Reply To: clock mainsprings in barrels

[arutha]

I used to remove by hand before I bought a Joe Collins mainspring tool, similar to the Ollier Baker. I must have been quite lucky as I never had a problem with spring distortion but maybe that was because I was quite gentle? I spoke to a couple of clock repair guys in the past and they both do it by hand and always had done, I did ask them if they ever encountered problems with distortion and they said no. I think with a mainspring winder the main advantage is its safer but then anything that can minimize any form of damage to a spring has got to be good.