I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.
That's wider than any clock spring I've seen, and have been trying to
remember if I've seen anything like that, I could scavenge?
Do those "recoil start" lawnmowers have such a spring?

Jordan

McMaster Carr Supply has spring steel. Use their search engine.
http://www.mcmaster.com/
John

Jordan wrote:
I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.
That's wider than any clock spring I've seen, and have been trying to
remember if I've seen anything like that, I could scavenge?
Do those "recoil start" lawnmowers have such a spring?

Jordan

I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.

Sounds exactly like the bands they strap things together with.

If you got real desperate I could post you some as I have a sheet of
16swg CS70 spring steel. Main thing would be what does it cost to post
to Oz. Maybe not much for only a couple of inches.

Jordan wrote:

I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.
That's wider than any clock spring I've seen, and have been trying to
remember if I've seen anything like that, I could scavenge?
Do those "recoil start" lawnmowers have such a spring?

Jordan

Use a piece of bandsaw stock

Use a piece of bandsaw stock

or just a bit of hacksaw blade, ground down to thickness and to remove the
tooth offset?

Steel banding material is low carbon, it is NOT spring steel which runs
in the .85% to .95% carbon range.

Chuck Sherwood wrote:
I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.


Sounds exactly like the bands they strap things together with.

"Jordan" wrote in message
u...
I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.
That's wider than any clock spring I've seen, and have been trying to
remember if I've seen anything like that, I could scavenge?
Do those "recoil start" lawnmowers have such a spring?

Jordan

..
There is a fellow at Woodford ( if you are around Sydney) who fixes big
old clocks and may well have a piece of clock spring lying around.
I will send email private

Half inch is not uncommon in old clocks but 1/16 seems pretty thick. You
bay be better with a bit of hacksaw blade as someone else has suggested.
--
John G

Wot's Your Real Problem?

Any recoil spring type of tool - look at string cutters(weed) blowers....... Lots of 2 cycle stuff.

Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



Jordan wrote:
I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.
That's wider than any clock spring I've seen, and have been trying to
remember if I've seen anything like that, I could scavenge?
Do those "recoil start" lawnmowers have such a spring?

Jordan

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Check with any small engine shop. Broken recoil stater springs are a
dime a dozen. The size you are looking for is common in the larger (8hp
and up) engines.

Jordan wrote:
I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.
That's wider than any clock spring I've seen, and have been trying to
remember if I've seen anything like that, I could scavenge?
Do those "recoil start" lawnmowers have such a spring?

Jordan

In article ,
Jordan wrote:
I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.

Hmm ... MSC sells steel spring rolls in various widths and
thicknesses. You might have to buy a 100 foot roll for your two inches. :-)

I know that gunsmith suppliers offer packs of short flat springs
of various widths and thicknesses.

That's wider than any clock spring I've seen, and have been trying to
remember if I've seen anything like that, I could scavenge?

I've see the old wind-up style phonographs with springs at least
1" wide. It may not have been 1/16th inch thick, however. Since I last
saw this back in about 1956 or so, my memory is somewhat faded by now.
Any one in repairable condition should be treated as an antique by now,
however.

Do those "recoil start" lawnmowers have such a spring?

Probably.

Good Luck,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"RoyJ" wrote in message
ink.net...
Steel banding material is low carbon, it is NOT spring steel which runs
in the .85% to .95% carbon range.

Chuck Sherwood wrote:
I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.


Sounds exactly like the bands they strap things together with.

It's also not 1/16" thick. I routinely use it for shims with my square
indexing tool block on my lathe. The material I've found runs from .020"
to .022".

Harold

Tool balancers probably have about what you want. Maybe you could find
someplace that repairs them.

Dan

Tnanks fellas.
Some good leads there - didn't know some old clocks even had such big
springs.
Couple more questions:

I'm thinking I can use heat to soften the spring for bending and
drilling, then reheat/plunge in liquid to get the springiness back -
correct?

Is hacksaw blade really usable as spring? HSS? Carbon steel?

Jordan

Don sez:
" I've see the old wind-up style phonographs with springs at least
1" wide. It may not have been 1/16th inch thick, however. Since I last
saw this back in about 1956 or so, my memory is somewhat faded by now.
Any one in repairable condition should be treated as an antique by now,
however."

