In dental technology we polish spring wires/steel to increase/reactivate springloads and stiffness. Works fast, easy and looks fine. Thanks for your inspiring videos, Stefan!
Hi Stefan, I'm no expert in springs, so this series will bring me lots of knowledge, from your and the viewers commenting. The heating with the torch seems to clearly overheat certain parts of the winds, probably introducing lots of oxidation int the material... With adverse consequences. I'm watching, thanks, Pierre
pierre beaudry Yeah, I think I burned the carbon in the wire in some areas - I got those nice bright speckles on the wire while heating it. I will try to sort that out a bit better :) Thanks for watching!
Very interesting process. You had my attention all the way through the video. You are learning a lot for all of us in the process of solving this difficult challenge. Thanks for sharing!
I know i am replying to an old video but just wanted to say that seeing you working out the problems while making this video really made it real and fascinating. Thankyou Stefan. I hope you are doing ok.
5:35 "but I can't [slip off the spring] because I just glued on both pieces". I love it when you have a brain fart just like the rest of us. I love it even more when you don't edit it out!
I was almost sure you were going to cold form them using the lathe set at the right travel pitch. Same jig, just setting the lathe to pitch and turning it slowly. If you make the toolpost "pinching" tool out of bronze or similar, you can apply quite a bit of stretching pressure while it's feeding into the jig. Good video!
First of all, love this series. I have a thought on making a cold forming mandrel for winding the springs in the lathe. 1: Cut a threaded rod at the pitch of the spring and a minor diameter equal to the pitch diameter of the spring. 2: Mill two parallel sides to the width of the rectangular profile of the spring. 3: Form the spring in the lathe on the mandrel with the threading gears engaged at the same pitch so that the wire forms in the root of the remaining threads and flat across the milled parallel surfaces. An added bonus feature would be to drill an anchoring hole perpendicular to the parallel surface at the start of the thread to feed the wire through and bend a hook to secure it.
I thought about it and also taked with my foreman at work (Which is our springwinding guy) and he was pretty concerned that the spring will go all wonky ( From the springback) when i cold form and pull it of the mandrel - Just like it did when I cold formed it in the vice after winding. But thank you for the input, the pitched winding arbor is something that might still work, even with warm forming - maybe I will give it a shot :) Thank you!
Stefan Gotteswinter Crap, I didn't think about how to remove the spring. All I can think of is some kind of expanding mandrel, but that would get pretty complicated real quick.
Last winter I spent making chain mail, a mideval pursuit. To do so you wind a spring, then you cut the spring into circles, then you weave it into chain mail. I will tell you this: every material I tried -- fencing wire, copper, brass, and ordinary steel wire -- will expand both ways when you take it off the former. I wound mine on a lathe turned by hand. Even with tension on the wire it will still expand. Your chances of getting the exact pitch you want are very small. I didn't care because it was "art" (presents for friends) but if you were making a model spring I don't think it would work well.
Juan Rivero Oh man, thats a tidious job - I saw chainmail making at a medivial fair and it looked very much like "not so much fun", but the product was just gorgeous! Thank you for the input, I also have concerns that I cant get around the springback, but I will try adound with some things...
I 3D printed a custom mandrel with groves, and wound piano wire around it taking it to a vice each turn. It came out pretty okay, but then when I took it off the mandrel, the spring didn't hold form and immediately spiraled out of form. I was still able to use it for my project, but I'm not happy with it.
If you are making a half-scale device then things like springs would possibly be underpowered if you just halve their dimensions. The strength of a spring would be dependent on the cross section of the wire which drops to 25% if the scale is reduced by half. This might not be an issue, in fact, because the weight of any part of the device would decrease by a factor of 8. You'd also have an issue with heat scale being relatively much thicker on the on the thinner wire. It's not a simple thing to reduce a mechanical device.
First, I want to say I admire your jigs. If ever I have to make an elliptical (sort of) spring I will copy them shamelessly. On hardening and tempering, I anneal and harden same as you do. There is a minor question as to whether you should quench in oil or water, as you did. I make my own knives, gouges, and other carving tools myself and I anneal and quench same way you do. Usually in water. When we come to tempering we do the same thing: stick it in an oven. I, however, use an ordinary cheap household oven, same one I use for Lasagna. I verified the setting by thermometer. It is right on to about 1C and it cost me $99. But then, I use it for cooking too! So I set it to 235C and leve the tool there for at least half an hour. For a 0.4mm wire you could probably get away with 15 minutes in the oven, but more will not hurt aand may even help. Point is, these are molecular processes. Takes a while for them to do their work. I think the springs need not only better temp control but more time in the oven.
