So, if I get it right, It's called braking grease as its purpose is to lubricate the spring so that it doesn't brake (too much). Please correct me if I'm wrong!

4 hours ago, Jon said:

Under greasing the used mainspring can have a detrimental effect on the amplitude and feel a bit scratchy when winding the watch.

Even this sounds contradictory to my ears. I've always thought that an automatic spring that has trouble sliding would be the equivalent of a manually wound watch that you keep trying to wind up when it's already fully wound, which is causing an unnaturally high amplitude. If you can explain in more detail, I can guarantee you will get at least one very interested reader! Thinking a bit more about it, perhaps that is what you call detrimental, yes?

Perhaps the "scratchy" sound you're mentioning is what the OP is describing. In that case, yes that would be a problem, right?

Edited December 31, 2023 by VWatchie

[RichardHarris123]

I'm very interested too.  I'm assuming that the breaking grease, holds the bridal to the barrel wall until it is  fully wound and then let's it slip?  

[Neverenoughwatches]

12 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Thanks, I was always wondering about that! So, if I get it right, It's called braking grease as its purpose is to lubricate the spring so that it doesn't brake (too much). Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Even this sounds contradictory to my ears. I've always thought that an automatic spring that has trouble sliding would be the equivalent of a manually wound watch that you keep trying to wind up when it's already fully wound, which is causing an unnaturally high amplitude. If you can explain in more detail, I can guarantee you will get at least one very interested reader! Thinking a bit more about it, perhaps that is what you call detrimental, yes?

Perhaps the "scratchy" sound you're mentioning is what the OP is describing. In that case, yes that would be a problem, right?

I think that was jon's meaning, detrimental in the regard that it is too high if there is not enough breaking grease. Is the scratchy feel the spring sliding dry on the barrel wall ?

[LittleWatchShop]

I have pondered this term "breaking grease" because it  has never made sense to me. My research indicates that the primary component of such grease is molybdenum disulfide. It is very slippery! It maintains it's slipperiness even under high pressure and thus continues to protect the metal.

The proper shape of an automatic mainspring will result in high pressure against the barrel wall. If I understand correctly, a common grease would be "squished" away while moly, will remain...will be slippery, and protect.

What makes an automatic mainspring work is its shape (as @Kalanagnoted) and the grease creates a sliding surface that remains in place.

 

Edited January 1 by LittleWatchShop

[Jon]

21 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Even this sounds contradictory to my ears. I've always thought that an automatic spring that has trouble sliding would be the equivalent of a manually wound watch that you keep trying to wind up when it's already fully wound, which is causing an unnaturally high amplitude. If you can explain in more detail, I can guarantee you will get at least one very interested reader! Thinking a bit more about it, perhaps that is what you call detrimental, yes?

Perhaps the "scratchy" sound you're mentioning is what the OP is describing. In that case, yes that would be a problem, right?

Undergreasing the actual spring, not the barrel wall.

So, when the mainspring has been cleaned it is greased. If the entire length of the mainspring hasn't been greased enough or not at all, (the spring has to be able to slide coil over coil) then when winding the watch manually there might be a scratchy feeling with the coils not sliding over each other because of the lack of grease and too much friction of the coils over coils.

The scratchy feeling may also be because the spring has a slight helix and scrapes on the barrel and/or cover when winding, which can also fluctuate power output, therefore a loss of amplitude.

There are generally three types of braking grease for the barrel walls depending on what the barrel is made of. Moebius 8212 is meant to be used on aluminum barrels. This grease has a moderate braking effect. Moebius 8213 is meant for brass barrel walls and isn't quite as thixotropic as 8212, but is more viscous than all of them so provides slightly more braking. The goldilocks of them all is Moebius 8217 which can be used on all barrel types, This grease is the least viscous but still has a fairly good thixotropic effect. The thixotropic effect is when the grease is under load or pressure it changes from a viscous grease to more fluid like an oil. Moebius 9415 is a thixotropic grease for pallet stones because of this effect; it is better than 9010 which used to be used. Oils and greases have developed a lot in the last decade

20 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

I'm very interested too.  I'm assuming that the breaking grease, holds the bridal to the barrel wall until it is  fully wound and then let's it slip?  

