Hand Making a Verge Watch Hairspring. Pt.3

[@johnkelly7264]

This is great!. came over from Clickspring. Definitely subbed here.

[@theselectiveluddite]

Thank you very much :)

[@theselectiveluddite]

Been a Patreon supporter of Clickspring for some years. Top level content :)

[@danielkemp4860]

Ditto 🙌

[@theselectiveluddite]

@@danielkemp4860 Thank you :)

[@brislover]

First off, great video! You’ve taken a lot of the mystery out of making hairsprings. Second, the engraving on that watch is incredible! Especially incredible considering the tools that would have been available at the time.

[@theselectiveluddite]

Glad you enjoyed it Bris. In regards engraving, the high end engraving houses in Switzerland still use the same tools as in the 1700's: a sharp, and very hard, piece of carbon steel stuck in a little wooden handle, pushed by hand, some magnification (so, OK, it's ramped up a little bit since then, going from a Loupe to binocular microscopes :) I use both when engraving, depending on size of work), and a way of holding the work and turning it easily. You can be all set up for around $50. The hyper expensive pneumatic set ups you see a lot on videos is not actually needed. Check out Watches TV YT channel and find the series from a few years ago where Marc takes a group of watch lovers up into the Jura mountains and visit a bunch of watchmakers, and the above referenced engraving house. I'm going to try and do a video on engraving, if other commitments will allow. Cheers

[@gayle4s383]

This is the best video on KZbin on how to work a hairspring. Thank you

[@theselectiveluddite]

Thank you very much :)

[@orchardwatchandclockrepair8346]

I have watched lots of films on Horologist. And I am always grateful for them. But I must say. That in my opinion this is by far the most skilled and knowledgeable person I have ever watched.. It showed a great understanding. And well produced work of art. So empressed. Will want to watch more of this. Thank you so much for taking a lot of time to make this.

[@theselectiveluddite]

Thank you for your vote of confidence Jon. I'm very new at this, but am very interested in how things were done in the past, and don't want people to forget that it *could/can* be done :) All the Best. Duncan

[@skivvy3565]

dropped by from clickspring, staying because i love you’re channel

[@theselectiveluddite]

Chris' videos are amazing. Been a Patreon supporter of his for a number of years :)

[@MohammedAli-nu7fs]

Wonders of learning 💖💖💖 god bless you thanks a lot for valuable information

[@theselectiveluddite]

Pleasure Mohammed, glad you liked it :) God Bless you too.

[@skivvy3565]

*The Selective Erudite* Is more like it. You have a new subscriber here, thank you for your efforts and I truly value your skill and talent

[@theselectiveluddite]

XD Thank you very much :)

[@philedwards2213]

It is hard enough to straighten a hair spring, so hats off to you making one from scratch. At least it is a pocket watch, so it’s a bit bigger, but even still. I’d hate to make a watch hairspring. They are hard enough to see under the microscope.

[@theselectiveluddite]

The old Verge Watches have the added advantage of only having 2 - 5 coils in the spring.

[@philedwards2213]

@@theselectiveluddite That is a big plus. Stll, very well done!

[@johnrogers2253]

Good Bergeron tweezers and just keep doing it til it's right.. Good advice. I thought I was taking too long. But the more you do it the better I get. Clever.. my Dad was in charge on the Vulcan bombers. Also instrument fitter. He was good at this.... Thankyou

[@theselectiveluddite]

Glad you liked it John. Being an instrument fitter (and on Vulcan bombers) would have been interesting work :) Cheers

[@txiskofernandez6843]

I have just discovered this channel. Amazing, awesome. May be I have lsot some chapter. This hairspring worked fine at the end?? I have not seen it working in the watch. It is incredibel what watchmaker could make 200 years ago with minimal tools.

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Txisko, Glad you like it. The watch has another hairspring in it that I made using these same techniques and tools, and it can keep time to around a minute a day, which showed they work and it was a method well worth passing on to others. Unfortunately several of the pivot bushes in the watch are quite worn, so the watch will stop unexpectedly. I'm in the process of making drills to make new bushes, and once they are fitted, I'll be replacing my first hairspring with the one I made in the videos. I have other, unrelated, work to do which is holding up my watchmaking, so it's all happening rather slowly. All the Best. Cheers

[@adamzimmerman9459]

great video! thanks again for posting, lot of effort in just making the video!

[@theselectiveluddite]

Yes :) It takes more time to film and edit than to make the hairspring; but I want other people who are interested to feel it's an approachable task. Cheers

[@TheDagda1000]

Amazing! I wish I'd seen this two years ago - don't ask!

