Making Springs at home (VIDEO)

[Tony]

Short video about winding your own springs at home. Had a bit of fun with this one.
Let me know what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAawhg6JtyY

[coldformer]

good video

[farrviewsouth]

Thanks for sharing, I picked up a number of good ideas. We'll explained and shot

[boslab]

As usual I enjoyed the video immensely, I think most of us have made a spring at some time or other and the ability to do so has gotten me out of a few holes!, or into a few holes
Thank you
Mark

[BCRider]

I've been making my own springs at home now for a few years for gunsmithing jobs as well as a few custom springs for other tooling. A lot of what you give in there is great for the basics. And I did pick up some new ideas. So as an introduction I think it's great. It deals with a lot of the initial problems I had as a beginner. So all in all a superb job.

The link to the spring back calculator is especially welcomed. I'd not found that one up to now.

I've since found that there's a lot more stuff though. I like your tensioning tool but I found that running the wire through a series of fixed groove points so it's bent this way and that both provides better tensioning and at the same time seems to work the wire so it lays on smoother and builds up a bit more spring. I got this idea from watching You Tube videos of commercial spring making machines.

I also switched from pure tension to a tool which does not pull against the the forming arbor. For smaller sizes and thicker wires the tension needed will bend the arbor. Been there, done that. With the tool I came up that is shown below the tension on the wire is kept locked between the tool and the arbor so the arbor isn't seeing any large bending forces.

Finally the last step I learned, again from references in the You Tube videos on commercial spring making, was the idea of post forming heat treatment to "passivate" the spring wire. I tried this out with a toaster oven and the results so far have been a huge improvement over springs used straight from the forming step.

I place the springs in the oven and turn it to 425F. After coming up to temperature and soaking over a 20 minute to 25 minute period I turn down the temperature 50F at a time about 10 minutes apart until it's down to the lowest temperature. Then I turn it off and let the whole oven cool naturally. A half hour or more later the springs have a dark straw color to them and are far more springy. The performance of the springs after this passivating process show them to have a higher spring rate and they don't collapse and stay shorter from full compression like they do straight off the arbor. Give it a try and I think you'll like it.

I should probably do my own video on this some time.....

I recently bought a set of extra long fractional inch size transfer punches to use as my winding arbors. This gives me a really good array of sizes for relatively cheap. So far I haven't needed any new springs so they sit unused other than for using them, oddly enough, as transfer punches a couple of times.

In the meantime here's the tool I'm talking about. Happy spring making! ! ! !

Last second notes- When I just pulled the link to the sketch below from Photobucket I noticed that I only showed TWO counter sunk head screws as wire guides. In reality there's a third one located a equal distance further up the handle. I blame this on trying to learn to do 3D CAD in this sketch so my mind wasn't on the details of the tool.

The amount of offset in the screw heads varies as the size of the wire varies. As a result I've got two sets of guides. One with closer spaced guides that really work the smaller wire sizes and on the flip side of the same tool some longer spaced out guides with less offset for the larger sizes of wire. The spacing was based on the amount of drag is needed to get a good stretch and smooth lay over the arbors.

In use this tool takes a bit of a learned touch to hold it at the right angle to get the right pitch for the windings. But it's surprisingly easy to figure out pretty quickly with minimal waste of the relatively cheap wire. Also I found that I could slightly stretch or collapse the new formed springs to get the OAL to what I needed prior to the passivating process and that the springs would hold these new sizes.

And yes, DO wear gloves and good fitting safety glasses ! ! ! ! ! ! ! This stuff will rip to the bone in the flash of an eye blink ! ! ! !

[gellfex]

Nicely done. I've made quite a few lathe springs, but way more often just use the Mighty Mite bender or one of these round jaw pliers to make torsion springs out of 1/16 & under.

[mklotz]

The video, unlike so many, is well done - no camera roaming or idiotic rock and roll so-called music. But, of course, the part I liked best was the reference to my mandrel-sizing program. Thanks for that. Now I feel like I've made it into the movies.

[Michael Edwards]

Though I enjoyed the video, I have no desire to make a spring. Loved the How It's Made theme.

Keep em coming.

[Andre3127]

Thank you for springing another video of yours to my attention.

It was all wound into a clever, informative and short video.

I'm going to go steal some notes from my neighbors grand after I send this, I hope I don't get bounced.

I made a spring once from guitar string. At first I thought material wasn't anything to get bent out of shape about but a better wire would've worked better.

[IanPendle]

Thanks Tony,

Wonderful stuff. Great humour, great information and instruction. Please keep 'em coming.

Ian.

[gbritnell]

Excellent video. Thanks for the work involved.
gbritnell

[tyrone shewlaces]

I followed your instructions and now I have the wrong sized spring embedded into my left brow. Now I either need to visit Dr. Pliers or make a few more so I can get both sides to match.
So do I sue you or just try to bilk Uncle Bob? So many unanswered questions.

[BCRider]

I followed your instructions and now I have the wrong sized spring embedded into my left brow. Now I either need to visit Dr. Pliers or make a few more so I can get both sides to match.
So do I sue you or just try to bilk Uncle Bob? So many unanswered questions.

Who'da thought that spring making could be combined with home body piercing so easily! ! ! !

I'll bet you have the curliest eye brows on the whole block now.

[thaiguzzi]

First one of your videos i've just watched. Very educational and enjoyable. Thank you.

[wierdscience]

Be sure and put my dividers back in the drawer when you're done

+10 points for using a Mig tip.