No run on this 6 sz Elgin

Hmmmm -

It makes my head hurt thinking of how this was supposed to work in theory

The is why one must ALWAYS check for sure which way the mainspring goes into the barrel as this happens when you try to wind a reversed mainspring. If you are lucky, it may still be reshaped and installed the right way..

Good grief.

I always take pics and/or draw a little picture of the way the MS is wound before removing it.

I have lots of mainsprings if you need a new one.

John III

Yep, been there, done that... If you see one of my tear down cards and it has a "snail" drawn on it, you can bet I've had the main spring out.

It took me awhile to get through the dyslexic relationship between the barrel and the winder... I finally have a routine that saves me from this.

Pain is a wonderful disciplinarian.

That type of mainspring is called a slipandcatch. It's like a hit and miss engine. It catches every other time. How the heck did it get on the wrong side of the arbor? This is just me but I would pull the arbor and see if I could straighten out the spring so it will catch. That is of course after I made sure it was still good. 1/2 the barrel is filled so it might even be the right one. Just set in the barrel backwards. I know the winders used to confuse me too but that don't take much.

another butcher/shoemaker/blacksmith work!