Reply To: Ratchet wheel screw issues – Interesting

[edwardny]

Hi David. Unfortunately (for me) I think you are soooooo right. Yes, they are large headed screws and when you say relatively small – no, they are EXTREMELY small and trying to drill out the broken screw using your methods, I do not have equipment, presicion or a drill bit that small.
Now as far as left handed screw goes, that’s just unfair – I’ve done quite a few mens watches by now (put apart, clean, oil, put together) – the first thing I do is I turn that same large headed ratchet wheel screw CLOCKWISE a bit to release the clicker to unwind the mainspring – care to comment on that? If the screw is left handed, how are we supposed to unwind the mainspring? Doable but on most watches it is setup correctly (unscrewing is couter-clockwise)
Furthermore, manufacture is supposed to add one or two parallel lines on the screw head as a sign that it’s a left handed screw – they don’t! So how am I supposed to know what kind of screw is it? Getting specs and paperwork on these old movements will not happen.
I just ordered another LP38 movement from eBay – so the right thing I guess is to try lightly in both directions and hope that it’ll budge right away.
And by the way, the transmision wheel next to the ratchet wheel is also UNMARKED left handed – I tried it – it unscrews in clockwise direction.
WHY DO THEY DO THIS TO US??????????????????????
😮