Spring Steel Strip 1" x 1/16th

[ejparrott]

I'd go with annealed, and then harden and temper after forming Julian. We have got an induction furnace at work which is handy, and we did have some quenching oil, but I'm not too sure what oil it exactly is. Might enquire out of curiosity - it'll be a while before I do 'Jubilee's' springs, I want it well built up so I can measure an actual weight before calculating springs.

[jma1009]

hi folks
thanks alan, ed, pete and Tel for your advice!
re my wagon springs with the bends at the ends i did these with the spring material heated up at the ends to red heat. the pliers quickly reduce the temperature so was a case of little bends each time, re-applying the torch frequently. hardening was done heating in propane and quenching in water, and tempering done as per Tel's method burning in oil which worked extremely well. seems to be a bit of differing views whether quenching is necessary after tempering, but dunked them in oil after burning off the oil. ive tried them on the wagon and they havent snapped or broken yet, or changed shape! just got to do a few ordinary leaves without the sharp bends on the ends tomorrow.
will post a pic on the BOXHILL thread tomorrow.
Tel's method of tempering is very good because for springs 'light blue' isnt quite hot enough, but oil burns at the right temperature. of course after light blue you cant really tell what the temperature is till it starts to glow dull red!
many thanks again for the very helpful advice!
cheers,
julian

[tim]

Dec 11, 2013 9:40:56 GMT Rex Hanman said:

I am just making the leaf springs for my 7 1/4" GWR large prairie. I needed 10 metres of 5/8" x 16swg strip. The drawing specified phosphor bronze but thinking this would be too expensive I looked for spring steel. Enquiries at (IIRC) Blackgates or College Engineering revealed that I could get it but it was sheared from a sheet. I wanted better edges, plus it only came in 12" lengths. I preferred it on a coil.

I had a choice of hardened or not.

A friend suggested Milton Keynes Metals. Their website listed it in 1 metre lengths but at £24/mtr. Ouch! Ian Holder pointed me in the direction of M Machine in Durham. Really helpful guy, Andy I think, supplied me with 10 mtres of Phosphor bronze, delivered (300 miles) for £90.

The big advantage of using pb is that you can drill it and no heat treatment is required. I thought the springs might be too soft but having made them I think they might be too stiff!

I assume, unless you are building in full size, that you didn't mean 5/8" thick?




I believe Reeves 2000 also have some Spring steel.

Edit:- Ah! 1 foot x 5/8" wide, I misread it as 1 inch by 5/8th! What thickness?

Those springs look superb Rex.

[Rex Hanman]

Thanks Tim, time will tell if they actually work though! Ian Holder's mogul drawings suggest increasing the radius of the top three leaves if they are too weak. If they are too strong I can resort to milling slots or fitting tufnol leaves. All that is a long way away though.

[fostergp6nhp]

For the tempering as you can very easily go too hot how about a bath of molten lead followed by quench in oil. It was on the info sheet that I had from Reeves many years ago when I bought some spring steel from them.