What I started with and ended up with.

Used some advice I got here and used a fire brick to block off part of my forge opening.

The spring got hot and I was able to pull it straight. The curls at the end are where the flats are. I will cut them off for small tools.

thanks for looking!

Mel

Edited May 7, 20179 yr by Melw45
spelling

Ayup. Did you heat put it over a spindle and pull it straight? You aught to see how long an overhead garage door spring is straightened out.

You can cut leaf & coil spring spring with a hack saw a LOT faster and more easily than heating and straightening. 

Frosty the Lucky.

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

You can cut leaf & coil spring spring with a hack saw a LOT faster and more easily than heating and straightening. 

amen to that! after wrestling with several springs to straighten out 8 - 10ft length now i just a cut a curl or two and straighten that. much easier and safer

It's a good thing being old, lazy and passing it along. 

Frosty the Lucky.

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

Ayup. Did you heat put it over a spindle and pull it straight? You aught to see how long an overhead garage door spring is straightened out.

You can cut leaf & coil spring spring with a hack saw a LOT faster and more easily than heating and straightening. 

Frosty the Lucky.

Yep wanted to try the pull it straight method. Next time will use a band saw or cut off saw.

Mel

 

On the other hand, straightening out a glowing hot garage door spring -- grabbing one end with the tongs and walking away -- is an awful lot of fun. 

3 minutes ago, JHCC said:

On the other hand, straightening out a glowing hot garage door spring -- grabbing one end with the tongs and walking away -- is an awful lot of fun. 

Doesn't stay hot long enough to walk and I don't run unless chased by something I can't whip. We hooked to the back of a pickup and punched it for about 75'. Only straightened part of it though, too much friction on the rd. steel. bar I used to hold it and it bunched up and rat's nested.

If I do the heat and pull to uncoil method on one of the other roll up door springs I have I'm doing to put a pipe over the rod to act as a bearing. There's  so much length in one of those springs it might need someone holding a rosebud and fork while it's being pulled.

Frosty the Lucky.

 

My supply of garage springs is all broken sections that came free from the repair guy. All short enough to straighten in a single heat. 

what kind of length and diameter is a door spring when uncoiled?

2 hours ago, Stephen Jones said:

what kind of length and diameter is a door spring when uncoiled?

find the circumference of one coil (pi x diameter) and then multiply by the number of coils + leftover to get the length of the whole spring. 

the diameter of the stock should be constant

6 hours ago, Melw45 said:

What I started with and ended up with.

Used some advice I got here and used a fire brick to block off part of my forge opening.

The spring got hot and I was able to pull it straight. The curls at the end are where the flats are. I will cut them off for small tools.

thanks for looking!

Mel

 

That must have taken awhile! Out of curiosity, what diameter is the stock? Looks like a fairly small, handy size. The smallest coil springs I come across are 5/8", I'd like to run across some 1/2" or 3/8". 

2 hours ago, Stephen Jones said:

what kind of length and diameter is a door spring when uncoiled?

The longest piece I've managed to uncoil in a single heat was about twenty-five feet long, and that wasn't even an entire spring. Diameter varies slightly by manufacturer, but generally around 1/4" round.

Check out this fun video:

 

the spring is 3/8".

I thought it looked like good size for punchs and other tools.m

Mel

Hammer Man,

(a.k.a JHCC).

Thanks that was top notch entertainment.  Informative even.

It is appreciated.

Thank's muchly.

SLAG

6 minutes ago, SLAG said:

 

Thanks that was top notch entertainment.  Informative even.

SLAG

Correct! I learned that I don't need to do that, not that I've ever had the desire. Man, that looked like a cluster pull. I especially liked when the two fellas were twisting in opposite directions. 

Roll up garage doors often have quite long springs of moderate diameter stock.  Often used to make chasing and repousee tooling as you can get a large number of tools all of the same alloy (make heat treating easier) from a single spring.

The larger commercial doors use larger springs. (if you search for images of roll up garage door springs you can see a large number of examples).  Spring failure in not uncommon and the rest of the spring is generally tossed.  Find a company that services commercial doors and bring a box of doughnuts and  you may be given your weight in discards, or twice your weight, or thrice...

Full garage door spring. 3/8" material diameter. 2 inch ID. 2xπ= 6.28" per coil. 185 coils. 6.28x185= 1162" (rounded up.) 1162/12= ~97 feet. I also have a smaller one with 115 coils, same ID and stock diameter. Another 60 feet. Collectively almost 160 feet of 3/8" spring steel. And this was just from one garage door being changed. 

Excellent!

And remember: just because it's spring steel doesn't mean you have to turn all of it into tools. I've been using a lot of mine for nailmaking, lately.

JHCC 

I have a lot of plans for all that steel. Giant chainmail (just for fun), round chain, punches, small drifts, small chisels, center punches, flatten some for damascus (eventually) and now nails are on that list too!

17 hours ago, Ranchmanben said:

That must have taken awhile! Out of curiosity, what diameter is the stock? Looks like a fairly small, handy size. The smallest coil springs I come across are 5/8", I'd like to run across some 1/2" or 3/8". 

I had some 1/2" that came off of a golf cart- some leaf, too. It was good size for punches and chisels and the like. The only thing about cutting the pieces off is that the ends are never square with the bar. 

Spring makes good prying tools, crow's foot, pry bars, speed bars, breaker bars, wrenches and don't forget tools that need torsion strength like screw drivers, etc.

Last summer a buddy and I picked up an abandoned spring from an ex neighbor's leavins. I asked at the yard sale but they wanted $30. ea. and didn't like it when I pointed out it was worth scrap after they hauled it into Anchorage at the going scrap price both were worth maybe $15-$20 together.

The one we picked up (BARELY!) is about 12 1/2" dia of wire cl. The wire is 2 1/2" dia. and it was about 30" long. I figure it weighed about 450lbs. No, I'm not going to get it hot and pull on it with our pickup. I just cut pieces off when I want some, the hacksaw is actually faster than dragging out the torch and cutting a piece.

I believe it came off a shaker table on a gold mining operation. They use shaker tables to sort for size before running it through the crushers.

Frosty The Lucky.

1 hour ago, Will W. said:

Giant chainmail (just for fun)

Now THAT'S an idea!

48 minutes ago, JHCC said:

Now THAT'S an idea!

I'll post some pics once I get around too it. Should be the heaviest hauberk this side of anywhere. 

5 minutes ago, Will W. said:

I'll post some pics once I get around too it. Should be the heaviest hauberk this side of anywhere. 

I'm going to give that a try, too. Worst case scenario, I'll have some spring already cut to useful lengths.

1 hour ago, Ridgewayforge said:

I had some 1/2" that came off of a golf cart- some leaf, too. It was good size for punches and chisels and the like. The only thing about cutting the pieces off is that the ends are never square with the bar. 

I'm a big fan of coil springs for punches too! I was talking about uncoiling an entire spring, doesn't look like much fun.