Once in a while you come across someone's handiwork and it just makes you cringe. Please don't take this as an insult for those who are just venturing into the watch repair world. After all, that's where I am in the learning curve. But this example goes to show you that one should do it right, or don't do it at all.

The subject is an 18S, 19 Jewel, Waltham Crescent Street Model 1892. A nice watch and a great timekeeper. However this one has obviously had a problem with the hairspring collet. Rather than do the right thing and replace the collet, someone has superglued it to the balance. To make matters worse, some of that superglue is stuck to the coils of the hairspring. This is the second watch this week that has had superglue used in past repairs!

So the fix will be to attempt to remove the adhesive, recollet the hairspring. Let's hope that the patient survives. As usual, any advice is greatly appreciated!

Mike Miller

Soak the glued parts in acetone for about an hour in a covered vessel (a glass alcohol cup works well for the purpose), and all traces of the glue will disappear without harming anything else (well, it will remove the shellac from the roller jewel if you don't remove the roller table first). When the balance is removed from the acetone, dry it immediately with a warm air source, such as a hairdryer, to avoid sweat.

Needless to say, be careful working with acetone around any open flames or other possible ignition sources. Acetone vapors are about as combustible as gasoline fumes, and strong concentrations of them can ignite explosively.

Images don't always show true colors, but the hairspring in the one above appears to be a white alloy, which would be unusual for an 1892 Waltham. Most of those are supposed to have blued steel springs, although a few were made with special nonmagnetic springs and matching compensation balance wheels.

In any event, it shouldn't be much trouble to recollet the existing spring..... Probably the biggest problem will be finding a suitable replacement collet, and even that shouldn't really be too bad.

For what it's worth, the vast majority of hairspring collets are made of brass, and a large percentage of them eventually crack. I've often wondered why no one ever made them from copper, which would have had essentially the same qualities while remaining extremely crack resistant, but for some reason, that was never done. A few Swiss companies did use solid nickel collets, and a few American ones used solid gold collets in their highest grade models, but the VAST majority have always been made from brass.

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Steve Maddox
Past President, NAWCC Chapter #62
North Little Rock, Arkansas
IHC Charter Member 49

Thanks Steve,

The Acetone did the trick with the superglue. I had the correct collet and was able to fix it to the hairspring without a problem. While the color is bad on the photo, it is a blue steel hairspring. It is running now and keeping good time. I hope to have it running even better once properly cleaned. Hopefully I won't find any similar fixes in the teardown.

Mike Miller
NAWCC Member# 154831
NAWCC-IHC Charter Member# 27

Heartland Horology

This topic reminds me of one I posted here a few months ago. I'd been reading the "green board," and happened to notice a topic where a watchmaker employed at Rolex Service Canada provided "instructions" for the "factory authorized" repair of modern Rolex watches whose hairsprings had become detached at the collet. His advice was as follows:

"The hairspring can be reattached [sic] using crazy glue. Place balance complete in movement. Put balance cock in place. Pull out crown, stopping balance from swinging wildly. Move hairspring into place. Hold movement on it's side. Put a drop of crazy glue on a yellow or white screwdriver. Place drop of glue in place. Let sit for 20 minutes. Presto. Done.

I've done it many times. It's easy........ trust me, we have the official word to repair in this manner........ The rate after doing this should be perfect."

It rather reminds one of the work shown in the image above, doesn't it?


The following is a link to the previous topic here:

https://ihc185.infopop.cc/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=3206049661&f=3426047761&m=8286022205

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SM

I have been told that Elgin did use an adhesive to attach the hairspring to the collet instead of pinning in some watches. Is this the case?

Scott Cerullo
cerullo34@aol.com

Yes, but there's a difference..........

In the 1950s, Elgin stopped "pinning" hairsprings and collets in their wristwatch models, and introduced a new system using a "hi-tech" resin. Instead of having a hole drilled through the hairspring collet to receive a tapered pin, collets of that type had a slot milled diagonally across the edge. The tip of the hairspring was fitted into the slot, and that was subsequently filled with resin. Studs had the conventional round hole, but instead of anchoring the hairspring with a tapered pin, they simply filled the hole with resin.

Needless to say, the surfaces of hairsprings are really smooth, and on a very fundamental level, the only thing holding the Elgin hairsprings to the resin was their relatively weak bond. In actual use, the hairsprings would eventually "slip" at one end or the other, obviously wreaking havoc with the rates. Every watchmaker I've known who was working on watches in those days, says that one single idea did more than anything else to finish destroying the company.

I don't know what finally "killed" Waltham, but with Elgin their goofy hairspring resin played a major role, and with Hamilton, it was their doomed electro-mechanical models. If any of the three had developed the tuning fork technology used in Accutrons, or the quartz technology used in later watches, they'd probably still be in business today.

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SM