Clean & lubricate NOS old stock mainsprings or just install?

[Klassiker]

38 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

everyone else has an accent except you

Thank you John! I have been telling my wife the same thing for years, but they teach a weird thing called RP here in Germany, so she thinks I "sound funny".

[mbwatch]

4 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

11 sounds just fine?

This is what I (also American) thought. My only wonder was maybe because they pronounced "eh-lev-en" rather than "ee-lev-en" with a long E. That seemed like the easiest to understand word.

4 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

have a nice 992 that I'm hoping some time perhaps over the weekend to try an experiment of moving the banking pins and seeing what effect it does have one lift angle and amplitude.

I will look forward to seeing the results of these tests! For mine, I seem to have gotten about 2 degrees difference in lift angle with an inward change of maybe 2 degrees of rotation on the banking pin.

UPDATE on this project:

I ordered a GR mainspring that has the exact measurements but 0.02mm stronger to replace the NOS I was finding just a little underpowered. But I cannot get the barrel arbor to hook. I tempered it and was able to get it form nicely onto the arbor but the very end of it wants to bend inward while the hook of the arbor is on a flat. Even if it is really tightly placed out out of the watch, when winding in practical terms it grabs but lets go after a 1-2 barrel rotations. The inward curl at the tip of the spring wants to pull it upward and skip over the hook. 4-5 attempts at this was enough to convince me I wasn't going to solve it without destroying the new GR mainspring or the barrel's inside. It would sit firmly on the hook but the squeeze of the rest of the spring around the inner coil pops it off rather than holding it on.

So I gave up and went back to the NOS mainspring I was using last week. It reaches 260° DU and about 215° PU so I am going to admit this is good enough, knowing it will hold near these amplitudes over 24 hours. Verticals won't fall below 195.

Last task I will tackle this weekend before casing it up is to finish dynamic poising.

[JohnR725]

6 hours ago, mbwatch said:

I tempered it

yes a lot of times aftermarket mainspring not designed for the watch that they go in will not connect with the arbor. This is because mainsprings do not have a specification for arbor size. Then you tempered it what exactly were you tempering? Yes I know it's a mainspring but the alloys we have now are alloys of what exactly and I was never quite sure how they would respond to which may be explains the problem of why it's not working. in other words the original blued steel Springs a lot of times the harbor part was already soft by design. But these modern Springs which he asked if they're too big they can be closed if you're really really careful I usually end up breaking them. Someone was showing me once that if you put something inside where the arbor goes like a piece a large peg would and you squeeze and close around that that will keep you from squeezing as much as I do that usually results in it breaking is the spring really does not like to be bent at all.

 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 1/16/2025 at 12:04 PM, JohnR725 said:

Really what would be ideal it is consistent amplitude across the entire timing range which is why typically today we see watches with much longer running times as longer running times usually translate to more linear over the first 24 hours.

I started thinking again ....we know that the hairspring oscillates in an isochronic way...the time from one oscillation to the next is the same ( or very nearly the same ) regardless of how deep or shallow the expansions and contractions are. The  disruption....which is where the very nearly comes in....is when the escape of energy takes place, and the lower the supplied energy is...the more disruption happens within the escapement. So one of the manufacturing tasks has always been to make a consistent energy releasing mainspring...funny curves etc.to keep amplitude consistent for as long as possible. Since mainspring strength is directly related to its thickness...then a thinner spring at it start of unwind and a thicker spring at its end of unwind should make for a more consistent energy release. I wonder what the complications are of making a mainspring like that ?

On 1/16/2025 at 12:48 PM, tomh207 said:

@JohnR725 having spent most of my working life in IT I can understand what you mean about garbage in - garbage out (gigo). I can figure out what you’re trying to get across to us on here John, I just find it hilarious when the technology does things like in one of your posts above replacing “horn” with “porn”, not once but twice.

i you think you have it bad with voice recognition, I’m Scottish!

