You think you've seen everything, then you see a glued on hairspring!!!

[Mark]

After servicing the movement, the watch had a low amp at around 150º. On investigation I see an irregular bounce to the hairspring. So I thought I would take it off the balance and have a looksee. And this is what I find... 

So instead of tightening a hairspring collet, we should use superglue instead!

 

Why, why why???

And yes, this watch was gaining like crazy too.

It's 6 o'clock, i'm tired - i'll fix it tomorrow (need beer).

[oldhippy]

Ha Ha Ha and you thought it couldn't get any worse. Go and have a  beer.

[ro63rto]

[frenchie]

Sigh....

[jeffc83]

At a loss of words here...

[SSTEEL]

Yup Mark, I have come across similar, ask my wife, I tell her everything, not that she understands, but she gets in, the sheer amount of bodges I come across is shocking.

[Geo]

I had to remove superglue from the coils if a hairspring on a giant pocket watch.  Someone had tried to glue a broken pivot on the balance and managed to glue all the coils together in the process.  I soaked it in acetone to remove the glue, then re-pivoted the balance.  That was more than an bit fiddly!

[noirrac1j]

What?!? A while ago I was tempted to use glue to repair a tricky problem on a watch. I knew that if I EVER used glue on a mechanical watch, I would be on the path to perdition, and I would be lost forvever....

JC

[jeffc83]

29 minutes ago, noirrac1j said:

What?!? A while ago I was tempted to use glue to repair a tricky problem on a watch. I knew that if I EVER used glue on a mechanical watch, I would be on the path to perdition, and I would be lost forvever....

JC

I see you chose the right path in life;)

[ramrod]

wow! and i thought a glued on dial was bad.

[bobm12]

Interesting...I would put superglue on that watchmaker's seat!

[stroppy]

Next someone will be using hot melt glue!  Yikes!

[Cad101]

Well ive had a balance wheel superglued to the staff the wobble on it was amazing 

[maclerche]

at least it was not "Gaffer tape" 

[Marc]

Nothing wrong with Gaffer tape, you can fix anything with it.

[Mark]

Well, I managed to remove the glue without damaging the hairspring. 

The collet was way too loose obviously so I tightened it and then remounted the spring. It went from gaining +600s/d to losing around -1000s/d

Why you ask??

Well - because some muppet (probably the watchbreaker who glued the spring up and wondered why it was gaining so much) actually GLUED some extra weights to the balance rim!!! 

I never even noticed them until I started investigating why the watch was losing such a huge amount.

I lopped them off and replaced two other timing screws that looked very damaged and hey presto.

 

From this...

 

To a more healthy...

Bit of tweaking to do but at least I have something to work with now

I made a video which i'll edit and publish in due course.

[clockboy]

Well I be, just keep smiling (if you can)  

[bobm12]

I'll be interested in knowing how could superglue was removed so successfully! I thought the hairspring was a goner!

 

[vinn3]

Quote

 

super glue has its place. the  best is made by Loctite Corp.   vinn

[Geo]

On 10 May 2016 at 8:21 PM, bobm12 said:

I'll be interested in knowing how could superglue was removed so successfully! I thought the hairspring was a goner!

 

Soak it in acetone Bob, it works a treat.

[bobm12]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 7:34 PM, vinn3 said:

super glue has its place

Yep, the seat!!!

On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 3:28 AM, Geo said:

Soak it in acetone Bob

Thanks Geo. Good call, I don't know what I was thinking about, never crossed my mind to do it to a balance wheel/spring...I guess I overthink things sometimes!!

Cheers,

Bob

[vinn3]

if you  look up  'SUPER GLUE   might find the break down temp..   with the  older locktite  items it was 250  degrees  F..   BUT,  that would take the temper out of the  spring?   with a large nut and bolt,  a torch will remove loctite.  acetone MAY  work.

[Geo]

5 hours ago, vinn3 said:

acetone MAY  work.

No may about it, acetone does remove Super Glue.  I used it to clean a hairspring that was covered in the stuff.

[SSTEEL]

Agree, I use acetone to remove a superglued nut off from a case back that played hard ball.