[@theselectiveluddite]

OK, I won't :)

[@chrisjohnson4165]

Fantastic! Thanks.

[@theselectiveluddite]

Glad you liked it , Chris.

[@chrisjohnson4165]

@@theselectiveluddite Very much! Obviously, patience is the key, but the beauty of your video is that shows how forgiving the spring wire is. That means for all of us watchmaking dabblers, the spring will survive!

[@TikkaQrow]

thank you for this, i decided to try and make some old pocket watch work and the hairspring was all bent. i used your technique to flatten and recurl the spring certainly not as precise, but it makes the tick noises again

[@theselectiveluddite]

Delighted this has been of use to you. All the best with your watch adventures. Cheers

[@Bartyron]

There is so little to find on making hairsprings yourself and how to know what dimensions and length you need for a specific balance diameter/mass. So if you have any knowledge on that matter would you make a video on this topic? Thanks for sharing this hugely informative video!

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Bartyron, Glad you enjoyed the series. I just went with the empirical dimensions of the original hairspring (plus extra length as the original had broken sometime in it's past), which doesn't help if the original spring is missing. I'm very new at this, but I do have a couple thousand pages of horology texts, so if I come across the sort of data you're enquiring about, I'll keep it in mind. Bits I have come across show that, even if you have an exact replacement spring (from the manufacturer), there is still the adjusting to length in the watch. eg. the spring is fitted too long, and set going and the rate counted. The length is adjusted, shorter or longer in the balance stud, until the rate matches what the watch requires for accurate time keeping. The excess is then trimmed off. Cheers Duncan

[@Bartyron]

@@theselectiveluddite thank you for your explanation

[@Bartyron]

@putines marques i know that.Thanks for warning me. I might get dissapointed..

[@theselectiveluddite]

@@Bartyron As was mentioned above, springs do have to be tuned. The methods I show are for making a hairspring as they did in the mid. to late 1700’s, a century before any standardisation was considered. This is not about making a modern watch’s hairspring. In W. Blakey’s book (from 1780, and available for free download here, www.watkinsr.id.au/18th.html ) the raw hairsprings were cut with shears out of thin sheet before curling in the manner I demonstrate. Each one would then be tuned to beat in the watch it was made for. My hairspring took a late 1700’s watch from wildly fast (the original spring was broken short), to within a minute a day. I am a member of the Australian Antiquarian Horological Society, and the senior members were keen for me to demonstrate making a hairspring at an event we were at, and a number of members asked me to run a workshop on it. There were no concerns raised about it’s efficacy. Cheers

[@Bartyron]

@@theselectiveluddite thanks. I found that book. Very informative and interesting. Although i am aware of the difficulties of such an endeavour i get itchy when people like the one before give a non-answer in a manner as he did. I am just curious.

[@paulschumacker9901]

This is fantastic. I’ve seen a video by T&T&T that has a book with the shapes of hairsprings of many sizes with the arc of the overcoil. They measure the distance from the pivot to the regulator pins, and the distance from the pivot to the stud, to decide on which shape to reproduce. Can you shed some light on this process?

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Paul, Sorry, lots of things requiring my time so I've only just come across your question. I'm afraid I don't have any experience yet of making Breguet overcoils. I've got charts etc in various books too on them, but I haven't had the time or need to study them yet. Trying to have the energy to film some more :) Cheers

[@wmustafatube]

Thanks for the video. I have a 1802 verge fuse. I damaged the hair spring. I need to create a new one. What kind of wire to start with ? Can you post a video showing the mounting of the spring to the wheel.

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Waleed, I used the finest music wire (sometimes known as Piano wire) made by K&S Metals. I buy it from model aeroplane stores and it is quite cheap. I'm busy with other demands on my time at the moment, so I'm not sure when another video will come, but there are a lot of antique watchmaking books you can legally download for free at archive.org . Here's one I use, from the 1800's, and goes through a fair bit on verge watches. Cheers. archive.org/details/cu31924031263134

[@SPWD1198]

Fantastic stuff, thank you 🍻 🍻

[@theselectiveluddite]

Thank you; glad you found it useful :) Hoping life will enable me to make some new videos sometime :/ Cheers

[@castotoro5166]

Gracias por enseñar excelente..

[@theselectiveluddite]

Thank you. Gracias :)

[@jonka1]

Would I be right in thinking that there were skilled people specializing in making hairsprings? Or would each watch maker make springs as part of the process? Superb series thank you.

