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Final step in AU mainspring installation

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 3:51 pm
by jboger
I bought a broken down Columbia AU for which I had the spare parts. After two days of cleaning dried-out grease, which was simply stubborn to remove, I completely reassembled the machine with the new mainspring installed. That was the easy part. I still have the wire around the mainspring, as you can see in the picture. I have wound the machine and played a record. But now I want to remove the wire. Once I do that, there's no going back. Any words of wisdom? Snip the wire? Untwist it? Like I said, I've already played a partial record, but in my imagination, once I removed that wire I imagine KA-BOING!

Thanks for any help.

Re: Final step in AU mainspring installation

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 9:36 pm
by Phonolair
If you wind your motor all the way up there should be no tension left on the wire retainer. The wire retainer will just be hanging there loose. Cut the wire and pull it out. Than let the motor run down as normal.

Larry Crandell

Re: Final step in AU mainspring installation

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 10:04 pm
by Phonofreak
If you are not sure, Hold the crank and remove the wire, Gradually feed the crank until you are sure there is no backlash. That would prevent backlash and strip that fiber gear.
Harvey Kravitz

Re: Final step in AU mainspring installation

Posted: Tue May 29, 2018 6:57 am
by jboger
Larry, Harvey: Thanks very much. That was just the push I needed. This morning I gradually tightened the mainspring, then let it down, then tightened again until I finally had confidence that the mainspring would not slip off the arbor--the inner hole. And I played around with holding the crank in position thereby controlling the rate the mainspring would unwind (great idea). Finally I snipped off the wire, slipped it out, and everything was good.

So some background why I had so much trepidation. I have an AA as well. It was filthy when I got it over a year ago. Will more confidence than sense, I told myself I could remove the mainspring without binding it and still hand wind it back in place. My mistake. The machine is still in pieces.

Here's a fuzzy picture with the mainspring now unbound.

I've said it before: the Forum's a great place. Thanks again to the both of you.

John

Re: Final step in AU mainspring installation

Posted: Tue May 29, 2018 1:57 pm
by alang
jboger wrote: So some background why I had so much trepidation. I have an AA as well. It was filthy when I got it over a year ago. Will more confidence than sense, I told myself I could remove the mainspring without binding it and still hand wind it back in place. My mistake. The machine is still in pieces.

John
Glad to hear you got it working. I had a similar issue with my Standard X motor. No problem disassembling and cleaning it, but to put the spring back in proved very difficult. What I ended up doing was using an oil filter wrench with metal band and carefully wound the spring into it, just a little bit smaller than the space I had in the machine. Then put a wire around it and installed it the way you just did. It was not easy winding the spring into the wrench, but easier than the impossible task of winding it into the motor itself. Ideally you would have a spring winder, but haven't found an affordable one yet...

Good luck
Andreas