Juan Rivero Man, I absolutely did overlook your comment, sorry - You put a lot of good information in it! I will keep that in mind when I do my next batch of those springs :)
Mate, There's a bloke that runs a site called Clickspring. He makes clocks. He also does a bit of heat treatment from time to time. He coats the steel in a paste made from borax (sodium tetraborate decahydrate) and denatured alcohol to prevent oxidation when the metal is heated. I also believe that the prevention of oxidation maintains the cross sectional integrity of the steel. This perhaps might help to minimise distortion of the metal when it is cooled and then annealed. Just an idea and I could be wrong..... I usually am.
I mean you come up with tooling or jigs to make a part. am drawing up plans for parts from full size to 1/3 scale. When I finish drawings I am staarting project. The slide and lower are or have lots of details inside...have to figure out how to best cut them. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to new videos on the 1911 and your other projects. Yeah at first we did not see whom you were....but you fixed that. Manny
***** Hmm, good question :) I only have that standard rusting spring steel wire that comes in a heat threated status. Maybe some chrome-nickle spring steel wire would work better, but its not to easy to get.
stefan could you put a small hole in one of the rods on the jig at one end to insert the wire into at the start, then it wouldn't slide along the form? awesome videos by the way
If anyone wants to experiment, guitar strings are a good source of material. That shape is a serious challenge; a normal .4mm coil spring is dead easy because it doesn't need to be annealed... Just wrap it tightly around a mandrel held in the lathe chuck -- or even a drill chuck. I appreciate your high standards Stefan, but I have seen factory magazine springs that look a bit wonky.... But, I do get your desire for really nice springs!
Thank you, I never took apart a real 1911 magazine :D On one hand no one will see it if its hidden in the magazine and just doing its work, on the other hand I want nice springs... Youre right normal coil springs are real simple, we do those a lot at work, winding them direct with the hardened spring wire. We only temper them after winding to make them durable. Thanks for commenting :)
Stefan Gotteswinter Did you consider forming the spring around a series of mounted pins?.... without annealing the wire. I just wrapped .45mm wire around a piece of 1/16" TIG filler rod to make a spring and it wound tight with very little spring-back... So it might just be controllable if you pull the wire around each pin in just the right direction... at the right angle... with the correct force... Add the pins as you go so they're not in the way...
Temperature controller with ramping: a few years ago I built a project using a Fuji control from automationdirect.com. It can be programmed to ramp. At the time it cost about $125. The instruction manual is free on line. Thanks for the videos.
The real problem with the springback is, that its not a "linear" springback, its more of an uncoiling and that results ind a spring that twists along its length. For coldforming you realy would have to overbend the wire a good ammoung...I will experiment with that a bit more :)
Can you temper it on a mandrel? I use hot blueing salts to temper ( and colour) steel it always gives very even results, perhaps this could work if you keep the spring on the mandrel after hardening. . . .
Hm. Well, what i'd do is a bit complicated but in theory it should work, i'll try to explain as best as possible. First of all i'd make an all metal mandrel, reason for that later*, it would be made from no less than 5 parts (6 plus the pin). The mandrel would be made like this: Part 1%2 would be the two wide sides of the spring. They would be the actual length of the spring and have machined in them the groves that would hold the perfect spring (the one in your design paper), no compression here, we are making the actual spring from the start. Part 3 would be a simple strip of metal that would go between the two sides and keep them at the proper thickness. Part 4%5 would be two clips at the ends of the mandrel. Exactly the same parts you made from phenolic but with one major difference(other than being metal), where the two pins would normally go, there would be two slots that would receive pieces 1, 2, and 3 holding them all together. An addition i'd make is that both should have a means to secure the spring steel in place when starting the coiling process and when ending it. That's for the mandrel, now for the "why do it like this" part: Step 1. Assemble the mandrel with one end of the spring steel wire in the mandrel hole made in part 4, then chuck it in the lathe (same as you did for your own mandrel). Step 2. Not using the heat process, cold form the spring with great care so that the spring steel wire fits in the groves properly and very snug. Step 3. Using a clamp to keep the spring in place (so it doesn't unwind) affix the other end of the spring steel in part 5's retainer hole. Step 4. Remove the clamp, remove the mandrel from the lathe and chuck the mandrel and spring steel in the oven to anneal the spring (if possible, if not using the torch). Step 5. Dunk the whole thing in water (the mandrel will provide the heat mass necessary to keep the spring wire hot*). And then repeat all the processes required to make it back in to a spring. Step 6. Disassemble the mandrel and the spring should be springy and if all went well perfectly shaped. That's how i'd do it. Hopefully i've made the mess that's inside my head in to something that's discernible from babble :))
Hi aserta :) Ha, I had to draw that up, and I think I got your design of a breakdown mandrel, I really like that idea. Maybe I give it a shot, even if its a lot of extra work. And if the coldforming doesnt work out, I can still use that breakdown mandrel for warmforming... Thanks for the verly long reply I appreciate it very much :)
I think some of your problems come from the way you are annealing the wire before forming, it needs to be uniformly heated, then held at that temperature for a given time, then allowed to cool slowly. After forming you need to stress relieve, then age (Heat Treat) This page may help www.smihq.org/public/publications/07_47_04/_heat_treating.html
@@StefanGotteswinter Fair enough. did you ever work out getting fine springs to work? I see some suggestions, but nothing definitive. I've only done cylindrical cold-worked parts.
