Starting my first Pocket Watch Repair and hit a brickwall, advice needed

[Paul80]

Hi all

Obviously I am still new to all this, having cut my teeth on a few Seiko and Citizen Automatics I thought it about time I did a pocket watch, picked up a couple of likely candidates on eBay and made a start on the first one.

A simple Pin Palet Swiss model with the name The S&G Perfect Watch Swiss Made in the case, nothing other than Swiss made on the Movement.

Described by the seller has having a broken main spring and when it arrived that is what it felt like, but once stripped I found that thye reason it was not winding was because the mainspring had been put in upside down, so the hook on the arbour could not engage in the spring, the spring itself looked ok.

So I went ahead with the stripdown and clean, then rebuilt the movement, making sure the spring was put in the correct way arround.

So you can imagine by annoyance when I found it still didn't wind, but this time you could feel the mainspring slipping in the barrel.

Looking at the picture below of the barrel and the hook on the end of the spring, has it been fitted with the wrong spring, or is somthing missing.

What should the end look like so I know what to look for in a replacement.

Thanks for any help with this

Paul

 

 

[AndyGSi]

Have you tried to find details on the movement?

Can you post photos including the keyless works along with the size 

[RichardHarris123]

Ia it an automatic or manual. 

[rjenkinsgb]

The teeth on the barrel appear to be damaged - could that be part of the problem?

 

Can you post photos of the full movement?

 

[praezis]

You have a Roskopf type movement. Though cheap, they are not the best choice for beginners, as they differ in many details from normal (i.e. better quality) movements.

Your mainspring is meant to slip, from notch to notch in the wall. I doubt however, the spring end is correct.

Frank

Edited 3 hours ago by praezis

[nickelsilver]

Some old pin pallet movements used a sort of precursor to the slipping bridle in automatic watches. I guess as a remedy for overzealous winding- these tend to have unusually long and strong springs. There should be another piece that the end of your spring catches, it would be about 3x the barrel diameter in length. Most likely lost by the person who put the spring in upside down.

 

A regular spring should catch in one of the notches and work, trick is finding one long and strong enough. Sometimes with these you have to settle for reduced power reserve from a shorter spring.

[Paul80]

17 minutes ago, rjenkinsgb said:

The teeth on the barrel appear to be damaged - could that be part of the problem?

 

Can you post photos of the full movement?

 

Its not as bad as it looks in the photo, only the very edge is missing, forming a slight shamfore, 90% of the teeth is still there.

Sorry can't post pictures of the full movement or the keyless side as its currently back in bits to get the barrel out again.

Thanks for the replies, so looks like this first one is destined for the junk pile as I have little to no chance of finding the missing bit.

Lessons learned on this one.