Awalker

Interesting reading on the greasy stick method. You are right on the forging temperature, my fingers are faster than my eyes, should have been 2100*. Also, I am not taking lightly the heat treating, or making of this spring. I just don't think that it is undoable with what may be in the shop. I built my forge and built it to be expandable for larger jobs. I also have metal tubs and bins that can be pressed into service for quenching, though you are right about the amount of oil required to fill them. As far as knowledge to heat treat, I have done many things in the past, mostly tooling, but just found it difficult to find solid information on leaf springs making.

Here is an excerpt from a data sheet on 5160 that I have showing quench/forging temps


Carbon 0.56 - 0.64
Chromium 0.7 - 0.9
Manganese 0.75 - 1
Phosphorus 0.035 max
Silicon 0.15 - 0.35
Sulphur 0.04 max
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Principal Design Features 5160 is a carbon-chromium spring steel. It exhibits excellent toughness and high ductility, with a high tensile-yield ratio.

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Applications Commonly employed in heavy spring applications primarily in the automotive field for leaf springs.

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Machinability Machining this grade can be very difficult in the "as rolled" condition, and the alloy should be annealed prior to machining to obtain maximum speeds and feeds.

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Welding Weldability is poor in this alloy due to its high carbon and chromium content. For best results, preheat the section and stress relieve after welding. Either gas or arc welding methods may be used.

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Heat Treatment 5160 is normally hardened in oil. Recommended quenching temperature is 1525 F, with a wide range of mechanical available by tempering between 800 and 1300 F.

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Forging Forge this grade between 2100 and 2200 F.

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Annealing Heat to 1450 F and air cool.

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Physical Data : [top

For starters, I am not a begining fabricator or blacksmith. I do this stuff everyday for my own company. There seems to be a great deal of fear about making a spring, yet watch the video of valley spring making them (and notice the guy not wearing safety glasses). This is the same company that wants roughly $200 for a leaf spring. I think this must be so because there is not a lot of good info on spring making. Essentially it is 5160 steel that needs to be forged at 1200*, reheated to 1200* and quenched (not sure of the quench yet), and the tempered at roughly 800* for 60 minutes (though there is some debate over this as well)(I also might have the details slightly wrong as I am just going off memory). So long as I can find a way to tell the temperature a little better than just color change I don't think this is undoable. Here is a link to the Alcan spring site showing their process. http://www.alcanspring.com/making.htm .
Leaf springs are fairly safe springs, as if a leaf breaks the rest in the pack hold the pack together. The reason mine kept breaking is that it is a 100 year old hammer running the original spring. You can tell by looking at the break that it is fatigued beyond repair. There is also not as much strain on this spring as you might be thinking. Could a spring I make (or anyone else for that matter) break? Sure, which is why we wear PPE and install guards, so I really don't see a huge area of concern.
So, has anyone here actually made leaf springs?

The car spring is not quite the right size and I lost some of the space between the dies. I did find a couple of snippets on the web and don't think this is quite as difficult as you all are thinking. As far as failure, sure it could fail. In fact it has three times. i have welded the spring and re heat treated them (different leaves) It is just so fatigued now that I can no longer keep the spring glued together. I am not afraid to make one, but I would like to talk to someone with firsthand experience first. One of the web things I saw showed them heating to non magnetic and water quenching, with no further heat treating. I suppose I need to find out what steel they use exactly and just look up the hardening/temepering method for it.

Well sort of. I need a new spring for my star power hammer. It broke in the middle of a big job, and I presses an early ford front spring into service with the help of a press. Now I need to make a new spring for my hammer. I understand that I can pay a couple hundred bucks and go into the city twice to get one made up, but I see no reason why I should. Spring steel is readily available. I have the tooling to form eyes. That said who knows how to make them? I watched a guy make some years ago for one of my work trucks, but that was long before blacksmithing and I didn't pay close enough attention then. It seems the difficult part lies in the hardening/tempering process. If anyone has any information I would appreciate it.

Water quench is fine for coil spring. You are likely just working it too cold. Get it nice and orange before you hammer on it. No need to anneal it before you harden it either as when it is orange it is as soft as it is going to get, save it is molten. Get it orange, work it, make sure it is non magnetic, quench it fully in water, stick the non tool end in the forge until you get straw then quench it again. I have found that when making tools from coil springs that I just quench teh first time and do not temper. They tend to stay better and I have had no breakage, at all, using this method. Your usage may vary!
As far as the "eutectic point" is concerned for steel there isn't one as steel is not that type of alloy. When thinking of eutictic metals think of solder, it is solid until it turns liquid, there is no slushy state. so the eutectic point is the point that it melts. Steel has an extended plastic state, followed by a slushy state followed by a liquid state. I think what the previous poster was trying to indicate by using the word eutectic was in fact non magnetic. Just keep a big welders magnet by your forge to tell you when it is the right temperature for hardening.

piehtool.com

Now you know why the later rodders went to a suicide front spring perch. It does away with the need to have an oddly bent front spring. Remember also that with this type of spring set up, if your spring breaks you do the dreaded 65MPH pole vault. At least with a suicide spring perch, when the spring breaks the perch hits the axle.

