Hi all,

I am in need of a replacement mainspring for a Benedict & Burnham - Waterbury, six spoke 'poor mans tourbillon' pocket watch.

Does anyone have one for sale, or know where I may locate such a spring ?

I read that these springs were nine feet long and took 120 to 140 turns of the crown to fully wind them.

On my watch, I note that I can actually wind the watch fully with very much fewer turns of the crown and the watch will run for up to 22 hours.

I can find no information of what the true running duration of these watches should be ?

When winding, there is some slippage to the spring and it appears that only the outer coils of the spring actually wind up.

By looking through the cut-outs, in the spring barrel cover, I can clearly see that the inner 2/3rds, or more, of the spring coils appear to be wound up close together and that there is a clear break where the outer coils of the spring is actually broken away from the majority of the wound up coils, but that broken end is being gripped between the coils, thus allowing for the watch to run using just those outer coils for power.

Obviously, I would like to find a new mainspring if possible.

If I can't locate a replacement spring, what effect would occur if I remove the outer broken coils and reform the outer spring hook which would shorten the total length of the mainspring ?

Regards,
Barry Parker