Thank you for all you do here

 

Tom

 

Mel Gibson managed the Scottish accent and he's American....Australian.  Scottish must be a one way street, I'm from Hull and have an impeccable Scottish accent, but then my missus is, and red hair.....now you know what I have to put up with

[mbwatch]

8 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

Then you tempered it what exactly were you tempering? Yes I know it's a mainspring but the alloys we have now are alloys of what exactly and I was never quite sure how they would respond to which may be explains the problem of why it's not working.

Yes, a modern GR alloy mainspring. I tempered it to a straw yellow color at the suggestion of an Alex Hamilton watch repair tutorials video. The spring went through temperature color shifts shifts as I would expect from steel, and it did respond to bending after tempering. I was able to form it around the barrel arbor, and able to close the next coil around it to give something to push against. But I was not able to bend the very tip to stay flat instead of curved, and also I suspect the extra thickness of the spring affects its ability and tendency to hold onto the arbor hook. In any case, a $15 lesson learned and I will stick with the other Hamilton spring which is "good enough."

7 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Mel Gibson managed the Scottish accent and he's American....Australian

And Mike Myers is Canadian. I would like to get confirmation from a Scot about his accent's authenticity though.

 

[tomh207]

1 hour ago, mbwatch said:

Yes, a modern GR alloy mainspring. I tempered it to a straw yellow color at the suggestion of an Alex Hamilton watch repair tutorials video. The spring went through temperature color shifts shifts as I would expect from steel, and it did respond to bending after tempering. I was able to form it around the barrel arbor, and able to close the next coil around it to give something to push against. But I was not able to bend the very tip to stay flat instead of curved, and also I suspect the extra thickness of the spring affects its ability and tendency to hold onto the arbor hook. In any case, a $15 lesson learned and I will stick with the other Hamilton spring which is "good enough."

And Mike Myers is Canadian. I would like to get confirmation from a Scot about his accent's authenticity though.

 

Yeah neither would get out of a Glasgow pub if they put on that accent, well not in one piece anyway

 

Tom

[JohnR725]

On 1/18/2025 at 11:43 AM, JohnR725 said:

992 that I'm hoping some time perhaps over the weekend to try an experiment of moving the banking pins and seeing what effect it does have one lift angle and amplitude.

so experiment?

first thing I did was put a small dot of florescent ink on the balance wheel then using a UV light I find that much easier to see what the amplitude is although there is a minor consequence of the ink is really slow to dry and eventually it ends up all over the top of the balance wheel but while I was there it worked really nicely and this watch someday desperately needs to be cleaned anyway so it's not an issue.

So on my list of watches that I had checked the lift angle at work I had 48° for 992 and now I have 47° for this watch.

before I started the experiment one of things I did do was I checked the banking pins to make sure they were in the correct location. For which the one that I was going to move I thought was a perhaps a little too close. Which was verified when I accidentally turned in the wrong direction in the watch instantly stopped. Then adjusting in the other direction waiting until it did not stop and since I moved to what seem like a long distance I decided to put it on the timing machine to see what if anything happened.

At the 47° the timing machine now indicated 135° of amplitude. I did notice that winding the watch up to get it up 288 again to reset the lift angle it did require quite a bit of winding. So initially was doing the first one 80 I was just doing one click in a time as I was approaching and this time it was it was quite a bill winding so the amplitude was definitely very bad

then at 180 the new lift angle is now 51°. So in real life even if the lift angle has changed the timing machine still showed a dramatic drop in amplitude because of the position banking pin which will be obvious in the picture of what the problem is.

so in this picture the angles are a bit misleading. the weirdness the angle means the end of the escape wheel two and the pallet fork appear to be overlapping and visually I saw a sliver of light so I don't think they're actually touching. But as we can see Locke has increased dramatically and the pallet fork is no longer resting at all on the banking pin. Then yes the watch really does need to be cleaned.

then here's the pallet fork on the other banking pins that I did not touch and to me it looks like the locking depth is a little too much.