On old-style automatics, the 'slipping bridle' was a separate piece of spring that had to have the correct springiness to dictate when the bridle slipped and therefore the mainspring. This still had to have braking grease on the barrel wall. The mainspring looked like any manual spring with a hook on the end that caught the hook of the slipping bridle. It was more the shape of the bridle that determined when the bridle and spring slipped rather than relying on how much braking grease was on the barrel wall. The flatter the spring (when out of the barrel) the slip will happen later, also creating the most amplitude, the more curved the slipping bridle, the spring will slip earlier which may result in not enough torque being generated and a loss of amplitude.  On modern automatic mainsprings, it is the bridle that pushes the mainspring against the barrel wall and creates that force so the end of the spring will jump from indentation to indentation in the barrel wall. On old-style automatics, a lot of the time the slipping bridle has been removed and a modern spring has been used, but there aren't any indentations on the barrel wall, just a smooth wall. Depending on how much and which type of grease is used on the barrel wall, as well as the state of the wall will determine when the spring will slip. Also, some older automatics will look like having quite a low amplitude fully wound and after 48 hours after oiling and greasing, let's say 250 degrees, once the auto module and rotor are replaced and the watch is fully wound and the rotor is spun  a little, because the spring has total full torque now you can see the amplitude increase as much as 30 or so degrees.

Here are some slides from a lesson I wrote for my students. As you can see the slipping bridle was set incorrectly which I found when taking the movement apart. It is important the bridle has room to close up properly, which highlights the point that "just because you found it that way doesn't make it the correct way" So, don't ever assume how you found it is how it should be!

Edited January 1 by Jon

[vivat]

So, as far as I understood everything said above. The problem should be in oiling of mainspring i do. Like after putting grease in the  nothces of the barrel I should also oil the mainspring itself. I saw a technique when a man put some oil on his fingertips and pulled the mainspring through his fingertips. So it was fully oiled. Is that how it should be done ?

Also why didn't no-one mentioned moebius 8200 as a barrel grease, is that bad or not ?

[VWatchie]

Fantastic post @Jon, it straightened out a lot of question marks! I read it through quickly (getting ready for the night), so I'll probably have additional questions once I've read it thoroughly. Thank you! 

[tomh207]

10 hours ago, vivat said:

So, as far as I understood everything said above. The problem should be in oiling of mainspring i do. Like after putting grease in the  nothces of the barrel I should also oil the mainspring itself. I saw a technique when a man put some oil on his fingertips and pulled the mainspring through his fingertips. So it was fully oiled. Is that how it should be done ?

Also why didn't no-one mentioned moebius 8200 as a barrel grease, is that bad or not ?

How I see it is 8200 can be used to grease the spring, not the barrel using a piece of watchmakers tissue lightly loaded with the grease, folded over the spring and drawn along the length to give a very light smear of grease. The wall of the barrel should be greased with braking grease separately with something like 8217.

 

Tom

[Waggy]

10 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

8200 can be used to grease the spring, not the barrel using a piece of watchmakers tissue lightly loaded with the grease, folded over the spring and drawn along the length to give a very light smear of grease.

I have a question on the above, I used to do this, then got out of the habit of doing it when I saw a few watchmakers on YouTube apply a few spots of 8200 to the coils of the cleaned spring after it has been reinserted into the cleaned barrel, with the assumption that the grease will work its way into the spring in a relatively short time. The reasons for me doing it this way is that if you use the paper or finger methods on the spring outside the barrel quite often you cannot get to the innermost coils easily, and if you try there is a danger you could stretch/deform them or leave behind bits of paper - also it seems quicker and easier to do it when inside the barrel....but now I just want to make sure if greasing the spring inside the barrel is good practice and if not, why not?

[vivat]

27 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

How I see it is 8200 can be used to grease the spring, not the barrel using a piece of watchmakers tissue lightly loaded with the grease, folded over the spring and drawn along the length to give a very light smear of grease. The wall of the barrel should be greased with braking grease separately with something like 8217.

 

Tom

So that's how it's done... 

[tomh207]

2 hours ago, Waggy said:

I have a question on the above, I used to do this, then got out of the habit of doing it when I saw a few watchmakers on YouTube apply a few spots of 8200 to the coils of the cleaned spring after it has been reinserted into the cleaned barrel, with the assumption that the grease will work its way into the spring in a relatively short time. The reasons for me doing it this way is that if you use the paper or finger methods on the spring outside the barrel quite often you cannot get to the innermost coils easily, and if you try there is a danger you could stretch/deform them or leave behind bits of paper - also it seems quicker and easier to do it when inside the barrel....but now I just want to make sure if greasing the spring inside the barrel is good practice and if not, why not?

From what I’ve seen Scott it varies depending on who you watch, some it’s no grease, some 8200 and some maybe 3 drops of HP 1300 on top of the coiled spring. I don’t know if any of it is best practice except don’t have to oil a brand new spring. It does make sense to me that a spring that has been through a watch cleaning machine would need lubrication. I suspect that it would also help when using bergeon style spring winders to ease friction. Maybe one of our esteemed pros could help us out with their experience.