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Jonka, Yes it was a specialist trade. The original author of the translated text I'm using had a business making various types of springs for the watchmaking trade in the 1700's. I put a link to take you to Richard Watkins' free PDF translations, in the description of the first part, but here it is again. www.watkinsr.id.au/ It's very interesting reading the intros he puts with them. Glad you liked the videos. Cheers

[@sandeepdutta5788]

Thank you for the video. Where can I buy the wire ?

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Sandeep, in the first video I mention that I buy my music wire from model aeroplane shops. The brand is K&S Precision Metals and I use their finest ( 0.015" ). Here's a link to their own page so you can see what sorts of thing they make. ksmetals.com/collections/music-wire Cheers

[@jasondayon4702]

I also make hairsprings, but my method is different. Though I don't use powered machines either, it was great to see a new (older?) method to do this.

[@theselectiveluddite]

Glad you liked it Jason. What era watches do you make hairsprings for?

[@jasondayon4702]

@@theselectiveluddite I make hairsprings for dials and indicators. I don't assemble them to the instrument, but I do put the collet on them and form the ends as the customer requires. My tooling uses stack winding to make the springs, so I get as many springs per winding as fit between two coils. Though I can't make as much volume as the automated companies, my quality has been better (that last is directly from my customers). My tooling and method is probably from the early 1900's. Think, repurposed hand-cranked drill.

[@theselectiveluddite]

@@jasondayon4702 Beautiful ! Gazeley, and I think De Carle, describe similar methods in their watchmaking books from the mid 1900's for cottage watchmaking. Well done :)

[@solstar4778]

Do you also hand make main springs ? Possibly a longer running one , I have a Bulova that runs out 12 hours !

[@theselectiveluddite]

'Fraid not Sol. I'm not a watchmaker (yet), just very interested in, and learning, the very old methods. Your Bulova might need a good clean and service by a watchmaker in your area. A modern watch should run for around 30+ hours per wind. The fact that it stops much earlier suggests there's friction in there. Probably best not to run it until it's been cleaned as it could get further damage. All the Best.

[@ferguscosgrave7510]

Nice

[@theselectiveluddite]

And thanks again :)

[@haipham6542]

How do we know and make the vph of the hairspring like 21600 or 28800

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day haipham, to calculate how many beats an unknown watch requires, I'm quoting from Saunier's 'The Watchmaker's Handbook' from 1880: "Multiply together the numbers of teeth of the wheels, starting with the one that carries the minute-hand (which therefore makes one revolution in an hour), but exclude the escape-wheel. "Multiply together the numbers of leaves of the pinions, commencing with the one that engages with the centre-wheel. "If the first answer is divided by the second, the number obtained gives the *number of revolutions* of the escape-wheel in an hour. "Multiply this figure by *twice the number* of teeth of the escape-wheel, and the answer is the *number of single vibrations performed by the balance in one hour* " If you have remains of the original hairspring, measure it's thickness and width as I did in my first hairspring video (link starts at the right spot kzbin.info/www/bejne/nH6apaZ9jrN0hsUsi=R--r9YiFW5nwqQaf&t=610 ). Make the new hair-spring one or two coils too long, as you can always shorten it, fit to the watch, time it, and shorten as required. I put the watch to my ear, and count the tic *or* the tock, while running a stopwatch, for 60 seconds. I then double the result (so as to count both the tic and tock), and then multiply the answer by 60 to get the number of beats in an hour. There are apps for Android that will listen to your watch and show the beats per hour; or you can set the beats you're after and it will show you how fast/slow it is. The one I use is free and called 'Watch Accuracy Meter' on Google Play. The three dots at the top right of the screen gives you access to Options. A word of warning: phones have very strong magnets in their speakers which can badly affect a hair-spring. I use a plug in lapel mic. (bought for around $20) to listen to the watch while keeping it well away from the phone. If you don't know how many coils the hair-spring should have, but many of that model watch were made, try finding images of complete ones that show the hair-spring and count the coils. The number of beats you're talking about says that you are working on very modern watches, with a lot of coils in the hair-spring. This is not something I've tried to do; 200 - 300 year old verge watches have only 2.5 - 6 coils, so are a lot easier to make. All the Best :)

[@riccello]

That is amazing! What kind of wire is that and where can I get it?

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Rick, I think I cover that in Part 1, along with how to reduce it to correct dimensions, but it's fine music wire bought from a model aeroplane store. Cheers

[@tlmooney]

How do you attach the collar ( center attachment). to the spring?? Soldering??

