Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Hi guys. 

Can such crooked hairssprings be rescued?

I feel the more I correct it, the more crooked it gets. I guess that I should fix the twisting first, so that its flat horizontal and then turn it into a circle? I have seen Mark's videos but this seems different. 

20200805_022558.jpg

Posted
Hi guys. 
Can such crooked hairssprings be rescued?
I feel the more I correct it, the more crooked it gets. I guess that I should fix the twisting first, so that its flat horizontal and then turn it into a circle? I have seen Mark's videos but this seems different. 
20200805_022558.thumb.jpg.6a92bf4d3c60ad0ee73b5fe69cff5558.jpg

It is a very difficult job to straighten out a hairspring. I would recommend taking all the twists out first. Then I would start bending the round. Once it is flat and round, I would determine where the turn starts and make sure the angle up and then flat is correct and aligned to the stud holder on the balance cock. Then shape it to follow the regulator path.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
  • Sad 1
Posted

hairspring work is a craft and trade unto itself, and a vanishing art. back in the days of old when pocketwatches were the smartphones of their day, a master would even send his hairspring work to a specialist called a "Vibrator," of all things. thats all they did for 8 hrs a day for an entire career. a very exact, and mysterious science.  just recently I had a twisted up hairspring, what I dubbed the "slinky snafu," not only was it kinked, it had twisted across itself. nope. not even close. I spent a ton of time on it, no luck. The more I tried, the worse it got. I lost that battle but will try again when the opportunity presents itself. mark made it look easy. I wish I had even come close to that. I had to replace it. good luck my friend. don't pull too much hair out...

Posted
2 minutes ago, MechanicMike said:

hairspring work is a craft and trade unto itself, and a vanishing art. back in the days of old when pocketwatches were the smartphones of their day, a master would even send his hairspring work to a specialist called a "Vibrator," of all things. thats all they did for 8 hrs a day for an entire career. a very exact, and mysterious science.  just recently I had a twisted up hairspring, what I dubbed the "slinky snafu," not only was it kinked, it had twisted across itself. nope. not even close. I spent a ton of time on it, no luck. The more I tried, the worse it got. I lost that battle but will try again when the opportunity presents itself. mark made it look easy. I wish I had even come close to that. I had to replace it. good luck my friend. don't pull too much hair out...

my apologies for the terrible pun. that was awful.

  • Like 1
Posted

I have done Balance springs they take a lot of time and a lot of patience, the last one took days tweaking it and then leaving it untill my mind cleared then at it again not easy for the casual repair person.

  • Like 1
Posted
On 8/5/2020 at 3:56 AM, watchweasol said:

I have done Balance springs they take a lot of time and a lot of patience, the last one took days tweaking it and then leaving it untill my mind cleared then at it again not easy for the casual repair person.

Totally agree.

  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Topics

  • Posts

    • If the watch is new, just return it to the seller for a refund or replacement.
    • Keevo, Welcome to the group ! I'm thinking that you have some damage to the hour, and/ or minute wheel. Possibly just a bent, otherwise damaged, or missing tooth.   Your photo didn't post that I can see. I think you'll have to open it to start really finding the issue. Best, Randy
    • An industrial break cleaner , like Holts does a good job of rinsing off paraffin 
    • In cap jewels on several watches I have serviced over the years. I've recently serviced a couple of Longines movements where the cap jewels were colourless. They are a real pain. Without colour they disappear when immersed in any liquid for cleaning 😲 Not necessarily. Cousins do a 10ml bottle for £26 which will last me for years. That's just half the price of a simple Bergeon silicone cushion, so not too expensive 🤣
    • I wanted to post an update as I have two movements running really well now, 230-250 amplitude , 0.5 and under beat error, and +/-8 seconds or so. I removed the hairspring assembly in order to start over and noticed that the terminal curve between the stud and regulator arm was distorted. The stud was lower than it should be. I massaged the curve to look pretty good and reinstalled it. I followed Alex's video advice, best I could with 10x magnification, and with the regulator arm set in the middle of the curve I adjusted the stud so the spring was centered. I then made sure I could move the regulator arm the entire terminal curve without upsetting the coils. I then put it back on the Timegrapher and began closing down the regulator pins until I saw a change in amplitude which means to me that the pins were now pinching the spring. I opened them slightly and it looks good except I have a 0 on dial down, +3 on dial up but -16 on crown down.  I'm a bit stuck on how to adjust out the positional error. I also noticed a drop in amplitude, 180-200 on crown down. In the other video link I posted at about minute 26 if I remember he adjusts out positional error by manipulating  the regulator pin gap. With crown down the hairspring falls away from the pin and the rate slows so he closes the pins a bit to keep them tighter in crown down position. That means the spring is tighter on dial up as well but then he moved the regulator arm to slow the movement.  There must be some Seiko experts here that have some methods for dialing out positional errors. 
×
×
  • Create New...