Mainspring winding

[kevinb95]

Second newbie question for the day.  I've taken level 1 and 2 of Mark's course.  During the "how to use a mainspring winder" lesson he mentions if it's not catching you may have it backwards or upside down.  If I twist the other direction it would catch.  Do I turn clockwise or anti-clockwise?  I guess I don't know how I would know if I have it upside down?  I'm playing around with an old Vantage watch, bought my Watchcraft Bracelet mainspring winder.  I think this is going to take a lot of practice, I kept having an issue where a) I didn't know which direction I should be going, but always got it to catch, however it would seem like the spring would float up and down in the winder barrel, so it wasn't in a nice neat spool.  When I tried to press it back out it would shoot all over the place.  On my fourth attempt it just went in a huge knot and split.  So I guess now I have to buy a mainspring.  *womp*womp*  lol   Is there some trick I'm missing in the video to successfully do this?  Thank you experienced guys for putting up with and helping out with my newbie questions.

[transporter]

I Only have a cople of he multi barrel winders at the moment but i always have to wind clockwise, as you would when winding the the watch by the crown, when you say you are pushing itout and it springs everywhere are you pushing it directly into the barrel, from what you are writing it sounds like you are allowing it to just come out the barrel and expecting it to say wound, im probably wrong but that is how it reads.

as for the spring catching or not, sometimes it doesnt catch and others it does, on my winders i fit the spring onto the winder then feed it into the winder barrel, that way i know it is hooked and ready for winding, when fully wound i turn anti clockwise so as to release the spring from the arbor and to allow it to be pushed into the barrel

[TimFitz]

This may help

[TimFitz]

Also do a small drawing of the barrel with the old mainspring so yo remember. Print it and tape it to your bench. After you do a lot of mainsprings it will become second nature.

Practice makes perfect, you will be all right ,with a little time

[kevinb95]

Thanks everyone.  So as a rule it's always clockwise for winding the mainspring into the winder?  To transporter's question. The gap in my mainspring winder where the spring threads through has a enough width that the spring doesn't necessarily coil over the top of the previous turn, it may be higher or lower in the winder.  I think this is making it shoot out.  One time I was able to get it in a good coil, put it into the barrel and pushed the button to push the spring from the winder into the barrel, but it didn't stay in the bar rel, it flung all apart.   I have the same winder set in the attached picture.

[kevinb95]

An additional question for anyone in the US.  Where do you get mainsprings from?  The suppliers listed in resources don't seem to have much and the websites aren't very easy to use.  I saw Mark's video and from the Cousins website I found it super easy to get the GR code for the mainspring I need.  Finding it on the US suppliers websites is turning out to be a challenge.

[jdm]

2 hours ago, kevinb95 said:

An additional question for anyone in the US. 

Even from the US you can use Cousins UK. No VAT, reasonable shipping cost and delivery times, no customs fees for you. No need to be fixated on domestic suppliers in this global market age.