Sealed unit mainspring Barrels

[wls1971]

Hi,

I have recently serviced a couple of longines movements that have sealed mainspring barrels, I have not been putting these through the cleaning machine, just oiling the barrel arbors.

Is this the correct procedure ? and if the mainspring does go, does this mean a complete barrel assembly has to be purchased? or can these units actually be opened as normal ?.

 

Wayne

[vinn3]

this has been asked (and  opened)   before.  it  would be nice to know which  watches have  this sealed mainspring housing.   vinn

[wls1971]

The Longines I worked on where a Cal. 428 and an automatic cal 342 both from the 60's, I did see the post about Seiko sealed units which can be opened. I dont want to try and open the Longines one's and wondered if any one else had and what makes these sealed units different to an ordinary barrel.

Wayne

[oldhippy]

The shop I worked in years ago were Longines agents. You are correct in oiling the arbors both ends. If the spring goes you replaced it with a new unit. Back then spare parts were in abundance, I don't know about today, if you can't obtain the unit I suppose a new spring will have to do.     

[jdm]

3 hours ago, wls1971 said:

The Longines I worked on where a Cal. 428 and an automatic cal 342 both from the 60's,

Cousins lists a mainspring part for the 342, and a barrel complete for the 428, so they are different under that aspect.

[wls1971]

£38.50 plus vat for the 428's sealed unit that's a pricey mainspring

[Razz]

I just picked up this nice Longines with a 428 manual in it today. In very good condition, except that the mainspring does not get any wind into it whatsoever. It either has broken near the arbor or maybe just the arbor has become unhooked. Before I source a barrel complete I will pull the barrel out and try to open it up. However, I was wondering if anyone has specs on the mainspring itself as it is not in ranftt or cousins UK (just that it is discontinued and not available to order the barrel complete on the later with no spec listed for the spring). Does anyone have a spec or where to source the spec to order a new spring, and if in fact one could be found to put back into the barrel. Or is it a case of having to just bite the bullet and go with a new barrel complete? I am only into this for $30US at the moment, but everything is in original condition and it runs for a few seconds with a good couple of puffs of air so I think it will be worth it even if the only option is sourcing a new barrel complete.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Razz

[Waggy]

Here you go:

[JohnR725]

The PDF parts list is interesting because the barrel is sealed. You can see that in the picture but they also have a mainspring number. Which implies the mainspring can be changed.

Also if you look at the link and scroll down the list a mainspring. Plus going to best fit online they don't have a lot of parts at all but they do a mainspring listed.

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=LON_428

8343_Longines 428-1.pdf 8342_Longines 420.pdf

[oldhippy]

That is because years ago you always replaced the mainspring it was a complete unit. I uses to service Longines as we were listed as a service center. But these days like most parts they are hard to get hold of or obsolete or not even genuine. It is the same with some Seiko movement. Now you have to get hold of what you can. 

[Waggy]

19 minutes ago, oldhippy said:

Now you have to get hold of what you can.

So we head down the road of generic parts, but I don't see this as a bad thing, long-term. If there is a demand for parts then someone will supply that demand (Business 101). Informed buyers will only buy suitable quality, so in an almost "survival of the fittest" process these new non-OEM suppliers will also evolve and new ones emerge to meet this dual part-type and quality need, hence, breaking any short term monopoly the OEMs have currently created. Original suppliers will see their parts sales drop due to this competition and IF they care about this revenue stream (and I'm not convinced they do) and they will either have to drop their prices and sell to the general public or wither and die. Attempting to force a monopoly by restricting sales and elevating prices to an informed customer base is impossible in the long-term in a global market where quality manufacturing ability is increasing all the time. Increasing market share can only be achieved by giving people what they want at a fair market price not denying them of it.

So my prediction is that if parts continue to be withheld (for whatever reason) by OEMs then generics will continue emerge and quality will increase until there is no point in playing the OEMs game - I think we are already seeing the abundance of generic parts (see Ali Express etc.) and quality is already improving as customers are only buying those products with adequate specifications.

You can look to analogues like car parts, where new OEM brakes are only marginally (10%-15%) more expensive than generics - there may be some pain in the interim getting there, but I think this is where we will end up with watch parts.

Sorry for my rant witch is a little off-topic, but I think the situation will rectify itself in due course, and the OEMs will get their comeuppance unless they smarten-up (unlikely), we only have to ride out the storm.

PS

Whilst I think CousinsUK are doing a great service intaking legal action against the Swatch Group and I genuinely appreciate their sentiment, I believe this is ultimately (unfortunately) a futile endeavor as you can never force anyone to sell you something they don't want to sell you. In my opinion I think they would have better directed their time and resources by investing in the supply and development of quality generics to the general public.

[JohnR725]

49 minutes ago, Waggy said:

Original suppliers will see their parts sales drop due to this competition and IF they care about this revenue stream (and I'm not convinced they do) and they will either have to drop their prices and sell to the general public or wither and die.

