# Mainspring Problem



## Roamer Man (May 25, 2011)

After cleaning one of my spare manual movements and reassembling, it won't wind properly. It's only the 4th one I've attempted, so I'm still feeling my way around, but straight away, within a few turns of the crown there is slippage at one end, or the other, of the mainspring. I don't recall it slipping before.

As I don't have a mainspring winding tool I didn't strip it right down, though I did immerse the whole barrel in lighter fluid - to give it a clean. The arbor seems to come free of the spring very easily.

The question I'm wondering - before I clean any of my others - is which end is more likely to be slipping, and can under- or over-oiling be the cause, and do I really need to get a winding tool?


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## Tony1951 (Dec 23, 2011)

Is the spring the right way around in the barrel?

I only ask because when I stripped my HMT, I first put the spring in coiled the wrong way. It did what you say; there was a sense of a little tension, and then it slipped. When I reversed the spring in the barrel, it immediately worked. Another thing I notice is that not all springs are wound in the same direction in the barrels. I used a video of a Rolex service to owrk out if I had mine the right way around. It was the opposite way in my own watch.

Good luck.....


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## Roamer Man (May 25, 2011)

Tony1951 said:


> Is the spring the right way around in the barrel?
> 
> I only ask because when I stripped my HMT, I first put the spring in coiled the wrong way. It did what you say; there was a sense of a little tension, and then it slipped. When I reversed the spring in the barrel, it immediately worked. Another thing I notice is that not all springs are wound in the same direction in the barrels. I used a video of a Rolex service to owrk out if I had mine the right way around. It was the opposite way in my own watch.
> 
> Good luck.....


I'd never thought of that. It's a 2nd hand movement of course, so I don't know it's history, so I shall have to look at again!

Many thanks for the tip..


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## Tony1951 (Dec 23, 2011)

Roamer Man said:


> Tony1951 said:
> 
> 
> > Is the spring the right way around in the barrel?
> ...


It could be completely wrong.I just know when I reinstalled my spring the wrong way around , that is how it behaved. You can look at the watch winding mechanism and work it out, if you can remember which way you coiled it. It usually doesn't take too long to lift the barrel bridge and pop out the lid to look inside if you can't remember.


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## Roamer Man (May 25, 2011)

Thanks for the tips everyone, but as I don't have a winding tool, I decided to let my old watch repairer friend see to it.

Last week I'd given him another MST with a shot balance staff, and he fixed that, serviced and timed it for me for Â£6. So why am I beating myself up over this mainspring problem?


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## Tony1951 (Dec 23, 2011)

It is a bit tricky to get them back inside the barrel with fingers. Looking at mine under the loupe I could see flakes of finger skin in there. They were tiny, but they were there. It would be great to have someone local who could do stuff like your chap for Â£6.

I should have used finger cots - I know.


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## Roamer Man (May 25, 2011)

Tony1951 said:


> It is a bit tricky to get them back inside the barrel with fingers. Looking at mine under the loupe I could see flakes of finger skin in there. They were tiny, but they were there. It would be great to have someone local who could do stuff like your chap for Â£6.
> 
> I should have used finger cots - I know.


Decades ago I remember taking this old clock apart 'to see how it works'. I took the mainspring out and gave up trying to get it back in after a couple of hours. I ended up dumping the whole clock and the bits in the bin. I'm not about to attempt that with a watch spring!


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## Tony1951 (Dec 23, 2011)

It's perfect;y doable, but a bit tricky. Mine jumped out and hit me in the face a couple of times, but thankfully, it wasn't a clock spring...

When I was about eight or ten years old, I unwisely unfastened the screws that held the plates of a fully wound clock. My recollection is that it went off like a bomb, but many decades of fuzz overlay that memory. I just remember getting a big shock and a sore finger.


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