Making springs

This Old Tony has a good video on spring making. I plan to try it soon with a drill soon. He recomends music wire.
ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAawhg6JtyY
 
loewen43 said:
I'm using a little toaster oven. It goes to 500 degrees. I let it cool down in the oven to room temp on it's own
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I use one of those toaster ovens to temper knife blades, found out that their temp graduations are way off. Best to double check it by using a thermometer, I raid the pantry and use a digital temperature cooking probe.
 
If you have a friend that casts bullets you can float it on the lead at about 725F to temper. If it turns out too soft, re-harden and temper at 650 next time. This is because you are using "mystery steel".
 
checg Greggs or Acklands for feeler gauge stock, long feeler gauge, comes in varying thicknesses, grind to shape and temper, I use a propane torch and heat to get the dark blue color
 
I have only made one spring so take this for what its worth. Take a known steel such as 1084 (obtainable from Canadian Knife Supply) shape it and polish it. Heat it to non magnetic and quench in 130F canola oil. To temper I laid it on top of lead that had just melted and left it there for about 30 seconds. Its still working as far as I know.
 
I've made several using Brownell's raw spring stock.
Heat to cherry red, quench in oil, temper in my lead pot set at 650 ~700F.
500F in my wife's oven wasn't hot enough for the tempering, some survived, some still too hard and broke.
 
it seems to me that we just finished a thread on making springs, about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I make 5 or 10 springs a year and make flat mainsprings from 3/8 drill rod. Relative to the original poster, if your only source of heat is a propane torch, you might try making a retort to keep the heat inside and the temperature up. The metal has to be red hot minimum to be able to forge it out. after hammering the metal to approximate dimensions, I heat it red hot and anneal it in wood ash. The grind and file to finish dimensions and bend with the metal red hot. Finally for tempering, I heat it red hot and quench in water then draw the metal to spring temper in molten lead (in my casting pot) I use a high temperature thermometer to measure the lead temperature and draw it to 720 - 740 F Since the original poster probably does not have a high temperature thermometer, try floating a thin piece of steel (mild steel is fine) on top of the lead and when the lead is the correct temperature is when the oxidation colours change from dark blue to grey. Hopefully your spring is already submerged in the lead so pull the plug and remove the spring before the lead hardens
for thin springs, many shovel blades are a high carbon steel and should work. Automotive leaf springs, have not worked for me and they might air harden to spring temper although I have never tried that. Final thought; do not use the temperatures shown in blacksmithing books; the colours and temperatures they describe do not work for me.

cheers mooncoon
 
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