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Need some help in Long Beach Ca.


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Yes it will work BUT if you want to keep the full springyness you will have to heat treat the new spring. After you wind the spring you would have to heat the spring to its critical temperature quench in oil and then temper to probably a blue. If it is critical item I would send it out to a commercial heat treater. If it is not I would probably just try shaping the spring and normalizing it, if it bends then I would try heat treating it or just make it heavier.

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For a coil spring the trick is in the heat treating. 1095 is a spring steel, and depending on the heat treating it can be used as a spring (blue temper), or a file (brittle hard). The trick is to get it spring tough without it becoming too hard, and brittle.


Small springs can be done with previously heat treated stock which can be purchased from a number of suppliers. These are usually done in a lathe, where the material is fed through a block on the tool post then around a mandrel. The feed rate is set to give the correct coil spacing whether it be a tension, or compression spring. With these, the mandrel is slightly smaller in diameter to compensate for the springback of the material. For a larger diameter coil the stock may have to be heated, unless you have some heavy duty equipment that can handle the pressure. It would then need to be heat treated, if the stock used was in the annealed (dead soft) condition.

How big of a coil spring are you talking about, and what is the application? There may be a spring available off the shelf.

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Winding a spring shape or wrapping steel around a weld to hide the weld is a situation where using a torch with a heating tip is much easier than heating the steel in the forge. You need to clamp or insert the end in a slot on your mandrel that you are winding the spring around. Then you start heating the steel where you want it to bend and wrap away, if you have too long a heat it is difficult to get the steel tight around the mandrel and hard to control how tight a spiral you get. You can prebend the ends of the stock or cut the straight section off when you are done.
There are all sorts of jigs and special bending forks you could build if you needed to make lots of them but I am assuming you only want to make one or a few.

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Does anyone know how to make a coil spring? I tried to search, but Nothing comes up.
I have some large Coil springs That I can draw out and use for material...Will that work and keep its "spring" ??
Thanks!



Jesse,

Here is a web site that talks about spring making. It might be a little limited for what you are looking for. I hate to ask but how big are you talking? You can reuse the coil spring but it would probably be better to buy new stock. It would be difficult to tell what the fracture structure would be in the old stock. It will also help to know what the material is when you do the heat treating. Good luck and I hope the site helps.

http://home.earthlink.net/~bazillion/intro.html


Brian
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So I made a jig to make a tapered coil spring...Tried one out of 1/4 mild steel...

So can somebody give me the run down on how to oil quench heat treat?....I heated the spring up and quenched itn in oil...It made it alittle harder but it still collapsed...

How hot do I heat it up?

How Long in the oil?

Quench after?

Bake at 375 deg for 25 minutes or until top is brown??

Just need the simple basics..

thanks....


761790704_GPff8-L.jpg

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You need to use good spring steel, mild will not cut it.

Bend your good steel around your jig, then heat it up to 1500F, then drop it in the oil and stir your oil. once it is cooled to the touch, put it in your household oven or whatever oven you have at 500F for an hour and voila you will have a perfect spring.

Heat and shape

Heat to 1500F Or until a magnet stops sticking to it (use an old speaker magnet on a length of 1/4" rod so as not to burn yourself)

quench in oil until cool to the touch

reheat to 500F for one half to one hour in the oven

wait till cool then you can use it.

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You need to use good spring steel, mild will not cut it.

Bend your good steel around your jig, then heat it up to 1500F, then drop it in the oil and stir your oil. once it is cooled to the touch, put it in your household oven or whatever oven you have at 500F for an hour and voila you will have a perfect spring.

Heat and shape

Heat to 1500F Or until a magnet stops sticking to it (use an old speaker magnet on a length of 1/4" rod so as not to burn yourself)

quench in oil until cool to the touch

reheat to 500F for one half to one hour in the oven

wait till cool then you can use it.



Awesome Thank You!.....



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Sam's description is good EXCEPT 500 degrees is not nearly hot enough to temper a spring, the spring will likely break when loaded at that temper. You need to be up around 750 degrees depending on the material the spring is made of. An old method I have seen demonstrated is to temper a spring in molten lead, I am not sure I would use this method due to the toxicity of lead. The reason I recommended trying just normalizing A SPRING STEEL it is will be less likely to break.

If this is going on a bike or car and a breaking spring could be a disaster You should send it out for heat treatment unless you have a proper heat treatment oven and know the proper heat treatment for the steel you have.

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Sam gave you the basics, which is what you asked for and Newman made a very appropriate correction. The fact is that there is no shortcut for proper heat treating if you want to do it right. I make swords. Japanese swords sometimes made out of home-made steel smelted in my back yard so what I do, does not apply to a spring but it does require some knowledge of what happens to the crystalline structure of steel as is being heated and cooled. There are many variables that can make things go wrong. You need to know the steel type that you are working with. 1095 is not 1050 or 1018. Alloys in the steel will change the game completely. Each type of steel requires a different thermal cycling to obtain the right properties out of it so that it will perform well in the job is intended for. You need to accurately gauge the temperature and know what is the crystalline structure of the steel before quenching. You need to have the right quenchant. Not all oils are the same and sometimes oil is not enough to extract heat fast enough of some types of steel. Finally, the proper temper at the correct temperature sustained for the correct time will determine the final properties of that piece of steel. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there is no substitute for a good book here and very few are short books. And after you read, you need to practice and test the metal to make sure everything works as it should. You wouldn’t want anything short of the best out of what you do.
BTW, I enjoy looking at the pictures that you have posted. You have a good eye.

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Cool Picture's.. I bet Grant the feller that made the touch mark could answer all your questions about the heat treating.. Have you ever seen the Cabover Conventional that run's around out there in LA.. I saw it out there in Ontario . that was along time ago , I'm not sure if its still on the road or not. But it looked wild..

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Sam gave you the basics, which is what you asked for and Newman made a very appropriate correction. The fact is that there is no shortcut for proper heat treating if you want to do it right. I make swords. Japanese swords sometimes made out of home-made steel smelted in my back yard so what I do, does not apply to a spring but it does require some knowledge of what happens to the crystalline structure of steel as is being heated and cooled. There are many variables that can make things go wrong. You need to know the steel type that you are working with. 1095 is not 1050 or 1018. Alloys in the steel will change the game completely. Each type of steel requires a different thermal cycling to obtain the right properties out of it so that it will perform well in the job is intended for. You need to accurately gauge the temperature and know what is the crystalline structure of the steel before quenching. You need to have the right quenchant. Not all oils are the same and sometimes oil is not enough to extract heat fast enough of some types of steel. Finally, the proper temper at the correct temperature sustained for the correct time will determine the final properties of that piece of steel. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there is no substitute for a good book here and very few are short books. And after you read, you need to practice and test the metal to make sure everything works as it should. You wouldn’t want anything short of the best out of what you do.
BTW, I enjoy looking at the pictures that you have posted. You have a good eye.



Hey Jesus

Welcome to the forum Glad to have you with us! You should post a bit in the intro section so the rest of these guys can get to know you a bit... Has Nathan giving you a projected ship date on your hammer?

Larry
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Hey Jesus

Welcome to the forum Glad to have you with us! You should post a bit in the intro section so the rest of these guys can get to know you a bit... Has Nathan giving you a projected ship date on your hammer?

Larry


Hi Larry. I'll make a post on the intro section. I'll be glad to contribute to the forum with anything I know.
I have not heard from Nathan...
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