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- Feb 1, 2015
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When I first moved to Madison in the sixties, there was an old fashioned hardware store called Wolf Kubly & Hirsig located across the street from the state capitol. https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM16601 The store is long since gone.
In the back of the store, they sold piano wire in all sizes in 1 lb. boxes. As I recall, they were around $2 a box. I bought two boxes and still have most of that wire. That last time that I bought wire for making springs, it was from a hobby shop and it was sold in 3 ft. lengths. My uncle worked for the Gibson Division of Associated Springs in Mattoon, IL and gave me some coils of spring wire along with some shorter straight sections of heavier wire.
I save each and every spring that I encounter and more often that not, one from my collection can be adapted to a project. I have also repurposed old springs by placing them on a mandrel and uncoiling them for use for rewinding a spring to suit my particular needs. Larger diameter springs are a better source for this application. If the wire is rusted, it should be cleaned before winding as the spring will tend to break at a rusted point.
I usually wind springs as close coil, stretching them afterward to achieve my desired coil spacing. Now that I have a lathe with an ELS and a variable speed motor that can effectively be dialed down to 0 RPM, it is possible to accurately wind springs with variable spaced coils.
Another approach to winding a spring is to push the spring wire against an angled block. It is a commonly used method in spring manufacturing and spring diameter can be varied by a simple movement of the block. I haven't done this to make a working spring but I did try this with some solder and does make a nice coil. The big issue would be getting a good enough purchase on the wire to be able to push it well enough to deform it. What always comes to mind was an old Reader's Digest quote when the interviewer asked some grizzled old sergeant why he led his platoon into the thick of the battle. His reply was, "Did you ever try to push a string?". A possible way would be a mechanism similar to what is used to feed wire in a MIG welder.
In the back of the store, they sold piano wire in all sizes in 1 lb. boxes. As I recall, they were around $2 a box. I bought two boxes and still have most of that wire. That last time that I bought wire for making springs, it was from a hobby shop and it was sold in 3 ft. lengths. My uncle worked for the Gibson Division of Associated Springs in Mattoon, IL and gave me some coils of spring wire along with some shorter straight sections of heavier wire.
I save each and every spring that I encounter and more often that not, one from my collection can be adapted to a project. I have also repurposed old springs by placing them on a mandrel and uncoiling them for use for rewinding a spring to suit my particular needs. Larger diameter springs are a better source for this application. If the wire is rusted, it should be cleaned before winding as the spring will tend to break at a rusted point.
I usually wind springs as close coil, stretching them afterward to achieve my desired coil spacing. Now that I have a lathe with an ELS and a variable speed motor that can effectively be dialed down to 0 RPM, it is possible to accurately wind springs with variable spaced coils.
Another approach to winding a spring is to push the spring wire against an angled block. It is a commonly used method in spring manufacturing and spring diameter can be varied by a simple movement of the block. I haven't done this to make a working spring but I did try this with some solder and does make a nice coil. The big issue would be getting a good enough purchase on the wire to be able to push it well enough to deform it. What always comes to mind was an old Reader's Digest quote when the interviewer asked some grizzled old sergeant why he led his platoon into the thick of the battle. His reply was, "Did you ever try to push a string?". A possible way would be a mechanism similar to what is used to feed wire in a MIG welder.