@@ozindfw yes, I talked to my foreman, he has about 150 years of experience in custom springs under his belt :D He recommended bending them from spring hard wire and just temper them afterwards.
In dental technology we polish spring wires/steel to increase/reactivate springloads and stiffness. Works fast, easy and looks fine. Thanks for your inspiring videos, Stefan!
Hi Stefan,
I'm no expert in springs, so this series will bring me lots of knowledge, from your and the viewers commenting.
The heating with the torch seems to clearly overheat certain parts of the winds, probably introducing lots of oxidation int the material... With adverse consequences.
I'm watching, thanks,
Pierre
pierre beaudry Yeah, I think I burned the carbon in the wire in some areas - I got those nice bright speckles on the wire while heating it. I will try to sort that out a bit better :)
Thanks for watching!
Very interesting process. You had my attention all the way through the video. You are learning a lot for all of us in the process of solving this difficult challenge. Thanks for sharing!
Jim Milne Thank you for the comment, I am more than happy when somebody learns something in the progress of me messing it up :)
I know i am replying to an old video but just wanted to say that seeing you working out the problems while making this video really made it real and fascinating. Thankyou Stefan. I hope you are doing ok.
5:35 "but I can't [slip off the spring] because I just glued on both pieces". I love it when you have a brain fart just like the rest of us. I love it even more when you don't edit it out!
I was almost sure you were going to cold form them using the lathe set at the right travel pitch. Same jig, just setting the lathe to pitch and turning it slowly. If you make the toolpost "pinching" tool out of bronze or similar, you can apply quite a bit of stretching pressure while it's feeding into the jig. Good video!
JRoque250 The cold winding would work, but the actual springback would be horrible :\
Thanks for watching and commenting!
First of all, love this series. I have a thought on making a cold forming mandrel for winding the springs in the lathe.
1: Cut a threaded rod at the pitch of the spring and a minor diameter equal to the pitch diameter of the spring.
2: Mill two parallel sides to the width of the rectangular profile of the spring.
3: Form the spring in the lathe on the mandrel with the threading gears engaged at the same pitch so that the wire forms in the root of the remaining threads and flat across the milled parallel surfaces.
An added bonus feature would be to drill an anchoring hole perpendicular to the parallel surface at the start of the thread to feed the wire through and bend a hook to secure it.
I thought about it and also taked with my foreman at work (Which is our springwinding guy) and he was pretty concerned that the spring will go all wonky ( From the springback) when i cold form and pull it of the mandrel - Just like it did when I cold formed it in the vice after winding.
But thank you for the input, the pitched winding arbor is something that might still work, even with warm forming - maybe I will give it a shot :)
Thank you!
Stefan Gotteswinter Crap, I didn't think about how to remove the spring. All I can think of is some kind of expanding mandrel, but that would get pretty complicated real quick.
Last winter I spent making chain mail, a mideval pursuit. To do so you wind a spring, then you cut the spring into circles, then you weave it into chain mail. I will tell you this: every material I tried -- fencing wire, copper, brass, and ordinary steel wire -- will expand both ways when you take it off the former. I wound mine on a lathe turned by hand. Even with tension on the wire it will still expand. Your chances of getting the exact pitch you want are very small. I didn't care because it was "art" (presents for friends) but if you were making a model spring I don't think it would work well.
Juan Rivero Oh man, thats a tidious job - I saw chainmail making at a medivial fair and it looked very much like "not so much fun", but the product was just gorgeous!
Thank you for the input, I also have concerns that I cant get around the springback, but I will try adound with some things...
Ben Fox Maybe If I dont cut the pitched grove to deep, I can "spring" out the mandrel..
What happened to this project?
