Here is a "never seen before" kind of barrel
hook: a wooden screw. Usually, hooks must not interfere with mainsprings.
Something must be wrong...
We were surprised to see these mainsprings. They were broken
but have not been replaced, even if they are very common mainsprings. Somebody
tried to "repair" them in a particular manner. The first one was found on a
pendulum clock
The second on a Zenith pocket watch. The repairers must have
spent a lot of time to do this job, so there is really no reason for it: it's
wrong from both the technical and the economical point of view.
This clock movement, made around 1880, had a broken
strike train wheel. This was probably due to a mainspring breakage. A
"clockmaker" tried to repair it this way:
He found a "similar" wheel and soldered it with tin on the broken
one:
You don't need to be a skilled clockmaker to see how wrong this
work can be, both from the technical than from the aesthetical point of view
This movement now needs the reconstruction of the broken wheel and complete overhauling
A Valjoux chronograph movement that at the time
of its construction had quite a good finish, now definitively ruined by
a lot of scratches caused by many interventions from bad watchmakers.
Click on the picture to see an enlarged view.