Unusual barrel repair

[Daniel123]

So I took the broken mainspring out of the barrel, and found a screw has been added to hold the mainspring. To be honest not sure why as the original holder seems ok. So question should I remove it or leave it as part of the story of the watch?

[nevenbekriev]

If You remove it, probably will find that actually the original catch doesn't work. Leave as is and use it.

[Randy55]

Interesting....

Looks to me as though the original MS hook broke, and someone drilled a new hole, then placed a screw into it...then broke it of and shaped it to be a new "hook.

I'm guessing that it didn't work over time...so another watchmaker placed a different screw ? to the right of the old one.

If they are both "holding" the MS well enough....you should remove one of them. Otherwise you'll end up with a distorted spring that could cause timing issues..or even make it easier for the MS to slip off...

Just my thoughts !

Randy

[Knebo]

Wow

[JohnR725]

if you look at older books on watch repair you will find making the replacement hook from a screw ideally a special screw is the preferred procedure. Ideally when you're making the screw it supposed to be slightly tapered so when I goes into the whole it becomes tight. Then you didn't show us the end of the old mainspring? Oftentimes that's handmade also when it works much better with the replacement hook. You may be able to get by with the modern spring and the old but probably not it may look good but it probably isn't