I 3D printed a custom mandrel with groves, and wound piano wire around it taking it to a vice each turn. It came out pretty okay, but then when I took it off the mandrel, the spring didn't hold form and immediately spiraled out of form. I was still able to use it for my project, but I'm not happy with it.
If you are making a half-scale device then things like springs would possibly be underpowered if you just halve their dimensions. The strength of a spring would be dependent on the cross section of the wire which drops to 25% if the scale is reduced by half. This might not be an issue, in fact, because the weight of any part of the device would decrease by a factor of 8. You'd also have an issue with heat scale being relatively much thicker on the on the thinner wire. It's not a simple thing to reduce a mechanical device.
First, I want to say I admire your jigs. If ever I have to make an elliptical (sort of) spring I will copy them shamelessly. On hardening and tempering, I anneal and harden same as you do. There is a minor question as to whether you should quench in oil or water, as you did. I make my own knives, gouges, and other carving tools myself and I anneal and quench same way you do. Usually in water. When we come to tempering we do the same thing: stick it in an oven. I, however, use an ordinary cheap household oven, same one I use for Lasagna. I verified the setting by thermometer. It is right on to about 1C and it cost me $99. But then, I use it for cooking too! So I set it to 235C and leve the tool there for at least half an hour.
For a 0.4mm wire you could probably get away with 15 minutes in the oven, but more will not hurt aand may even help. Point is, these are molecular processes. Takes a while for them to do their work. I think the springs need not only better temp control but more time in the oven.
Juan Rivero Man, I absolutely did overlook your comment, sorry - You put a lot of good information in it! I will keep that in mind when I do my next batch of those springs :)
Mate, There's a bloke that runs a site called Clickspring. He makes clocks. He also does a bit of heat treatment from time to time. He coats the steel in a paste made from borax (sodium tetraborate decahydrate) and denatured alcohol to prevent oxidation when the metal is heated. I also believe that the prevention of oxidation maintains the cross sectional integrity of the steel. This perhaps might help to minimise distortion of the metal when it is cooled and then annealed. Just an idea and I could be wrong..... I usually am.
perhaps you could heat the spring wrapped around a heat proof material with a controlled dc current, quench and turn off power.
MacFarland Pickard I can see the idea behind that, but it might be a bit over my head :D Thanks for commenting!
great video. Good work and more progress. Thanks for the video.
That was a good video and good techniques to bend wire and harden and temper them
Thanks
Mannyu
Manny Monroy I am not yet sure if my technique is good, but thank you :)
I mean you come up with tooling or jigs to make a part. am drawing up plans for parts from full size to 1/3 scale. When I finish drawings I am staarting project. The slide and lower are or have lots of details inside...have to figure out how to best cut them.
Thanks for sharing and I look forward to new videos on the 1911 and your other projects. Yeah at first we did not see whom you were....but you fixed that.
Manny
Hi Stefan, I've been trying to build a mag spring for a week and have been failing every time, Now I know what to do, Thanks
A very interesting problem. Perhaps a different alloy might produce a more acceptable result? Thanks Stefan...!
***** Hmm, good question :) I only have that standard rusting spring steel wire that comes in a heat threated status. Maybe some chrome-nickle spring steel wire would work better, but its not to easy to get.
stefan could you put a small hole in one of the rods on the jig at one end to insert the wire into at the start, then it wouldn't slide along the form? awesome videos by the way
I hope you can continue this project one day...
I did not understand very well the tempera was made in pure water?
If anyone wants to experiment, guitar strings are a good source of material. That shape is a serious challenge; a normal .4mm coil spring is dead easy because it doesn't need to be annealed... Just wrap it tightly around a mandrel held in the lathe chuck -- or even a drill chuck.
I appreciate your high standards Stefan, but I have seen factory magazine springs that look a bit wonky.... But, I do get your desire for really nice springs!
Thank you, I never took apart a real 1911 magazine :D
On one hand no one will see it if its hidden in the magazine and just doing its work, on the other hand I want nice springs...
Youre right normal coil springs are real simple, we do those a lot at work, winding them direct with the hardened spring wire. We only temper them after winding to make them durable.
Thanks for commenting :)
Stefan Gotteswinter Did you consider forming the spring around a series of mounted pins?.... without annealing the wire. I just wrapped .45mm wire around a piece of 1/16" TIG filler rod to make a spring and it wound tight with very little spring-back... So it might just be controllable if you pull the wire around each pin in just the right direction... at the right angle... with the correct force... Add the pins as you go so they're not in the way...
b-rock Hmm! Good point, that Way I could overbend the wire to compensate for the springback. Note taken, will try that!
after going through all this temperature process, is it really reliable, you can do it with a much bigger comb? a spring for 30 munitions
Temperature controller with ramping: a few years ago I built a project using a Fuji control from automationdirect.com. It can be programmed to ramp. At the time it cost about $125. The instruction manual is free on line.
