Manual Winder Spring Issue

[crezo]

Hi all, new to the forum and watch repair and wanted to ask a bit of advice.

I bought a vintage manual wind Aetos watch for my father in law a whole back. It's been running perfectly up until a month ago when it stopped running.

After taking it apart to have a look, I noticed the hairspring had come out of position. I've moved it back into place and am currently keeping an eye on how it runs (so far so good).

Ive attached a picture of it showing the spring out of place.

Does anyone have any idea how this coukd have happened? I'm thinking it was probably just a hard knock, but wondering if there may be something loose I should check incase it comes loose again?

Thanks for your time all.

[bobm12]

Welcome to the forum crezo, I can't tell very well from your picture but I believe that hairspring is messed up. Now, I don't know how it could have happened but I'm sure there are a number of reasons for that to happen, including a hard enough impact...but then, I would say the pivots could bend, break or something...or something else would give. I've heard of some movements -- Seiko movements mostly -- in which it doesn't take much to cause the same problem or a similar one. I suppose someone more knowledgeable will jump in with a solution to this problem. In the meantime, enjoy the forum!

 

Cheers,

 

Bob

[crezo]

Thanks bob. I've repositioned it and been wearing it most of the day yesterday, been left face up on a desk last night and still running fine at the moment.

Hopefully that's all it was as the spring itself looks fine, as do its fittings and adjusters , but then I'm new to this so could well be something I've missed.

[bobm12]

How is the timekeeping? Is it as accurate as before?

[oldhippy]

It looks to me like the hairspring his caught on the stud in which case a hard knock would do the damage. Also no shock proof, so you were lucky because the balance staff might have broken. No prevention for this just be careful not to do it again. 

[crezo]

It seems to be OK so far, but it's only been a day. I'll see how it gets on this week and if it needs regulating, and let him know to be careful with it.

Thanks for the advice, it did definately look it was caught on something but popped back into place pretty easily. Something to bear in mind with vintage watches then that I'd never really thought of!