CJ, Don't take this is any way as a critique; Seeing springs cut out of solid bar stock like that goes completely against all of my springmaking sensibilities! I think of springs as forged and bent with the grain running the length of the flex.
So did I Steven,…until I tried it. A couple of these have been in service for some time now with excellent results.
It all started with the small spring you see in the picture, the one with the pin hole. I had a high quality French double with a broken top lever spring, I looked for a replacement for quite some time but had no luck,...nothing ever came close and since I didn’t feel like making one from scratch I decided to give this a try,…the method is not new, I talked to the manager of a heat treating firm here and was told that springs of similar design but used for different applications are regularly wire cut,…he also provided me with the precise heat treating instructions for the steel I used,…. have also heard from a reliable gun making source that one of England’s top shelf makers may be making springs this way as well.
Investment casting offers no particular grain structure and a well cast spring will do it’s job, I believe that this method will yield superior springs than could be had by casting, not to mention the versatility to do any shape and size desired
I drew the shapes in CAD, using the existing springs for reference making sure perfect tapers were maintained, that’s the beauty of wire EDM,… it’ll cut exactly what you draw.
Wire cutting is not cheap and most shops that do it wouldn’t bother with a small job like this so I had to cash in on a couple of favors,…the steel is soft O-1 and there is about a grand worth of machine time there with three different spring types,… if I had to pay someone to design and draw it all it wouldn’t have made any sense…but since it didn’t cost me anything I look at it as a successful learning experience
CJ
