Mainspring winders…

[tmac1956]

All.

I have a set of Marshall mainspring winders as well as a set of K & D vise mounted winders. Personally… I don’t like either of these. With the old Marshal set, I can tap out the tang as required which is a good thing when these sets get worn. But niether of these have big enough winders to handle an 18s mainsapring barrel. I’m really getting tired of dealing with poping a mainspring into a barrel only to have the anchoring part slip off of the attachment. I’m convinced that its because the sets that I have don’t have big enough barrels to handle an 18s.

I would really like someone to give me a recommendation as to what I can buy that will serve for many years without all of this hassle. I know that Bob uses something that looks like a Bergeon or French winder set. If I have to buy that, then fine. But I’m really getting tired of having blasted main springs slip off of the anchoring attachments forcing me to rewind the dang thing over-and-aver again until I get lucky enough to get the mainspring to lock into the barrel.

Thanks,
Tom

[chris mabbott]

Tom my brother in mainspring pain, I’ve just experienced this on a Rockford 18s, 17 times i tried the ***%%$$## thing and every single time the tee expanded past the anchor hole!! THEN when I cried EUREKA, the bloody arbor wouldn’t catch, because by now, at 18 times, it was kinda twisted, just like my mind was 👿

So, I used my round tipped forming pliers to gently roll the inner end back into some form of circular pattern, then I hear… CLINK. It took all of my self control not to smash the barrel, pliers, mainspring and anything else within arms reach as the broken piece clattered to the floor..

I’ve been using a K&D POS for a while but this Rocky barrel is pretty big and as you say, the bloody rotten winder barrels are too small 😡
So I was now out of a very hard to find mainspring that I searched a long time for. This prompted me to pick up a Marshall #128 set, which has the larger winding barrels. I haven’t gone back to test it yet because I’m still furious about what happened, so I will have to calm down more while doing some mindless case polishing 😆
I think I’ll try and make a few winder barrels for when I need them, ya know, for those larger watches.

Anyway, once the inner fire has decreased in intensity to its normal warm glow, I’ll go back and see if I can salvage the MS, which I can of course, I’m just being a cry baby and I’m miserable because it’s a pain in the assets to reform that inner end, cut a new hole etc, and they always get bent in the process and never sit completely flat, but I Vill try..

I hope you have found some form of solace in our shared misery 😆

[tmac1956]

Chris:

We are kindred spirits!

Thanks for the information!
Tom

[Author]

Posts