I have been cutting my teeth on various vintage watches as I learn my way around watchmaking. I thought it might be fun to share some of the more 'interesting' discoveries left by a previous watchmaker. While I of course have been responsible for a few accidental slips and scratches into the odd movement, I do try my best to learn what best practice is, and try and follow it. I'll kick it off with this artistic mainspring sculpture.
This was not the result of watchmaker slip-up. But it was a discovery that startled me. The owner told me the watch was erratic, and had no power reserve. I suspected a broken mainspring, but THIS!
The pape clip replacing a spring in a 321 movement bought from a prominent dealer. Search the forum. Ingenious watchmaking
I am curious of how this might have happened. I suspect some chain reaction took place within the barrel that was triggered by a single point of failure of this unbreakable mainspring.
Seller used a whole can of WD40 trying to get the watch working- I knew the smell the second I opened the case back
My watchmaker told me that the hour hand is glued probably with instant glue. Nevertheless the glued hand has survived two services and still going strong.
The watch was brought to me, keeping terrible time, and with negligible power reserve. It is (clearly) an automatic, so it was difficult to diagnose a broken mainspring since winding manually didn’t really give an indication. But my suspicion was a broken mainspring, based on what the owner told me. This is what I saw when I opened the barrel. I leave it to you to speculate as to how this could happen! I have seen steel mainsprings disintegrate like this one did, but newer an alloy spring.
Worked on a watch with a celluloid crystal once. The damage these can do is eye watering. The 17j watch had been converted to 16j. An intrepid watchmaker who drilled out the setting, instead of fitting a new jewel, used a bushing not steel or even brass, but some type of pot metal like solder. I replaced with a jewel from a scrapper.
My worst find was probably an unexpectedly rusted shut 1940s Eterna bumper, without a bumper. It was listed as ‘not running’. No shit.
I bought a Gruen bumper in an antique store for $35 that was very pretty and ran. Discovered later that the entire bumper assembly was missing! $75 later for a parts watch, a $200 service and an $85 Horween strap and my $35 bargain watch was not such a bargain anymore.
There was a dude who used to be a member who had a Speedmaster 321 fixed with a paper-clip once. Its one thing to find a Speedy with. A paper clip in it but to be the one who added it is a bit sad.
The old trade magazines had a lot of 'letters.' speculating why springs do that. Many held on the old blue springs it was caused by lightning or electrical discharge. In theory the white alloys should not fail that way. But they do which added more mystery to the letter writers in the old trades. A few times I have taken apart a watch only to find no mainspring at all. One was a watch I remember taking apart when little. How I got it back together without the spring is a mystery. I have had other watches with vanished mainsprings. These often have bent teeth, so I guess they were put back together to keep all the parts in place until the new spring arrives. When I was working with early computers, I had a floppy disk drive which would not read the whole disk. On opening it up I found there was a little Lego man inside. How they got that inside, I will never know. One would find all sorts of strange things. An Apple ][ came in with a dead shorted mother board. Must have been 10USD$ in loose quarters under it. The kid thought one had to put a coin in the ventilation slot to play games. When I worked for the piano movers, they would talk about the strange things found in pianos. Usually caches of gold coins. As this was a favorite place to hide things. Sometimes one might also find the family silver. Bit hard to hide such things inside a watch though. Mostly one is likely to find maker/service marks under bridges. Notes left for future watchmakers etc ... -j
And for the sake of posterity, the "Paper Clip" thread https://omegaforums.net/threads/my-most-precious-to-date-has-arrived-then-gone-again.21008/page-3
About 20 years ago the oil industry was all ready to convert to the new Hydogen economy. Most wells produce a lot of H2 as a byproduct. Then someone mentioned Hydrogen embrittlement... I would think that spring barrels would be more likely to collect radon gas. Curiously I looked up the radium/radon decay and eventually it becomes lead.
We have taken a break from a focus on hydrogen, but it's likely to have a huge role in future energy storage. In fact, the first DOE "Earthshot" involves hydrogen. https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-shot