By the way have you ever wondered where spare parts come from anyway? When I was in Switzerland I went to the never can quite remember what they were called back then probably eta before they are absorbed by Swatch group. We went to the service department where we could get service literature the good old days when that existed and we saw the spare parts being  packaged. Unfortunately I did not take my camera I did not think there was anything interesting and no digital cameras did not exist back then so I was being very stingy with my film. So single female was hand taking parts out of a cup dropping them in the whatever counting them out. On one side was a huge spool of labels and on the other side where the little Clear plastic covers and then they would come together and be laminated. What were you expecting assembly line for spare parts heck of a lot of hand labor.

 

1 hour ago, Waggy said:

You can look to analogues like car parts, where new OEM brakes are only marginally (10%-15%) more expensive than generics

Actually you cannot use this analogy because there's issues. For instance those car breaks how old is the car? Cars represent a poor analogy compared to watch repair because cars tend to have a shorter life than watches.

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&0&2uswk&Longines_428

Notice the watch love 428 1971 and where did you purchase your car? Is anyone driving their car from 71?

Generic parts only work if there's enough quantity demand for the existence of those parts.

1 hour ago, Waggy said:

Whilst I think CousinsUK are doing a great service intaking legal action against the Swatch Group and I genuinely appreciate their sentiment, I believe this is ultimately (unfortunately) a futile endeavor as you can never force anyone to sell you something they don't want to sell you. In my opinion I think they would have better directed their time and resources by investing in the supply and development of quality generics to the general public.

I would just be happy if they get the technical documentation

oh and minor hairsplitting thing here. So if cousins one and Swatch group had the sell spare parts that they typically don't sell at all and they don't package them up for single sales they only sell in group or give them to the service centers. Minor for the lawsuit is assumes that spare parts actually exist which conceivably they do not.

The places where generic components really shine is anything that's basically generic or is sufficient demand like Rolex where some specific Rolex part is no longer available and a lot of people would like to keep their Rolex watch running. Especially in the case of Rolex were anything vintage has to go back to Switzerland and the cost is extremely expensive. So this is where you see things like crystals crowns gaskets all sorts of parts can be generic as there's enough quantity for them to exist.

Then Swatch group our favorite group to hate does do something or several amusing things

https://www.swatchgroup.com/en/brands-companies

So Swatch group hates watchmakers won't sell us anything perhaps. Have absorbed practically everything in Switzerland it's not nailed down and up probably absorbed that next. A lot of countries that get hit with anti-trade practices because they just absorbed way too much. So basically companies are not competing for unfair trade practices but the Swiss have been doing that for years anyway so that's not going to be a problem

Interesting is when you look at all the things Swatch group has their hand in. But some of those do sell to the public or at least Through distributors. Probably because by selling them outside of just their brands the volume makes things much better for them. For instance suppose you need a watch battery there is Renata And there readily available all kinds of places. Or there's another thing that I'm not seeing here at all which is Moebius. Yes the favorite company everybody hates because the price of oil is so darned expensive. The just thing Swatch group doesn't want us repairing watches but they do allow us to purchase the watch oil? Probably suggest if there wasn't a world demand for watch oil the cost for them to manufacture it for their own use would be way too expensive. Which also makes you wonder if they start package hitting a slightly bigger bottles and manufacturing slightly more of it may be the cost would go down for all of us including Swatch group

 

 

[spectre6000]

I used to exclusively drive cars older than me, and often older than my parents. Pre-71 was the norm, and I spent a lot of time in cars from the '50s (I'm a mid-80s model for reference). A nasty wreck convinced me safety features are probably worth the sacrifice of a bit less rolling soul, but I still play with others' cars. There are a lot of crap cars out there that won't last, but the good ones do. The really good ones will get put up in special boxes (garages) just to be looked at from time to time and never really used. Some are even in museums. Just like watches.

I think the real difference is that it is/was a lot easier cheaper to get into business making watches, so there are a LOT more watch manufacturers out there. There's also a lot more variance between makes/models. If you have a few dozen manufacturers churning out a few hundred models with only a few keepers, it's a lot easier for an aftermarket to accommodate. Thousands of makes and models is a much bigger challenge to keep up with and much smaller niches to be able to go into and turn a profit. Also, outside of certain markets, pretty much everyone has a car. Almost no one wears watches anymore. Add in short sighted, self-defeating protectionist business practices keeping the parts from getting into circulation in the first place, and you've got a death spiral. Just market dynamics. Watchmaking is a dying art.

If I had a particular make/model of watch I was into, I'd act just like I would with cars and start hoarding parts. The nice thing about watch parts is that you don't need a pallet rack and a shed to hold it all.

[Razz]

Thanks for the links and documents for the Longines 428! I found a spec on Emmywatch for the mainspring as 1.00x0.110x320x9.5 and found it on Cousins UK for £7.30 and ordered it. As a back up I found the barrel complete in a NOS package and ordered that too as my skill with mainsprings is still not to the level of certainty to get the one into the old barrel and some of the generics need to have the arbor end worked to fit the specific caliber arbor and that is also a skill in development. I am a firm supporter of Cousins UK and shop there first when they have the parts I am looking for.

Definately what I thought it was as broken very close to the arbor.

Couple more photos of the partial disassembly in case it helps someone. Once the spring / barrel comes in I will post in a fresh thread.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Razz