Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #03254



To: Noam Rudnick rudnick1@cwix.com
From: Bruce Robinson Bruce_Robinson@bc.sympatico.ca
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 21:54:57 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: springs


Noam Rudnick wrote:

> Does anybody have any suggestions on making your own springs?

My suggestion is to find, beg, borrow, check your library for a copy of
"Machinery's Handbook", Industrial Press, New York. Mine is the 24th
edition, published in 1992, and it has 50 pages on spring design,
including how to make your own.

There are so many variables, it's hard to even give you a starting
point. Making your own is certainly possible. A popular material for
winding springs is music wire, which most industrial suppliers can get
for you. Typically it's sold in one pound rolls (which is a lot of
wire).

One thing I discovered when buying the stuff (for walker legs) was that
music wire guages are different from other wire or sheet metal guages.
So figure out what diameter you want, and buy it by the diameter.

One of my machine shop books mentions winding springs on a lathe, using
a round bar with a hole drilled through it to grip the wire. A metal
bar, also with a hole, is mounted in the toolpost and the wire fed
through this, using hand tension to keep the wire tight. The lathe is
run dead slow. To me, this sounds a little risky. Even small lathes are
pretty powerful, and a kink in the wire could tear your hands up pretty
badly. I would probably grip the wire between a pair of wooden blocks to
maintain tension, and I'd have one hand on the power switch.

If you let me know what sort of size & type you're after, I can give you
more information.

Regards,
Bruce

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