I didn't notice, you are in Scotland. All bets are off then. I still think storing it until you have enough to hire a lorry would be the best idea.

Storing the material until you have enough for semi loads, or shipping containers is what would be most practicle. RR cars would be good if there is a siding close by to keep a car on.

Put a resist on the copper, wax, grease,etc, then soak in a 50/50 muratic acid and water solution for about 10 minutes.

They are for holding hot things in or near the fire and on the anvil:D. Looks like the last pair are rivet tongs.

RCS7, I recognized that rack before I read the caption underneath. Gordon Williams is a great instructor and I have run into him on several occasions. If you find yourself going back for his advanced class let me know and perhaps we can meet up. BTW I have a very similar rack hanging on ht edoor of my shop, I have my welding duds on it.

Might consider using a case hardening compound.

I have an unknown piece of steel rod in the shop. I put it in the forge a while back thinking to make a tool from it as it is very hard. I forged it to a fish tail (making a hot cut chisel) and after I hardened it, it fractured into a buch of pieces, similar to a car windshield, but did not break apart. Further hammering on it cold will break off the little pieces though.

"It is a saddle for my tire hammer,"

No, thats not what it is. It is a branding iron for the TriSquar Ranch! They were originally the Squar Ranch, then they bought two more, but smaller parcels. One to the North and one to the east. The thumb screw is to hold it on to your arm when not branding cattle with it, that way you don't lose it in a stampede.

You could try heating it in a forge and wrapping it around something that is roughly 36". Or, you could weld two pieces together to form a box section and then roll it in one of the rollers. I have done that with flat bar, by welding it to a piece of box tube and rolling it to get an arch, just spot weld it both corners about every four inches or so. Just re member 1"x 1/8" angle isn't al that tough , so you could even likely do it with a hammer and anvil cold.

Woody, I have lived in Phoenix all my life, and have never heard of that. Mercury isn't dangerous just sitting in the tank on the video. Even the splash is't dangerous as it is not vaporizing the stuff. Yes it can be transdermally absorbed, but not that quickly. It is like asbestos in some regards. It can build up in your system over time, and once in there is a bugger to get out, but it won't kill you to be in close proximity to it. Would I let my kids play with it like I did as a kid? No, but I wouldn't panic if I saw some from a broken thermometer and move out of town either. At work they had a mercury thermometer break in a utility truck. I think the bill to have the environmental guys vaccuum it up was about $10,000.
Mercury has gotten to be such a panic button with people like asbestos, and now for pete's sake Mold (I sure do hope they don't ban Blue Cheese or I might panic and move from the country) that they call for expensive environmental cleanup when the littlest bit is discovered. Then feeling good about themselves for the good thing they just did to protect the world they stop at McDonalds and have a burger and fries, the fat, that kill millions more people every year than mercury, asbestos and mold combined, be darned. I am thankful people haven't discovered that there is lead on the tires of their car, arsenic in the water they drink, that the gassified chlorine the pool guy uses is a greenhouse gas, that they are carrying 20 gallons of expolosive fuel in the trunk of their car, and on and on.
Anyhow, that is my rant for the day. I feel better now, I think I'll go swallow some poisonous alcohol and even worse Carbohydrates!:o

Hey pigpen, that was the funniest thing I have heard in a while! A computer of electronic fuel pump in a Scout!:o

Brrrrr, she complained about you burning things in your back yard in this chill!!! I don't know about you but I am simply not comfortable unless it is over 100 degrees.

It's funny with anvils, if you don't have one they are hard to find and expensive. Once you own an anvil they seem to come out of the woodwork and are cheap. I work on a rail initially, then as soon as I cut it to look like an anvil then I ran across a 200# Trenton for free, then an American 150# dirt cheap.

Hey Bob, nice to see you here as well as SFT. Nice scroll jig too, mine is the manual version of that one. I found I don't use it much though.

Forge braze a spiral of 1/8" square rod in a spiral around a round rod. Then pour babbit into the female side with the new screw in there. That is the simplified version of it. I would just order an acme screw and couple of nuts off Mcmasters site and fab from there.

You might post on the Binder Bulletin or the Binder Bench. I have an 800 and have a lot of information on those sites. I would not remove the gas tank though, just make sure you are not cutting/welding right above the fuel line.

Wow, I didn't realize there were so many people here who listened to scots/gaelic style music. I play in a bagpipe band and have lisatened to that kind of music all my life. Some of the favorites in our house are The Wicked Tinkers and Bad Haggis, as well as the cheiftans and The Boys of the Lough.

I'd like to jump in on this thread as well (not trying to commandeer it though). Mine has the word AMERICAN shaped as an oval, but no other legible markings. It also has handling holes in the front and rear of the base as well as the waist. It is 125 - 150 pounds. Were these made by American stake and anvil company?