mainspring danger!!!!

[willofiam]

Hi everyone, I had a mishap yesterday and hope others learn from my mistake. I had just wound up and put the sleeve on a large mainspring in a barrel, I use a Ollie Baker mainspring winder. anyway as I was holding the barrel with one hand I was trying to flip the switch with the other, standard procedure, the handle slipped out of my grip and spun. It spun so fast and hard that when the knob hit my knuckle it broke the handle on the winder 😯 . I have wound and unwound well over a 100 of springs with this and I just got careless. PLEASE be careful. It actually does hurt The mainspring winders do not take all the danger away from the task!!!!! The bright side, it hit the knuckle that was previously injured and I got the opportunity to make a new handle. William

[arutha]

Not so much of a danger but more of a caution, like William I too have one of these types of winder, you must make sure you leave enough of the spring end outside of the sleeve, I have been in a situation twice now where things have slipped and the end of the mainspring has gone inside the sleeve. Its a devil of a job to get it back out again. I too have had the handle smash me on the knuckles and it certainly wakes you up and makes you more careful. When I first started clock repair I was letting down a mantel clock with just the key, I lost my grip and the key spun round and took the top of my knuckle off. Please always be very careful with mainsprings, there is a lot of power there ready to do you some serious harm if you dont use your head and pay attention.

[willofiam]

Paul, I was using my head, I guess thats why they call me knucklehead 😆 William

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