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day tlmooney, the brass collet, that jambs up under the balance wheel, and to which the hairspring is attached, has a hole drilled in it, parallel to the top and bottom surfaces, and that enters and exits the outer surface of the ring (in other words, doesn't go through the collet from the outside to the inside) Hope this shows it: (IO ) Explanation: The brackets are the outside diameter of the collet. The vertical line is the drilled hole, which in a proper drawing would touch the outer diameter at it's top and bottom points. The 'O' is the internal diameter of the collet. The inner end of the hairspring is slipped into the drilled hole and a brass taper pin, often with one side filed flat, is pushed home to trap the spring in place. This enables adjustments to be made to the springs planar alignment with the collet, by gripping the end of the taper pin with fine pliers and twisting (after which the pin is snipped off flush), or complete removal for repairs or replacement, and won't affect the spring's temper as would the heat of soldering. Hope this was clear. All the Best. Cheers

[@solstar4778]

Is there anyway you could put more spring storage into the winding spring = longer time between winding ?

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Sol, This isn't a Mainspring, this is the Hairspring that regulates the balance wheel, enabling the watch to keep time (called the Controller in this good animation kzbin.info/www/bejne/aX64fWlrYtuNfrs ). Often, to make a watch run longer between windings, an extra wheel (gear) is put in, back when it was designed, give it higher gearing. Cheers

[@Ghadiali]

I think your twizers are slightly magnetised or may be I am wrong?

[@theselectiveluddite]

You are correct :) I'm trying to rectify the problem.

[@Ghadiali]

I made a de magnetizer from an old transformer.

[@antilogism]

I use a field assembly from our burnt vacuum cleaner fed from a 24 V TX. Ugly but effective.

[@nickallum3849]

Has the pivot on the balance been repaired my verge pocket watch has a broken top pivot maybe it can be repaired thanks

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Nick, I suggest signing up to the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors forum site (it's free) and ask some questions on there.mb.nawcc.org/ There are people who have experience in restoring watches of that age on that site and would be able to advise you. Let me know how you go. Cheers Duncan

[@nickallum3849]

@@theselectiveluddite Thanks i will sign up

[@VasilisStithos]

Please tell me this coil you make how good timers is your watch thank you

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Vasilis, I'm still doing repair work on the watch (it was made in the late 1700's, and it's been a very full year so I haven't been able to spend much time on it). During the times I have had it running with this hairspring it's been able to keep to around 1 minute a day, which is very good for a watch of this age. Are you repairing a watch yourself? Cheers, and I hope you have a great 2023.

[@VasilisStithos]

@@theselectiveluddite happy 2023, be well, I'm doing repairs on these watches too, I'm not a watchmaker, I really like these watches with this style, thank you

[@theselectiveluddite]

@@VasilisStithos I'm also in the early stages of learning watchmaking, and I'm concentrating on these older watches as they are much more interesting than modern ones :) On archive.org there are quite a few books on watchmaking from the 1700's and 1800's that have been scanned and are downloadable for free. Cheers

[@VasilisStithos]

@@theselectiveluddite Thank you very much for the information

[@theselectiveluddite]

@@VasilisStithos Pleasure. Also check out Richard Watkins' site for a bunch of free PDF's he's put together of translated 1700's watchmaking texts. It was from him I got the text on making hairsprings: www.watkinsr.id.au/

[@illuminatii604]

That doesn't look like a hair spring I've ever seen. The coils are so far apart. Will that actually work ?

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day Luke, When you go back into the late 1700's, it was not uncommon for a hairspring to have only 3 - 5 turns, and in the very early days of hairsprings, the late 1600's - early 1700's, they might have as few as 2 turns. And at times these springs were not hardened and tempered as they were in later years. As the 1800's progressed, the number of turns in a hairspring increased to the sort of level we have today, using small winding tools that would make 4 springs at once, nesting them together (thus giving them a consistent coil spacing) in a container that could then be heated for the hardening and tempering process. There are pivot bushes to replace, and other repairs to do to this watch, but on occasion when I have had it running, with my 4 coil spring, it has been able to keep to as close as a minute a day. Cheers

[@illuminatii604]

@@theselectiveluddite Ahh I see. That's was very impressive. Great video.

[@theselectiveluddite]

@@illuminatii604 Thanks :)

[@CaskStrength777]

I am surprised you used this method rather than coiling them on a mandrel in a former box, 4 or so at a time, then winding them then leaving them in the box and sticking them in an oven to harden them, which you would then temper to blue into springs.

[@theselectiveluddite]

G'day a.c.116, Sorry for the lateness of reply; we've been otherwise occupied of late. I wanted to use the methods that were employed at the time the watch I'm restoring was made, as I'm very interested in how things used to be done. I may make up a 4 spring curling box at some stage, in order to make later, 1800's, hairsprings, but the experimental archaeology side, using simple tools and relying on practice and patience, appeals to me :) All the Best.