 

Tom

[VWatchie]

3 hours ago, Waggy said:

I have a question on the above, I used to do this, then got out of the habit of doing it when I saw a few watchmakers on YouTube apply a few spots of 8200 to the coils of the cleaned spring after it has been reinserted into the cleaned barrel, with the assumption that the grease will work its way into the spring in a relatively short time. The reasons for me doing it this way is that if you use the paper or finger methods on the spring outside the barrel quite often you cannot get to the innermost coils easily, and if you try there is a danger you could stretch/deform them or leave behind bits of paper - also it seems quicker and easier to do it when inside the barrel....but now I just want to make sure if greasing the spring inside the barrel is good practice and if not, why not?

That's the method I apply as well and for the same reasons. I believe I started doing it having seen Kalle Slaap at Chronoglide doing it. He applied four tiny drops of HP-1300 to the spring after it had been pushed into the barrel. See if I can find that video again... Anyway, like you, I still wonder if it generally would be considered good practice or not, but I think it should be OK. We all know that the number one priority of oil is to spread as much as it can.

 

Edited January 2 by VWatchie

[Waggy]

3 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

We all know that the number one priority of oil is to spread as much as it can.

And there is no problem in a watch which cannot be solved by the application of more oil 

[VWatchie]

Do we all agree that the purpose of braking grease is more or less perfectly described by @LittleWatchShop in this post (thanks for the research!)? It sounds spot-on to me. Would the pros among us, like @Jon, agree?

17 hours ago, vivat said:

Like after putting grease in the  nothces of the barrel I should also oil the mainspring itself.

Yes, you should lubricate a serviced/cleaned mainspring (no need if it is new as it will be pre-lubricated). Moebius 8200 would be good, and I believe Moebius HP-1300 would be good too. Using Moebius HP-1300 I also think it is perfectly OK to dab a small amount directly on the spring as soon as you have pressed it into the barrel. The braking grease should not go into the notches but in between the notches as illustrated in Jon's post.

17 hours ago, vivat said:

Also why didn't no-one mentioned moebius 8200 as a barrel grease, is that bad or not ?

Bad! It does not have the properties of braking grease as explained in LittleWatchShop's post. It could possibly be OK/good(?) for a serviced Seiko automatic mainspring, but not for a Swiss automatic mainspring.

[tomh207]

8 hours ago, Waggy said:

I have a question on the above, I used to do this, then got out of the habit of doing it when I saw a few watchmakers on YouTube apply a few spots of 8200 to the coils of the cleaned spring after it has been reinserted into the cleaned barrel, with the assumption that the grease will work its way into the spring in a relatively short time. The reasons for me doing it this way is that if you use the paper or finger methods on the spring outside the barrel quite often you cannot get to the innermost coils easily, and if you try there is a danger you could stretch/deform them or leave behind bits of paper - also it seems quicker and easier to do it when inside the barrel....but now I just want to make sure if greasing the spring inside the barrel is good practice and if not, why not?

Oh, for the finger thing with the inside coil you don’t use fingers, just a very small piece of tissue held with tweezers and slid along the spring.

 

Tom

[Jon]

I make a pair of greasing tweezers with chamois leather on the inside. The chamois is greased with 8200 or 8300 is best in hot climates and the entire length of the spring is lightly greased. You know when enough has been applied as it is the feel of the grease on the spring and how easily those greasing tweezers slide over the spring. If you have greased the spring too much you'll see excess on top of the spring when you use your winder and it is within the barrel. If you haven't greased the spring enough then put a few small drops of grease on the top of the spring like Kalle Slappe does. There are many ways to skin a cat here. I can only say what works best for me. After you've greased a few mainsprings you'll get a feel for what the right amount is on the spring. If it is too much and you see pools of grease on the spring when in the barrel, then mop up the excess with some rodico. The great thing about making these greasing tweezers is you can get into the innermost part of the spring without risk of damage!

1 hour ago, VWatchie said:

Do we all agree that the purpose of braking grease is more or less perfectly described by @LittleWatchShop in this post (thanks for the research!)? It sounds spot-on to me. Would the pros among us, like @Jon, agree?

Moebius 8201 contains Molybdenum bisulfide which improves its lubricity and improves its resistance to pressure well. It is similar in function to graphite and it has a black appearance. Some watch manufacturers use this as standard mainspring grease. When you open a barrel and the remnants of the grease is black then it was probably used. This grease is used only for the mainspring, not braking grease

Edited January 2 by Jon