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I'm working on my "new" Victor IV - everything is now in good shape but for one spring, which simply will not engage the inner, winding shaft. I've tried and tried for two days, but it simply won't grab: the hole in the spring is good, the "button" on the shaft is good - but nada. I'm about to send it to George Vollema, but I hate to let something mechanical defeat me. Ideas? Tips?

It's important to re-shape the inner coil of the mainspring to that the hole in the end will be forced to seat itself over the pin in the arbor. This is admittedly easier said than done. I use old fashioned heavy pliers (needle-nose is not the tool for this job). I hold the inner coil steady with my left gloved hand and position the pliers (in wide adjustment) over the last coil with my right hand (I'm right-handed). Then I slowly compress the coil into a smaller and smaller diameter. There will be lots of slipping, sliding, and swearing. The swearing is important, as it shows the mainspring that you are not afraid of it, and that you are relentless in your determination to make it bend to your will.

Once the inner coil cries "uncle" and conforms to your powerful grip, all you need is a decent mechanical connection between the pin and the hole in the mainspring. As long as it holds once, you're golden because when you wind it up the first time, wind it all the way so the entire wound-up mainspring coils around that inner coil like an angry anaconda, squeezing it so tightly around the arbor that it will never dare to come undone again.

Good luck!

George P.

Uh, oh. Let's not go further with this topic---somebody might take it the wrong way.

I must admit that, choir boy that I am, I didn't think of any illicit parallels in my posting. Obviously a light-hearted description of a physical struggle with a mainspring, but no more than that. The testosterone quip, however, could possibly be misinterpreted, so I have decided to edit that out. I stand by my description of reattaching the inner coil to the arbor, humor and all...

George P.

Henry wrote:Uh, oh. Let's not go further with this topic---somebody might take it the wrong way.

LOL! It's a sad day when we have to edit posts to avoid the possibility of an unintentional double entendre that may cause somebody to crack a smile...

Well... sad for some, but not for all of us!

George P.

Nat wrote:I'm working on my "new" Victor IV - everything is now in good shape but for one spring, which simply will not engage the inner, winding shaft. I've tried and tried for two days, but it simply won't grab: the hole in the spring is good, the "button" on the shaft is good - but nada. I'm about to send it to George Vollema, but I hate to let something mechanical defeat me. Ideas? Tips?

I don't know that this will be helpful to you or not, but when I was having trouble with my first victor rebuild, I had two problems... one was the spring constantly wanting to slip off the arbor, and the second was taming the snake back into the housing (it's like trying to put the genie back into the bottle).

The hole at the end of my mainspring was oval and I found that by making it slightly more pear shaped put enough of a notch in it to help hold in in place. The other thing I did (besides wearing big old welding gloves) was to place the housing into a bucket while I was trying to wind it back up. At least when it tried to get away from me, I didn't wind up losing too much real estate when having to start over.

Just my two cents... for what it's worth (and it may not be worth much!)

Another "for what it's worth" - I have found that channel-lock pliers are excellent for applications where high gripping/squeezing force is required: the handles are quite a bit longer than those on regular slip-joint "gas pliers" ( how did they get that name, anyway?).


Get a GOOD set, with the curved "gear-teeth" on each half; avoid the cheapies with the elongated "figure-eight slot".


George, I enjoyed reading your post... a little creative prose helps liven-up what can become mundane technical writing !

De Soto Frank wrote:


George, I enjoyed reading your post... a little creative prose helps liven-up what can become mundane technical writing !

Completely agree... I need a good dose of humor daily!

Tinkerbell wrote:

De Soto Frank wrote:


George, I enjoyed reading your post... a little creative prose helps liven-up what can become mundane technical writing !

Completely agree... I need a good dose of humor daily!

Ditto.

Clay