Well, it wasn't quite as far back as 1956 but I got "wound up" in an old
phonograph adventure of my own. You know, it was the type that has the dog
in front with his ear cocked toward the horn. Well, ok, the dog didn't come
with it and the horn was a folded one opening out with louvers at the lower
front of the cabinet. Anyway, I shrewdly determined the spring was broken
and proceeded to release it from it's retaining can underneath the main
chassis. Big mistake! The spring sprung out of captivity with all the
ferocity of a starving anaconda and proceeded to do a constrictor number on
me. The wife rescued me; helped pull the greasy loops and coils of that
"snake" off of me.

The eye where the spring hooks to the winding shaft had been torn out.
Annealing the end and a bit of chisel work to make a new eye restored the
old spring to like-new condition. Moral: Treat every spring like a loaded
spring.

Bob Swinney


"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jordan wrote:
I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.

Hmm ... MSC sells steel spring rolls in various widths and
thicknesses. You might have to buy a 100 foot roll for your two inches.
:-)

I know that gunsmith suppliers offer packs of short flat springs
of various widths and thicknesses.

That's wider than any clock spring I've seen, and have been trying to
remember if I've seen anything like that, I could scavenge?


Do those "recoil start" lawnmowers have such a spring?

Probably.

Good Luck,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

They make some heavy duty stuff for strapping BIG stuff like culverts
onto the truck.
http://www.strappingtoolsandparts.co...ATS&Category=8
thickest I found was 2" x .044"

Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:
"RoyJ" wrote in message
ink.net...

Steel banding material is low carbon, it is NOT spring steel which runs
in the .85% to .95% carbon range.

Chuck Sherwood wrote:

I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.


Sounds exactly like the bands they strap things together with.


It's also not 1/16" thick. I routinely use it for shims with my square
indexing tool block on my lathe. The material I've found runs from .020"
to .022".

Harold

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 18:29:30 +1000, Jordan wrote:


I'm thinking I can use heat to soften the spring for bending and
drilling, then reheat/plunge in liquid to get the springiness back -
correct?

Yes, you can anneal spring steel (other than HSS or other exotic alloys)
by heating red hot and then slowly cooling.

To harden the spring requires two steps. First bring to red hot and then
plunge in water. This should make the spring very hard and brittle.
The second step is the actual "tempering" step. Clean the spring to
bright metal condition. Then reheat it until the steel turns "straw" yellow
(about 460 deg. F.) and allow it to cool. This step removes some
of the hardness and brittleness.

Actually, different applications use different levels of temper, and I
can't find drawing temps for springs in my Machinery's Handbook right now,
so I may be misremembering the proper color above (might be blue?).

The color that the steel turns during tempering is an indication of how
hot it is getting, and subsequently how much softer the steel will be
from its completely hard state (from step one).

Is hacksaw blade really usable as spring? HSS? Carbon steel?

I don't know, but I suspect that a carbon steel hacksaw or bandsaw
blade is hardenable. The only other blades I'm familiar with are
"bi-metal" which I think is a term used to mean that only the teeth
of the blade are hard, and the rest of the blade is just mild steel.
I'm not sure though. If so, then you'd have to add carbon to the steel
to make it hardenable.

To harden the spring requires two steps. First bring to red hot and then
plunge in water. This should make the spring very hard and brittle.

I would recommend using oil instead of water.

I have tried quenching steel in water. I had serious problems with
surface stress cracks. My experiement consisted of heating 1 inch
diameter discs, 1/4 inch thick (cut from drill rod) to 1500 degrees
in an oven and quenching in water.

I have heated smaller drill rod (3/8 inch) with a propane torch and
quenching in water without too much trouble, but I don't think I got
anywhere near the correct soak temp with the propane torch.

chuck

Wow - that 2" - pallet of it - Hum - an indexing system feeding a strip of
2" by 48" - driving the plasma machine cutting out whatever.

Now for that 1 of a kind spring metal widget!

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



RoyJ wrote:
They make some heavy duty stuff for strapping BIG stuff like culverts
onto the truck.
http://www.strappingtoolsandparts.co...ATS&Category=8

thickest I found was 2" x .044"

Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:

"RoyJ" wrote in message
ink.net...

Steel banding material is low carbon, it is NOT spring steel which runs
in the .85% to .95% carbon range.

Chuck Sherwood wrote:

I need some flat spring steel and wonder where I could find it, maybe
off some old equipment.
Needs to be 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch or so thick, and only a couple of
inches long.



Sounds exactly like the bands they strap things together with.



It's also not 1/16" thick. I routinely use it for shims with my square
indexing tool block on my lathe. The material I've found runs from
.020"
to .022".

Harold



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