Thanks for the videos.
Ben fox's suggestions sounds good, though you may need to make the mandrel slightly smaller to allow for a little spring back. . .
Warm regards
Daryn
The real problem with the springback is, that its not a "linear" springback, its more of an uncoiling and that results ind a spring that twists along its length. For coldforming you realy would have to overbend the wire a good ammoung...I will experiment with that a bit more :)
Can you temper it on a mandrel?
I use hot blueing salts to temper ( and colour) steel it always gives very even results, perhaps this could work if you keep the spring on the mandrel after hardening. . . .
Daryn Radcliffe Never thought about that, but that might work.
Note taken, I really will have to to a test series. Smells like work to me ;)
Daryn Radcliffe Somebody mentioned tempering it in liquid lead, I will try that too. Outdoors!
Hm. Well, what i'd do is a bit complicated but in theory it should work, i'll try to explain as best as possible.
First of all i'd make an all metal mandrel, reason for that later*, it would be made from no less than 5 parts (6 plus the pin).
The mandrel would be made like this:
Part 1%2 would be the two wide sides of the spring. They would be the actual length of the spring and have machined in them the groves that would hold the perfect spring (the one in your design paper), no compression here, we are making the actual spring from the start.
Part 3 would be a simple strip of metal that would go between the two sides and keep them at the proper thickness.
Part 4%5 would be two clips at the ends of the mandrel. Exactly the same parts you made from phenolic but with one major difference(other than being metal), where the two pins would normally go, there would be two slots that would receive pieces 1, 2, and 3 holding them all together. An addition i'd make is that both should have a means to secure the spring steel in place when starting the coiling process and when ending it.
That's for the mandrel, now for the "why do it like this" part:
Step 1. Assemble the mandrel with one end of the spring steel wire in the mandrel hole made in part 4, then chuck it in the lathe (same as you did for your own mandrel).
Step 2. Not using the heat process, cold form the spring with great care so that the spring steel wire fits in the groves properly and very snug.
Step 3. Using a clamp to keep the spring in place (so it doesn't unwind) affix the other end of the spring steel in part 5's retainer hole.
Step 4. Remove the clamp, remove the mandrel from the lathe and chuck the mandrel and spring steel in the oven to anneal the spring (if possible, if not using the torch).
Step 5. Dunk the whole thing in water (the mandrel will provide the heat mass necessary to keep the spring wire hot*). And then repeat all the processes required to make it back in to a spring.
Step 6. Disassemble the mandrel and the spring should be springy and if all went well perfectly shaped.
That's how i'd do it. Hopefully i've made the mess that's inside my head in to something that's discernible from babble :))
Hi aserta :)
Ha, I had to draw that up, and I think I got your design of a breakdown mandrel, I really like that idea. Maybe I give it a shot, even if its a lot of extra work. And if the coldforming doesnt work out, I can still use that breakdown mandrel for warmforming...
Thanks for the verly long reply I appreciate it very much :)
Stefan Gotteswinter I really hope it works, the work you put so far in this miniature is amazing. :)
Cool channel.
Use 0.2mm twisted wire. It will be much better
@ 5:33, yup your human all right Stefan.... :-)
I think it's called a mandrel.
I think some of your problems come from the way you are annealing the wire before forming, it needs to be uniformly heated, then held at that temperature for a given time, then allowed to cool slowly. After forming you need to stress relieve, then age (Heat Treat) This page may help www.smihq.org/public/publications/07_47_04/_heat_treating.html
Paul Reed Thank you, thats a great ressource - Seems like I really need a nice temperature controller for my little oven that can do ramping.
"Page Not Found"
Stefan, Did you finish the whole 1911 Project ?
No, and I wont.
@@StefanGotteswinter I'm curious about why not? Regulations, loss of interest?
@@ozindfw there are enough guns in the world, regulations and loss of interest
@@StefanGotteswinter Fair enough. did you ever work out getting fine springs to work? I see some suggestions, but nothing definitive. I've only done cylindrical cold-worked parts.
@@ozindfw yes, I talked to my foreman, he has about 150 years of experience in custom springs under his belt :D
He recommended bending them from spring hard wire and just temper them afterwards.
Where can I get a set of those plans?
thomasjbuckner They are free availible by Rio Benson: riobenson.com/